The "Retro" Money-Making Machine
Alas, good old nostalgia! What is better than idling in a slightly melancholic mood while pondering the past? Almost anything was better in the good old days: Colours were more intense, one-liners smarter and verb lists longer. We were content with the little things. Who needed more than peeps, pixels and bizzareness?
Nowadays you can turn those nostalgic feelings into hard cash. At least if you can offer some familiar faces from back then too, which keeps you from getting lost in that flood of Kickstarters. Of course Ron Gilbert and Gary Winnick had no problems with that.
Admittedly, the master detective has always been a great attraction to me and the reviews of this game have sounded extremely positive throughout. The previous part was quite recommendable and I already reviewed it. In the end, curiosity triumphed over my commitments and I spent the good 10 hours of playing time in order not to miss the latest developments in crime fighting of the master detective. For connoisseurs of the series, it should be mentioned that even more recent developments have already been realized in a successor to this 6-year-old title. My judgement will not be objective, like someone who didn't grow up with the books of Arthur Canon Doyle, and perhaps thinks more of Pikachu in terms of a Master Detective.
Interactive movies… you might say that if you have played one of them, you have played them all. From the humble beginnings with pixelated miniature slide shows up to the fullscreen full motion video titles, all of them have one thing in common: A shallow plot combined with bad acting, interspersed by obscure and out of nowhere puzzles. The game we are going to discuss today, Black Dahlia, tried its best to leave this reputation behind by turning things up to eleven, with really high production values and an even somewhat creative story.