This review contains spoilers
So I'm gonna be honest, this game was a very mixed bag for me. I originally heard about this game through a news article about it and I love true crime shit so I was like, oh boy maybe this whole Zodiac game thing will be interesting; maybe it'll have some sort of fictional take on the Zodiac killer or maybe it'll be a sort of theory based clue solving like Sherlock Holmes vs. Jack the Ripper did with who they thought was Jack the Ripper. I'm going to go in based on the plot here first and discuss my feelings on that before going onto the game play.
Spoilers: You play as Robert Hartnell, a reporter whose obsession with the Zodiac Killer led to a breakup with his girlfriend Monica and now you're in some sort of strange dream therapy where you and your therapist try to figure out who it is to clear your obsession, and it sort of is based on that? Like they have this whole lead up thing where you go through certain crime scenes in your dreams like Lake Barryessa and reconstruct the scene based on what happens, and through certain dialogue choices with your therapist, subtle clues in your home environment and not so subtle clues with the weird mannequins in your attic where you reconstruct them based on the victims and choose whether or not you want to stab them or help them move on as well as helping yourself. See because that stuff, you can kind of tell that there's this whole build up to "Either you or your father was the Zodiac Killer" thing and truth is we can kinda see that from miles away. With this weird plot and the spotty game play I thought I was gonna give it a negative review but some of the dialogue in the last ten or so minutes, made me feel like I realized (unless I'm wrong) that this is moreso a character study based on trauma and helping your character sort out his own childhood s h i t. Now whether or not you're the Zodiac Killer or your dad is based on the flashbacks is unclear I believe unless you get a bad ending but I got the good ending where I move on from my trauma and send my ex-girlfriend a letter of reconciliation. Before then I was just confused with what the game was doing and where it was going, and truth be told the game isn't the best at delivering this stuff, nor is this some Game of the Year hidden genius thing. But as mixed as the story was, and even though I wished some plot beats were delivered earlier/better (or maybe I'm just an idiot who knows), I ended up coming out of it with a somewhat positive feeling on it.
The gameplay however is...definitely not the best. The whole gameplay is this, you wake up in your house, pick stuff up and click on things, go to the attic maybe and do some more of that, go to your therapist, pick some dialogue choices which are vague at best then go into a dream where you find clues, avoid the Zodiac Killer, piece them together and then find the cipher at the end to rinse and repeat these repeatedly. It's not the worst loop but it can be kind of predictable even though the game is on the shorter side. And playing on the Zodiac Killer setting (where there's a killer who can chase you, there is an option to turn off the killer chase however), the killer himself is kind of a joke? You see this goofy f u c k walking around or doing a light jog, you go out of your way to hid behind small objects and the detection is kind of spotty? Like there were times where I hid in certain spots and he saw me, then I could hide behind a small bush literally right next to the guy (and keep in mind if he were to look to the right then he could see you entirely). You're also run like your 80, you have arthritis and you have a smoking problem. Though truth be told, not that I'm necessarily complaining, there's no real setback to dying by the Zodiac's hands; and if there was I'd be kind of annoyed in a sense because I don't mind random predators (I love Alien Isolation) but I can't really even hear the guy and again you run like you're a smoker so it's kind of an iffy chase thing, and the whole map design to me doesn't help because you can't make certain maneuvers in order to hide or to even lose the guy sometimes.
If I were to give an overall tl;dr feeling on the game it would be this. Gameplay is hit or miss but mostly miss, and the story his hit or miss right in the middle. It's an interesting game, and I find unsolved crimes to be fascinating to me, but truth is it's not the best game out there. If you have a small afternoon to kill time and play a game get it on sale, I got it for 1.29. Gonna recommend cause since it was on sale it's not the worst game, it has interesting ideas even if it bungles some of them.
From Steam Reviews: https://steamcommunity.com/id/gamemast15r/recommended/
Spoilers: You play as Robert Hartnell, a reporter whose obsession with the Zodiac Killer led to a breakup with his girlfriend Monica and now you're in some sort of strange dream therapy where you and your therapist try to figure out who it is to clear your obsession, and it sort of is based on that? Like they have this whole lead up thing where you go through certain crime scenes in your dreams like Lake Barryessa and reconstruct the scene based on what happens, and through certain dialogue choices with your therapist, subtle clues in your home environment and not so subtle clues with the weird mannequins in your attic where you reconstruct them based on the victims and choose whether or not you want to stab them or help them move on as well as helping yourself. See because that stuff, you can kind of tell that there's this whole build up to "Either you or your father was the Zodiac Killer" thing and truth is we can kinda see that from miles away. With this weird plot and the spotty game play I thought I was gonna give it a negative review but some of the dialogue in the last ten or so minutes, made me feel like I realized (unless I'm wrong) that this is moreso a character study based on trauma and helping your character sort out his own childhood s h i t. Now whether or not you're the Zodiac Killer or your dad is based on the flashbacks is unclear I believe unless you get a bad ending but I got the good ending where I move on from my trauma and send my ex-girlfriend a letter of reconciliation. Before then I was just confused with what the game was doing and where it was going, and truth be told the game isn't the best at delivering this stuff, nor is this some Game of the Year hidden genius thing. But as mixed as the story was, and even though I wished some plot beats were delivered earlier/better (or maybe I'm just an idiot who knows), I ended up coming out of it with a somewhat positive feeling on it.
The gameplay however is...definitely not the best. The whole gameplay is this, you wake up in your house, pick stuff up and click on things, go to the attic maybe and do some more of that, go to your therapist, pick some dialogue choices which are vague at best then go into a dream where you find clues, avoid the Zodiac Killer, piece them together and then find the cipher at the end to rinse and repeat these repeatedly. It's not the worst loop but it can be kind of predictable even though the game is on the shorter side. And playing on the Zodiac Killer setting (where there's a killer who can chase you, there is an option to turn off the killer chase however), the killer himself is kind of a joke? You see this goofy f u c k walking around or doing a light jog, you go out of your way to hid behind small objects and the detection is kind of spotty? Like there were times where I hid in certain spots and he saw me, then I could hide behind a small bush literally right next to the guy (and keep in mind if he were to look to the right then he could see you entirely). You're also run like your 80, you have arthritis and you have a smoking problem. Though truth be told, not that I'm necessarily complaining, there's no real setback to dying by the Zodiac's hands; and if there was I'd be kind of annoyed in a sense because I don't mind random predators (I love Alien Isolation) but I can't really even hear the guy and again you run like you're a smoker so it's kind of an iffy chase thing, and the whole map design to me doesn't help because you can't make certain maneuvers in order to hide or to even lose the guy sometimes.
If I were to give an overall tl;dr feeling on the game it would be this. Gameplay is hit or miss but mostly miss, and the story his hit or miss right in the middle. It's an interesting game, and I find unsolved crimes to be fascinating to me, but truth is it's not the best game out there. If you have a small afternoon to kill time and play a game get it on sale, I got it for 1.29. Gonna recommend cause since it was on sale it's not the worst game, it has interesting ideas even if it bungles some of them.
From Steam Reviews: https://steamcommunity.com/id/gamemast15r/recommended/
gamemast15r
1 year ago