Set against the backdrop of a catastrophic thunderstorm raging over New York City, Overclocked explores an archetypical, yet actual condition of mankind: violence. This psychological thriller mixes frightening fictional thriller elements using innovative narrative structures. Overclocked charts the diffuse areas where memories and illusions; dreams and reality; perpetrators and victims; collide. Army psychiatrist, David McNamara, is called to the Staten Island Forensic Hospital in New York City to consult on a case that requires his expertise in forensic psychiatry. Tasked with exploring the minds of five young men and women who were found scared, screaming, and without memory, he makes alarming discoveries as he begins to cautiously explore the psyches of his young patients. Throughout the game, players will switch between six different characters in this chilling interactive psycho thriller.
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The game’s story doesn’t really start picking up until 75% through the game. You just get bits and pieces here and there and it becomes confusing until near the end. Most of the game has you going back and forth between 5 different cells in the hospital recording sessions and playing them back to other patients to trigger memories. During most of these memories, you have to play as the patient and figure out what to do in that memory. Some have you assembling a way to blow up a gate to escape by finding hoses, a flag, a bottle, and gasoline etc. You can also go back and forth to your hotel, a bar, and what not to trigger different cutscenes.
The story does keep you in long enough until it really grabs you near the end. I just wish the animations for everything weren’t so long though. Sometimes you’ll swear the game froze up because the character will pause for 5 seconds or so before going into another animation. The graphics are also pretty good and most mid-range computers can run it on high settings. The game has pre-rendered backgrounds for this reason. The puzzles are pretty neat and aren’t too hard to solve really. If you can’t figure out a place to look you can hold down Space and it will show you every place on screen you can investigate.
Overall Overclocked is great for fans of storytelling and/or PC adventure games. This game isn’t for kids though because it is a very depressing and gory game. I would check this out if you have nothing else to do. Unfortunately, I couldn’t finish the game because I played 3 chapters I didn’t save, and my game froze so I just uninstalled it. I didn’t get to see the ending, but I wish I could have.