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Is it just me, or does it seem as though people would be better off skipping savings accounts and bonds all together, and putting their valuables and cash behind a series of easy-to-solve slider puzzles and convoluted locks that require a number of keys lost away to the ages? In the world of Samuel Gordon, this is apparently the best way to keep your possessions safe for centuries. The Black Mirror, new from The Adventure Company, is a murder mystery split into six very long chapters. This is a game with some meat to it – just not incredibly tasty meat.
The game begins with William Gordon writing a letter to his grandson Samuel and then jumping (or being thrown) from his window to his death. The game then picks up with Samuel returning to his home, after years away, to attend his grandfather’s funeral. And then, as is usually the case, things turn out to be not quite what they seem, and Samuel is on the case to find out if his grandfather actually committed suicide or was murdered.
The above story, while clichéd, sounded great to me, and I had been dying to play the game since it was first announced. But the story quickly turns into a by-the-books supernatural mystery with twists that might as well have neon signs pointing at them, and a character that, quite frankly, is a spoiled jerk that only interested me when I found ways to kill him.
You’ve seen all of the characters from Black Mirror before in some form or fashion. There’s the stodgy butler, the precocious kid, the sleazy pawnshop owner, and the town drunk, among others. None of them really stand out in any way, and become puzzle pieces more than anything. And Samuel, the character we are to spend 20-30+ hours with, treats everyone around him, especially the help, with such contempt that I wanted to smack him.
After the success of Syberia, it seems that every game has to have lush backgrounds with 2D sprites interacting, and Black Mirror is no exception. The backgrounds are detailed and amazing, which is a good thing and a bad thing. Good because it really immerses you in the game, but bad because the detailed screens lead to a lot of pixel-hunting in some parts of the story.
Character graphics and animation on the other hand are, to put it bluntly, horrible. Characters look as though they are moving through molasses in slow motion, and when Samuel speaks to them they have to finish their animation cycle before they acknowledge him and respond. This is not a huge issue in and of itself, but really drags the game down after awhile--especially when you consider the length of the game.
Cut-scenes were well done (although a little blurry) and the animation really adds to the feel of the game and moves the story along, rather than being thrown in for no reason but to pad length.
Music and sound effects are appropriately creepy and well-placed, and playing Black Mirror through a set of headphones will definitely give you a few look-over-your-shoulder in a dark room moments.
Voice acting, however, is mediocre at best. The voices themselves are not bad, but speed once again rears its ugly head. Characters talk veeeery slowly, enunciating each word to death. This is a game with several long conversations, and they seem to drag interminably with characters slowly droning on through the storyline--and this isn't a good enough story to drag out for a long amount of time.
Black Mirror is essentially a point & click adventure game with all the good and bad that goes with it. Movement is accomplished by clicking where you would like to go, and you can double-click on a location on your map to instantly go there. Items can be left clicked to pick them up and/or look at them, and the right mouse button can be used to interact further with them. This, to me, is annoying, as you will need to left AND right-click on everything you see before you can be sure that you haven't missed anything about a hotspot. Add to this the fact that some items need to be clicked on multiple times before you get anything useful out of them (trash cans for instance) and you'll be pulling your hair out in no time at all. But it gets even better. When an item can be looked at or picked up, the cursor turns red - a good idea in itself. But some items can be looked at but not picked up until later in the game, and some items will not even show up as hotspots until certain things have been accomplished. This leads to a constant feeling of uncertainty over whether you have missed something along the way--as well as a great deal of backtracking to see if an item is suddenly able to be picked up or new items showing up.
Puzzles are standard fare, with a mixture of sliding puzzles, key puzzles, and a healthy dose of grave-robbing. Puzzle difficulty ranged from incredibly easy to fairly difficult. Some puzzles did require some independent research, which was a nice touch that you don't see very often in adventure games - although having to shut the game down to research a puzzle online did have the tendency to pull me out of the game in the process.
There is one timed sequence in the game that could be labeled an action sequence, but it is more about using your inventory quickly than anything else. However, it is possible to die in the game--rather gruesomely I might add--so use those save slots liberally or you'll be in for some backtracking.
All in all, this is a good game, but not a great one. It has a lot of promise, but just doesn’t pull through to become what it could have been. It’s a murder mystery with a twist everyone will see coming from a mile away, and the puzzles and slowness don’t do it any service. This could have been a classic, but unfortunately is a game that will sit on my shelf waiting for the occasional replay.
| Territory | Date | Publisher |
 Worldwide |
October 10 2003 | The Adventure Company |
Posted by kingtiger on Jun 6, 2013
Posted by diego on Oct 11, 2012
Atmospheric game which overcomes its many little annoyances
There’re several things I especially liked about the game - the “medieval”, or gothic atmosphere in modern age, and all the little... Read the review »
Posted by emric on May 22, 2012
very atmospheric and immersive dark mystery. unlikeable main character may be an issue for some.
this is great dark mystery adventure game from back in 2003. very atmospheric and immersive. graphics, sound and story all quite strong. the... Read the review »
This is easily one of the worst games I’ve ever tried to play. The voice acting isn’t just bad, it’s distractingly awful. And the main character, as noted in the review, is a spoiled, sullen brat with zero redeeming qualities. I’ll be honest, I didn’t finish the game: I had no interest in doing so. It’s that bad. I can’t believe it actually merited a sequel. Just horrid.
I loved this game. I can’t wait for the second one. I thought the games good qualities far outshined its flaws. Every man to his own, I guess.
Hey, one of my favourite games. Though I guessed who was the killer pretty early (don’t know how, maybe I’ve read too many detective stories or it was obvious) and it’s spoiled “the shocking” ending for me.
I’m on the middle of this game, and I think it’s a very good game.
It has many flaws, but it’s really good.
I love it.
The review on this game is spot on. It took me almost 6 years to finish since I quit playing due to the same weaknesses described in the review. It’s always bugged me that I never completed the game since it did seem to have a lot of potential. It’s only because I’m getting ready to play BM II that I finally got around to completing the original this weekend. I think the reviewer summed it up perfectly…. “This is a game with some meat to it – just not incredibly tasty meat”.
black mirror ROCKSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I totally agree with the review. It was hard for me to follow because the gameplay is SOOOO slow…it got on my nerves!!
But the story deserves it, it just keeps you thrilled… well I didnt quite guessed who was the killer till the end..duh-uh forgive me!
And also helps you wrap up all the story if you want to play Black Mirror II (and III).
I’m currently playing this, half way thorugh, and I have to say ,the review is perfect in describing this game; It realy is pretty bad, but for some reason you also want to fiish it.
The voice acting is absolute crap, specially with the main character, which is so bad it will make you angry, add to that the “charming” nature of our firend, and at times you’ll just stop playing because you just can’t take any more of it.
Some of the puzzles/interactions are just insane! To complete this game without a walthorugh you’ll have to try everything at least 3 times, if not more. Some interaction make no sense at all, specially when you can only interact with some stuff after a certain thing happened, which the game never tips you on. Sometimes for an area to open you have to have conversations which add absolutely nothing to anything!!
Bah, I’m just going through this so I can play BM II which seems to be a much better game; let’s hope so!!
Upon starting this game, I quickly considered giving up as the voice acting is indeed so distractingly poor at first that it threatens to ruin the experience. Samuel’s voice is so unbelievably monotonous and wooden, while the others vary from decent to very poor, with no one outstanding voice acting performance in the game.
I persisted though and am glad as in the end this was one of the spookiest, most atmospheric adventure games I’ve played.
The game, like the newly released Gray Matter, wasn’t a AAA story but intrigued me enough that I really wanted to know what was going on. It is a game driven by story, mood, and ambience as it isn’t the greatest gameplay-wise.
The inventory-based puzzles are fine but the pixel hunting is headache-inducing at times and this game was released before the hotspot highlighter became commonplace. The slider puzzles can be very difficult and I found myself using a walkthrough for most of them.
The game is very long by adventure standards and well fleshed out. The ending seems to have divided opinion but was at least fitting with the theme of the game.
The graphics are fine for the era it was released, moreso the beautiful backgrounds and effects than characters. The animations though are awful, everything happens in slow motion and it can be frustrating at time as you wait for a familiar character to perform his regular act of putting something down and turning to you in slow motion to engage in dialogue, which can take anywhere from 5 to 10 seconds.
Faults aside, I highly recommend this for people into dark stories!
Note to myself: I hope that as BM2 and BM3 had so nice graphics and animations, loved by adventure gamers… Cranberry Production decides to re-design this game…giving it the quality it deserves… so we all can have a complete and luxirious BM Trilogy, as this great story deserves!!!
I mean…. EVERYONE would buy and RE-play BM1 if they come up with a polished version like BM3 (having in mind many people didnt even finish the first part of the trilogy because of the awwwwful voice acting and slowwww animations).
Come onnnnn makes us happy! *wink*
I am playing it now and I actually like it, it has a few flaws but I am still felling the mystery and I cant wait to play nr. 2 and 3.
Playing this right now. I like the story and atmosphere but dislike the backtracking. You can’t pick up certain items which have hotspots until your character actually needs them.
Y U NO LET ME TAKE OBJECTS EARLIER WHEN I RECOGNIZE I NEED THEM LATER?
I am soon finished with this game, decent game, cant wait to continue with sequel (I heard that the sequel is better, had to play nr.1 to understand story).
So overall its ok.
I remember that I loved the atmosphere in this game.I loved the atmosphere,the graphics,the art but the slow animation frustrated me and I uninstalled it.Now I’m think of installing it again and actually play it until I finish it.
in short, a decent, quite enjoyable adventure game, but definitely not up there with the best ones. I enjoyed it pretty much mainly because of the atmosphere (I guess the strongest point), however, the main voice acting is terrible and shallow both in the Czech original version and the English one and the ending is actually beyond horrible when you REALLY think of it logically. the story is generally really more or less clichéd also.
