Though hardly a classic, adventure fans shouldn't skip out on Tunguska.
Secret Files starts off with the right foot, as its story is based on the Tunguska event of 1908, where a mysterious explosion (a blast that was 1000 times more powerful than the bomb dropped in Hiroshima) occurred in Russia. It is believed it was caused by a meteor, but to this day the event remains a mystery.
Secret Files takes that premise and builds its own explanation for the event, setting the stage for the main character, Nina Kalenkov to take part of the story. Nina's father was part of an expedition that tried to get a better insight on the Tunguska incident and it's believed that he holds valuable information about the explosion, as well as artifacts collected during research. Dr. Kalenkov gets kidnapped by an unknown group and it's Nina's task to try to find him. However it appears Nina's got other problems too since she gets mysteriously attacked at her apartment, which triggers the suspicion that someone is behind her too.
The weakest part of Tunguska's story is that most of the interesting details are reserved for the final chapters, and very little is revealed in between. That's not to say that the story or the game will get dull during the middle chapters, since Nina will constantly manage to get herself into crazy situations that will require even crazier solutions.
In fact, part of the appeal of the game lies in its logic defying puzzles. Pretty much all of Tunguska's puzzles are inventory based, which means you'll be combining objects to see which ones can be used to solve a particular problem. On many occasions the puzzles follow fairly logical path, but there are times when you'll be forced to combine every single item available because none of the items at your disposal would appear to be a logical combination (at first sight at least). An while some combinations really don't make much sense (the kitty - cell phone debacle for instance), others will seem a bit plausible once you solve the puzzle, even if the idea behind them seems somewhat far fetched (using a butter sandwich to grease a stuck piece on a vehicle). But as stupid as some of the solutions to the puzzles might seem, there's a certain sense of joy in watching such illogical solutions rescuing our main character from the pickle she's currently in.
Aside from wickedly enjoyable puzzles, Tunguska's dialogue can also be some sort of guilty pleasure. Some lines are truly abysmal (anything that comes out of Sergeij's mouth for example), but Nina's constant one liners to describe the objects in her surroundings can be legitimately funny, even if at times they won't help you endear yourself to her. I somewhat got the impression that the developers tried to mold Nina's personality based on that of April Ryan (The Longest Journey), and while the Nina character doesn't come close to reaching such heights, she still manages to be a funny and likable (except for a few situations) character. The cheesy dialogue and witty humor do seem to fit in with the nature of the game, which is very over the top.
Secret Files other major strength lies in it's visuals. They're simply gorgeous. Granted, given that this is a point and click adventure, it's not hard to deliver a strong visual fidelity since the environments are static, but even so, the level of polish is truly commendable. There's also a very good art direction behind it, and every location you explore will be oozing with details.
It's too bad that the sound of the game didn't receive as much attention. The music and voice acting are good enough (even if Nina's voice can resemble a chipmunk at times), but the mixing of the voice recording in particular seems to be somewhat off. Sometimes you'll hear a character deliver a line in a calmed tone, while the next line will seem too energetic, even if the tone should've logically remained the same. Also, the dialogue seems to have some pacing issues, since lines are sometimes delivered one after the other with no pauses in between. For instance, you may hear a character talking on the phone and respond to whatever the person on the other line would've said as soon as he/she delivered their first line. This is somewhat undermining to the experience, and it's a real shame since it's just a technical issue. Individually the lines sound ok, but thrown together they feel disjointed.
But most of Tunguska's faults are easily overlooked by the game's undeniable charm. The vast majority of the characters (even the ones with tiny roles in the story) are very likable and will provide you with plenty of funny moments. The characters seem to be very self aware of the fact that they're in a video game, and the game seems to be trying to give the impression that this is actually a Hollywood movie. This is all taken to a whole new level when the credits role, as you will actually see a gag reel consisting of blooper scenes, which regardless of their nature, are legitimately funny. There's also a really great character synopsis at the end, where you learn about what happened to every single character in the game. It's this sort of stuff that truly gives Tunguska a unique identity. As a side note, you need to download the latest patch to access this features.
Secret Files: Tunguska is a good enough adventure game that can be easily recommended to fans of the genre. It pretty much carries every single stigma and flaw of the genre, but the fact that it's very aware of it and almost does this deliberately, makes it all the more applaudable that it turned out as good as it did.