But the real low point of Belief & Betrayal is the “game” bit. At some point in development, I am convinced that a list of common adventure game pitfalls to avoid somehow this became confused with the design document. Firstly, Belief & Betrayal could be accurately re-titled "Pixel Hunt: The Game." A good chunk of the puzzles, such as they exist, consist of finding hotspots located on almost black areas of the screen. At least there is a key to highlight hotspots, but that only makes you wonder why they seemed so determined to hide everything in the first place. When you aren’t looking for obscured objects, there are hotspots that you can further examine in close-up screens, yet they often require examining twice successively without any indication there's reason to do so, or are only allowed after other actions have been completed, employing the kind of tortuous game logic that only serves to lengthen the experience. Meanwhile, goals are often left unclear, even with an in-game diary which tracks your next task. At one point, the player character literally instructs you to hang around in an airport, which is your only "clue" that some exploring is in order, completely unrelated to the events at hand.

Yet when the game isn’t being obscure, it’s insultingly easy. All the “ancient mechanism” puzzles involve placing something in a hole or entering a simple combination. Puzzles which require inventory combinations are often daft, which doesn’t fit the “sinister” tone of the game. In one example, Danter decides to smash a nearby streetlight to avoid drawing attention to himself. There are some marginally more interesting puzzles, but they're overused. Remember distracting people in Broken Sword so you could get somewhere or pinch something? Well, it happens here, on numerous occasions, with everyone from policemen to cleaning ladies to building restorers. In one instance, you need to move an object to create a distraction from another object hidden behind it. You do not know anything about the second item until you move the first, of course, so clicking on everything soon becomes the strategy of choice. One potentially interesting aspect of the game is the notebook to which “thoughts” are added at predetermined points. These can be combined with other hotspots just like inventory items, but once again the addition feels underwhelming, with very little thought of your own required. Belief & Betrayal ends up being a chore to play, despite its brief length of 6-8 rather drawn-out hours.

You might think the interface would be a redeeming feature, but even the point-and-click controls are equally dreadful. Despite being tried and true, the developers still made the game feel stunningly clunky, with a response “lag” each time you click on something, and stilted character movement. Mercifully, right-clicking will allow you to instantly travel between locations; something you’ll want to do a lot. The thought system is sloppily handled as well, as combinations can often be performed only in a particular order. It's also a nuisance when sending e-mails between the different playable characters. You'll do this a lot, which is actually a nice device, since the three don’t otherwise interact much. However, to send a message you need to combine a thought in your notebook with your PDA device. All well and good, but there are two icons (one in the inventory, and one at the top left of the screen) representing the PDA, and only the inventory one works.

It doesn’t help that the game is buggy, as it seems to run slowly despite the low system specs and often simply hangs on the frequent video cutscenes. This is a shame, as the cinematics are one the few aspects which can otherwise be praised without qualification, and they’re generously distributed throughout and well made. There’s also a pleasant film-style musical score, again very much in the Broken Sword mould, with sweeping strings and orchestral sounds mixing with atmospheric aspects. Unfortunately, it swiftly becomes so repetitive I actually turned the sound off. Visually, the pre-rendered backgrounds are often pretty good, deliberately sidestepping a photorealistic look in favour of a detailed, semi-realistic style with a slight painterly look. We’ve seen this idea done better in other games, but nevertheless the artwork is one of Belief & Betrayal's stronger elements.

It's such a shame that the technically proficient work evident here is so overwhelmed by the negatives. The game has its moments and a few interesting ideas, but the experience as a whole is so irritating, with its constantly grating voices, bad writing and dull gameplay, that you barely register the positive. Even if you really, really like historical mystery stories, it's a stretch to consider this worth your thirty pieces of silver.