Still Life lets you play the role of FBI agent Victoria McPherson. Situated in Chicago, you are on the heels of a serial killer, much like your grandfather did 80 years earlier in Prague (Microids' Post Mortem). By means of flashbacks and timewarps, you will travel to locations like Eastern Europe to interrogate suspects, or North America, to scrutinize dead bodies.Tim "Rabbit" Mithee: I'm always drawn to adventure games; back when I was a kid, I had a fixation on the classics of both graphical and text adventures. I'm dying to see the genre take off again, and I'm really hoping that Dreamcatcher manages to wow the entire world yet again. Still Life is getting a lot less publicity than Dreamfall, but I'd like to see just what can be done. The idea of a gritty, mature-audiences adventure is welcome, at least to me. The screenshots look like what we've come to expect from The Adventure Company -- highly detailed, realistic environments with lots of character interaction and that dose of "unrealism" that makes the adventure that much more involving. Things don't always have to make sense -- they're at their best when they don't.
Corey Owen: Adventure games are a dying breed nowadays, and good ones are even rarer, so when The Adventure Company announced Still Life, my interest was piqued. Ever since they released The Longest Journey, I have been a fan of their work, and so far they have not disappointed me. The story is a follow-up to the 2003 adventure game Post Mortem and puts you in the shoes of Victoria McPherson, an FBI agent charged with stopping a serial killer. The story is dark, and one look at the screenshots shows you that the atmosphere will definitely back it up. The combination of great storytelling, eerie atmosphere, innovative gameplay, and great graphics definitely make this one to watch in 2005.
Judy Thai: Syberia and its sequel were great adventure games, but between the talking automaton, wooly mammoths and penguins in dire need of Ritalin, I was ready for a nice dose of reality. The CSI titles are good for passing a few hours, but they lack any real depth and are just about five cases short of a full game. Post Mortem was certainly morbid enough, but it lacked polish and played out like a bad movie script that Bogart had turned down. I've had a chance to play an early build of Still Life, and in addition to being spooky, gorgeous, and humorous, it also has me rabidly awaiting the April release date.
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