Unheard's gameplay is a novel concept which I have never seen utilized before in any form of media. Oftentimes, video games will explore narratives and experiences alike traditional forms of story telling with order, sequence, and crafted story whereby the mystery unravels in a predetermined order.
Unheard takes advantage of the freedom of video game design, allowing players to experience an intricate story with several plot threads, characters, and events occurring simultaneously in front of them. By manipulating time and the position you're listening from, you must solve the mystery behind various crime scenes using nothing but your ears and your brain. This allows you to fastforward, rewind, reset, and skip through the footage accordingly, in order to piece together the story.
Although there are only five cases, with an additional free DLC case (which is fantastic), there is still a great value for money here. Each crime scene increases in difficulty and scale as you progress through the game, offering challenging puzzles that demand careful deductions and active listening. I found myself several times taking notes on pen and paper so I was able to attach the particular voices to their appropriate names and create timelines that allowed me to solve each of the crime scenes. This was incredibly rewarding, I've played plenty of difficult puzzle games before, but none have required me to write things down and evaluate and compare my findings. This is the closest I've felt to what we think detectives do on a daily basis in fiction, and it was truly an unforgettable game.
The Final Script crime scene which is a free DLC case that you can install, is by far my favourite, taking several hours for me to solve. As you'd expect from a game designed around listening, you can expect solid vocal performances throughout. However, I do have criticisms with the general overarching story. Although the narrative of each of the individual cases is fantastic, I personally found a lot of the added context between the cases that attempted to connect them and explain how this was happening was unnecessary. I sincerely hope that NEXT Studios are working on a sequel, with more crime scenes, because this game was a delight from start to finish.
Unheard takes advantage of the freedom of video game design, allowing players to experience an intricate story with several plot threads, characters, and events occurring simultaneously in front of them. By manipulating time and the position you're listening from, you must solve the mystery behind various crime scenes using nothing but your ears and your brain. This allows you to fastforward, rewind, reset, and skip through the footage accordingly, in order to piece together the story.
Although there are only five cases, with an additional free DLC case (which is fantastic), there is still a great value for money here. Each crime scene increases in difficulty and scale as you progress through the game, offering challenging puzzles that demand careful deductions and active listening. I found myself several times taking notes on pen and paper so I was able to attach the particular voices to their appropriate names and create timelines that allowed me to solve each of the crime scenes. This was incredibly rewarding, I've played plenty of difficult puzzle games before, but none have required me to write things down and evaluate and compare my findings. This is the closest I've felt to what we think detectives do on a daily basis in fiction, and it was truly an unforgettable game.
The Final Script crime scene which is a free DLC case that you can install, is by far my favourite, taking several hours for me to solve. As you'd expect from a game designed around listening, you can expect solid vocal performances throughout. However, I do have criticisms with the general overarching story. Although the narrative of each of the individual cases is fantastic, I personally found a lot of the added context between the cases that attempted to connect them and explain how this was happening was unnecessary. I sincerely hope that NEXT Studios are working on a sequel, with more crime scenes, because this game was a delight from start to finish.