Review of Gemini Rue by Antrax

The plot of Gemini Rue is compelling and well-written. Used properly, it could be utilized to draw interesting parallels to the gamer himself. Instead, it servers to propel forward a rather annoying game.

The game is severely limited. It stands out the most when you query terms into the database and get zero results, unless you query for the exact bits that are needed to move the plot forward. The world just feels like a prop, where all conversations, newspapers and database queries are limited to tiny peeps into the background, only allowed if they advance the plot. There is no small talk, no close attempts, it’s all either “let me advance the plot for you” or “I don’t know anything about that”.

The gun battles aren’t hard, but they’re also not fun. They don’t require reflexes or planning or tactics, and as such are just dull - no skill of any sort is required to progress, so it’s unclear why they were even included.
This also applies to the “box” sections of the game, where suddenly control switches to keyboard-based as you shove or pull a box to the right place. It’s not challenging to figure out where the box goes, and it’s not challenging to put it where it belongs. It just is, and adds nothing to the game beyond having to switch control schemes in the middle.

The game annoys the player often. At some point the ability to not have to endure the walking animation is taken away and is never returned, some sequences you can’t skip (instead you see a menu) and some sequences you accidentally skip, intending to save - there is no clear indication what the escape key will do at any given point. To give an example of how arbitrary this is, you can skip the “door closing” and “door opening” animations of an elevator, but not actual display of floors changing. How is that anything but confusing and annoying, I don’t know.

The inventory system is also inconvenient - the only way to see the inventory is to right click a hotspot. So if I want to read a newspaper, I must find something unrelated on the screen that I can click on.

To complete the scavenger hunt of annoyances, we have pixel hunting. Tiny notes appear unexpectedly in already-visited locations, and in one particularly insufferable sequence, I had to scan the cursor four times until finally I gave up and used a graphical walkthrough to find the tiny hiding object I knew had to be there.

To summarize, Gemini Rue had a lot of potential. Much of it is unrealized. It’s playable, you’re unlikely to be stumped, but you are very likely to be frustrated by multiple minor issues that just seem like design errors. The same game without the gun battles, box sequences and with a hotspot highlighter might’ve taken less time to complete, but would’ve been just as good a game - most likely much better.

Read the review »

Time Played: 5-10 hours