Ah, the interface! You know, when some interface quirk makes me angry at a game's developers (which, admittedly, happens rather frequently), one of the questions I tend to ask aloud is, "Do these people actually play games from time to time?" After fiddling for a couple of minutes with Secret Files: Tunguska, it is obvious that this time, the answer is a resounding yes. This is a game made by people who've been through the unnecessary frustration caused by all the bad interfaces players have seen so much of for years, and who decided not to inflict anything similar on their customers.

Everything in the game is controlled with the mouse. You can skip conversations and cutscenes with a single click. Double-clicking on an exit immediately transports you to the next room, which would be welcome in any case, and even more so when some backtracking is necessary, as is the case here. Even better, clicking a special button reveals all the hotspots and exits on the screen, finally making pixel-hunting a thing of the past. It's a feature I first encountered ages ago in Simon the Sorcerer 2, and then thought would become a standard, but unfortunately never saw again until now. Interacting with the environment is extremely intuitive, with little symbols appearing next to the pointer to show what can be done by clicking the left or right buttons. A potential drawback is that seeing what hotspot an item can be used on just requires hovering the cursor over it, without having to click (and likewise for combining items), which might make it a bit too tempting to try everything on everything instead of thinking your way through.

Still, the interface is pretty much what a perfect interface should be: completely unobtrusive and predictable, letting you focus on the story and gameplay. Another nice touch, which also isn't anything new but welcome nonetheless, is the presence of a diary where the main elements of the plot are recorded. This diary is also used as a hint system, providing optional clues for a few of the puzzles (basically, those which are not solved by combining items, such as finding passwords). I found this feature rather useless, since it only covers a few puzzles, and only provides a single hint for each one, which can be anything from hopelessly vague to the full solution.

The graphics received at least as much polish as the interface. The designers chose to go for a realistic graphic style with extremely detailed backgrounds, and the atmosphere of the varied settings is subtly reflected in the colours and lighting. The real-time 3D characters manage to blend very well into the backgrounds, thanks to quality modelling and a high resolution, and the animation mostly looks realistic. The facial animations are supposed to be adapted to the lines spoken, but I must confess that I didn't really notice it, since the conversations tend not to be shown in close-ups. The cutscenes are also a delight to watch, some of them exhibiting a very cinematic feel. Music is used sparsely, only kicking in when necessary and often leaving room for ambient sounds. It is not especially memorable, but does its job appropriately.

It is unfortunate that the developers' overall dedication was not entirely shared by the team in charge of the English version. The voice-overs are mostly good, though some of the minor characters tend to sound a bit flat. Nina and Max are well acted, although Nina's voice might take some time getting used to (I'm not sure how a witty Berliner of Russian descent is supposed to sound when dubbed in English, but probably not like a valley girl, as is the case here). The recording quality is disappointing and shows a clear lack of attention to detail, with frequent discrepancies in the volume and reverberation effects, even between two consecutive lines. But some good choices were made too. One thing I've always hated in games and movies is fake accents, supposed to convey that the conversation is actually taking place in a foreign tongue. That's a pitfall that Secret Files: Tunguska thankfully avoids, giving American accents to all characters, whether they're German, Russian or even Irish.

The translation from German went rather smoothly, though again a bit more polish would have been welcome; some lines clearly seem to have been translated out of context, and some puns might have been taken too literally. But most of the humour manages to get across, and our two heroes can use their wits for more than cracking safes open, adding some refreshing lightness to all those plots and conspiracies — though I thought that their awareness of actually being inside a computer game went a bit overboard for a story that's not comedic in nature. Still, this is a minor quibble, and Tunguska certainly isn't the first game to mix a rather serious plot with some uncharacteristic jokes — here again, the similarity with Broken Sword seems inescapable. I found it a particularly nice touch that the characters usually explain wittily why you can't perform certain actions, instead of relying on some standard line. Once again I felt that the developers must be players too, having undergone the same frustration as I do when hearing such overused lines, and deciding to do something more clever in their own game. Even more than the plot or shiny graphics, it's little touches like these that really made me go on playing.

On the whole, the best description of Secret Files: Tunguska is that it's Fusionsphere's first adventure game. Like an apprentice's work, it stays too close to the master's, successfully emulating much of what made that good, but with a lack of inventiveness that doesn't allow it to be truly distinctive. And like an apprentice's work, it exhibits both the clumsiness of the inexperienced and the meticulousness of the studious. In short, while it is definitely not a masterpiece, it is a promising debut. I shall eagerly await Fusionsphere's next adventure game, hoping that they will retain their qualities while finding a voice of their own.