Occasionally, our psychic will have a flashback to a Hitchcock film. It has no real relevance to the game's story. The words carved onto the hands of a dead thespian, "actors are cattle", are those from his infamous interview with Francois Truffaut. His name is a homage to the game's namesake, but other winks to the director's work will confuse all but the most knowledgeable of movie buffs. For example, despite no introduction we can conclude that the mynah bird speaks for Alicia (once we know it's there that is), but did you know its name is Alfred? When it was first mentioned I thought I'd missed something until I figured it out. Too many pieces of pertinent information are not shown to you, and if they are it's often after it would've been in any way useful. As you can probably expect from my description of the opening cinematic, the story is contrived and convoluted and it's not helped by its confusing presentation. So, it falls to the story and puzzle design to keep you interested. While it plays and looks like Resident Evil, this is first and foremost an adventure game. Don't get too excited though, you won't get to do many of these with any regularity, and you certainly won't encounter enemies to kill. You get to move, run, jump, equip a gun and shoot it. For the uninitiated, this moment could be seen as a tutorial of sorts. You meet one of the few crew members still around and get to be a stand in for a scene as the main actor is missing. It won't be long until you leave the house and explore the expansive estate and come across a sound stage. You are required to complete the names of some of his most famous films in order to open a cabinet in the study. The first puzzle is also your first real clue that this game is actually based on Hitchcock. The difference is in the game's puzzles where we jarringly jump to mouse controls. This, along with the tank controls and cinematic pre-rendered visual style makes it very reminiscent of Resident Evil. In the beginning, you have access to very few rooms in the Marvin-Jones mansion that looks suspiciously like the Bates Motel from Psycho. When I first played it I thought they were making fun of the character by adding cartoon sound effects that wouldn't be out of place in a Tom & Jerry short. Are we introduced to this bird in any way? Nope! And the tiny black bunch of polygons that represents him are camouflaged in the background. She talks in overly-gestured sign language but just in case you don't know what she's talking about her pet mynah bird whistles and screeches her words in English. And we haven't even got past the opening cinematics. It's in your initial encounter with Alicia where alarm bells are raised as to the game's overall quality. However, in the first of many contrived plot points, the billionaire's mute niece, Alicia, crashes her car into his in a ploy to hire his services. You see, his parents died in a car crash the night of Hitchcock's funeral 'cos that's all it takes to gain the second sight.Īt first, our not-quite regular Joe didn't want to become etangled in such a plot and planned to spend his time on a fishing trip. Enter Joseph Shamley, our protagonist, who just happens to be a detective with a little bit of a psychic ability. The only problem is that almost all of his cast and crew have gone missing. A Hitchcock obsessed billionaire named Robert Marvin-Jones has taken it upon himself to make his own movie on his own estate-slash-backlot. In case you're wondering, Hitchcock: Final Cut is loosely based on the maestro's life and works. But can such an unconventional subject matter make for a compelling game? Arxel Tribe's 2001 effort, Hitchcock: The Final Cut, confounded game-players and did just that. I'm not talking about a specific movie license like Psycho or The Birds but the man himself. Of all the licenses to base a computer game on, director extraordinaire Alfred Hitchcock wouldn't necessarily be the first choice.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |