Beautiful looking game that varies from fun to boring and lacks any character.

User Rating: 6.5 | The Cave (2013) PC
Monkey Island (followed closely by its sequels and Day of the Tentacle) is my undisputed favourite game of all time, so on hearing of Tim Schafer and Ron Gilbert's involvement in The Cave, I was already anticipating this game like a child waiting for Christmas. Then when I saw the trailer, I was immediately captivated by the unique style and couldn't have been more excited.

The final game, unfortunately, was quite a let down.

I was throughly enjoying the game to begin with, taking in the gorgeous visuals and working my way through some challenging, yet logical puzzles, waiting to see where the game was leading and what it had in store. It was all looking very promising. However, as more time passed, it felt like the game was going nowhere. The puzzles started to require lots of backtracking and repetition, and things started to drag.

Worse still, I was a good few hours in by now and there was still no sign of a story or any reason to get immersed in the game. The narration of The Cave is mildly amusing in places - the key adjective there being "mildly" - but the protagonists have no dialogue, and no character development whatsoever.

I realise it's not fair to compare a game like this to the legendary Monkey Island just because two men worked on both projects, but I couldn't help wondering why there was such an absence of witty banter and engaging characters and everything that made the Monkey Island series and Day of the Tentacle so fantastic.

I guess it's also inevitable that this game will be compared to Trine and that is yet another comparison this game cannot live upto. The Cave is a much slower paced game, with a lot more wandering and exploration...but that, in my opinion, is where it falls short.

I don't think The Cave is a bad game at all, and will give it a well deserved score of 6.5. However, it just doesn't live upto its potential. This game could've been amazing and that's the most disappointing thing about it.