Pep's Detective Deep Dive - Game 2
An FMV interactive movie with lots of style but very little substance, The Isle Tide Hotel describes itself as "A British Twin Peaks" on it's Steam page.
I have to ask... how exactly is this similar in any way to Twin Peaks? Twin Peaks has a charismatic lead actor, this does not. Twin Peaks has an intriguing, twisting plot, this does not. A show/film with "weird" characters doesn't automatically make it "Lynchian", and it's pretty insulting to David Lynch that The Isle Tide Hotel would describe itself in this way.
The basic plot of the game has you play a father who is requested to visit a hotel by a private detective, to save his estranged daughter from a cult. Given the "choose-your-own-adventure" narrative that most of Wales Interactive's FMV games follow, what happens to the main character once you arrive at the hotel is largely up to you. To the game's credit, there seems to be quite a few different paths you can take and endings you can unlock, but I wasn't impressed enough with it to go beyond the one ending I got.
Some positives; the sets, costumes and cinematography were pretty nice, and I definitely got Eyes Wide Shut vibes from the use of masks. Like most FMV games, the acting is a bit all over the place. Jemima Rooper does her best as Price, but I feel like Michael Xavier sleepwalks his way through the central role. And the fact that they cast Richard Brake but only give him around 3 minutes of screen time is borderline criminal. The rest of the cast are varying degrees of "okay" - the entire production still gives me "student film with a budget" vibes.
!!SPOILERS AHEAD!! My biggest issue with the game (and bear with me since I only did one ending) is that the overall plot is pretty flimsy: it's not really established what the cult's overall goal is or what they want with Eleanor. You hear words like "term" and "core", the cult's leader waxes poetic and "body-swapping" is mentioned at one point. The fact that I got through an intended ending of the game knowing little about the actual cult is a criticism in itself.
Yes, I realise that this isn't really a detective game and I Pony Island'd myself again. But for a mystery game there's not much atmosphere or intrigue, and for an FMV game there's no real sense of fun. There's better mystery games and interactive movies out there.
An FMV interactive movie with lots of style but very little substance, The Isle Tide Hotel describes itself as "A British Twin Peaks" on it's Steam page.
I have to ask... how exactly is this similar in any way to Twin Peaks? Twin Peaks has a charismatic lead actor, this does not. Twin Peaks has an intriguing, twisting plot, this does not. A show/film with "weird" characters doesn't automatically make it "Lynchian", and it's pretty insulting to David Lynch that The Isle Tide Hotel would describe itself in this way.
The basic plot of the game has you play a father who is requested to visit a hotel by a private detective, to save his estranged daughter from a cult. Given the "choose-your-own-adventure" narrative that most of Wales Interactive's FMV games follow, what happens to the main character once you arrive at the hotel is largely up to you. To the game's credit, there seems to be quite a few different paths you can take and endings you can unlock, but I wasn't impressed enough with it to go beyond the one ending I got.
Some positives; the sets, costumes and cinematography were pretty nice, and I definitely got Eyes Wide Shut vibes from the use of masks. Like most FMV games, the acting is a bit all over the place. Jemima Rooper does her best as Price, but I feel like Michael Xavier sleepwalks his way through the central role. And the fact that they cast Richard Brake but only give him around 3 minutes of screen time is borderline criminal. The rest of the cast are varying degrees of "okay" - the entire production still gives me "student film with a budget" vibes.
!!SPOILERS AHEAD!! My biggest issue with the game (and bear with me since I only did one ending) is that the overall plot is pretty flimsy: it's not really established what the cult's overall goal is or what they want with Eleanor. You hear words like "term" and "core", the cult's leader waxes poetic and "body-swapping" is mentioned at one point. The fact that I got through an intended ending of the game knowing little about the actual cult is a criticism in itself.
Yes, I realise that this isn't really a detective game and I Pony Island'd myself again. But for a mystery game there's not much atmosphere or intrigue, and for an FMV game there's no real sense of fun. There's better mystery games and interactive movies out there.