They really had a good thing going here. For an hour or so, there's some true wonder to unpicking the gorgeously filmed, intriguing trio of movies that has been put together here. The fims - Ambrosio, Minsky, and Two of Everything, are all gloriously shot and composed. Whilst you can see the cracks at some points, it's oh so easy to fall into Immortality's facade of the lost old media - The giallo inspired and notably horny Ambrosio in particular being an utter delight. And it's all filmed so well and with a degree of authenticity that just feels so right.
And those initial few hours, where you're both trying to piece together the plots of these movies, noticeing the flaws and trying to figure out the threads and what overarching story really is about is pretty great stuff. When clicking on each weird item in the background can send you to god know where. And the prospect of this all tying together with some cool allegorical narrative or whatever, some light horror and so on - god it could work.
Shame the narrative that you uncover is absolute trash. It is a very bleh fantasy/horror thing that I would feel would fall flat on your average creepypasta site - and it still could have worked even if it was mostly invested in exploring that immortality of art/people in cinema, the aspect of lost media "reviving people" so to speak but no. Its way too bogged down in the very literal mechanics of it's bad storyline and I hate it. It's bad enough to retrospectively make me feel like an idiot for wanting to pull on the threads, and care way less about the pretty well built up and interesting character relationships you learn through the snippets.
There's also some good old gamey issues to get in the way. Searching through clips, especially at the point where you'd probably just before getting to the big storyline hooks, is a pain in the arse, and bizzarely this point and click game works best by far with controller. It's also pretty buggy and in general way more finicky and less responsive than it should be. It detracts a fair bit from an otherwise incredibly immersive experience. The music is also quite bland and is constantly repeating the same shot clips as you go over the movies. And you can't turn it off because you need it for the sound cues to know how to find a lot of the secrets. Yay.
And its such a damn shame. It's probably the best looking FMV game ever released. The performances, particularly from Manon Gage and Hans Christopher, are spot on, and the way each of the movies captures their respective spheres of cinema - Giallo (mixed with hitchcock), 70s Neo-Noir and late 90s cheapo indie is absolutely spot on. And maybe if it was edited more consicely, the game more directed in terms of getting you to the right clips at the right time, and less navel-gazing in terms of it's very bad overarching narrative, it could have been incredible.
It's a better game than it's progenitor Her Story on account of the game not being so focused on a twist you'll work on in the first two seconds, and god knows it's better than Telling Lies, a game so shit even annapurna didnt try to push it, but I do think the end result is still a failure. Barlow has got the technical side of an FMV game absolutely down pat now though, and I think if he was given a competent writer, maybe then, this long project can bear some truly great fruit.
And those initial few hours, where you're both trying to piece together the plots of these movies, noticeing the flaws and trying to figure out the threads and what overarching story really is about is pretty great stuff. When clicking on each weird item in the background can send you to god know where. And the prospect of this all tying together with some cool allegorical narrative or whatever, some light horror and so on - god it could work.
Shame the narrative that you uncover is absolute trash. It is a very bleh fantasy/horror thing that I would feel would fall flat on your average creepypasta site - and it still could have worked even if it was mostly invested in exploring that immortality of art/people in cinema, the aspect of lost media "reviving people" so to speak but no. Its way too bogged down in the very literal mechanics of it's bad storyline and I hate it. It's bad enough to retrospectively make me feel like an idiot for wanting to pull on the threads, and care way less about the pretty well built up and interesting character relationships you learn through the snippets.
There's also some good old gamey issues to get in the way. Searching through clips, especially at the point where you'd probably just before getting to the big storyline hooks, is a pain in the arse, and bizzarely this point and click game works best by far with controller. It's also pretty buggy and in general way more finicky and less responsive than it should be. It detracts a fair bit from an otherwise incredibly immersive experience. The music is also quite bland and is constantly repeating the same shot clips as you go over the movies. And you can't turn it off because you need it for the sound cues to know how to find a lot of the secrets. Yay.
And its such a damn shame. It's probably the best looking FMV game ever released. The performances, particularly from Manon Gage and Hans Christopher, are spot on, and the way each of the movies captures their respective spheres of cinema - Giallo (mixed with hitchcock), 70s Neo-Noir and late 90s cheapo indie is absolutely spot on. And maybe if it was edited more consicely, the game more directed in terms of getting you to the right clips at the right time, and less navel-gazing in terms of it's very bad overarching narrative, it could have been incredible.
It's a better game than it's progenitor Her Story on account of the game not being so focused on a twist you'll work on in the first two seconds, and god knows it's better than Telling Lies, a game so shit even annapurna didnt try to push it, but I do think the end result is still a failure. Barlow has got the technical side of an FMV game absolutely down pat now though, and I think if he was given a competent writer, maybe then, this long project can bear some truly great fruit.
Reviewed on Nov 28, 2022