Well, if there is one way to start this review it would be to tell you that point and click adventure games don’t exactly peak my interest. That doesn’t mean that I don’t like them, it just means that chances are I’m not going to pass on buying one over another genre of game (except for sports). That being said I have to admit that I was pleasantly surprised by Black Mirror II.
The story of Black Mirror II is set 12 years after the first game. Sadly I haven’t played the first Black Mirror, but the game does a pretty good job of summing up the events of the first game through cutscenes and narratives. Our hero for this game is Darren Michaels, a physics student home for summer break to visit his dear old mother. This has left Darren stuck in the boring but pleasant town of Biddeford working for the local photo shop. Things in Biddeford aren’t all as they seem though as Darren starts to uncover a darker secret in Biddeford than anyone could have known.
Darren won’t stop there though. Our amateur detective takes it upon himself to travel all the way to Willow Creek, England (which fans of Black Mirror I will easily recognize) to uncover the history of his past and who he really is. Twist and turns await him in this old decrepit town and he’ll learn more about himself then he ever wanted to know.
I loved the story of Black Mirror II. The whole thing was very dark and gritty. It made me feel like these events could really be happening somewhere in the world. I can only think of one thing to compare it to and that would be Stephen King. The game story feels like a Stephen King movie in the sense that it makes the supernatural feel natural. It’s a really great ride all the way through.
My only real qualm with the game is that it has an incredibly abrupt ending. I don’t want to ruin the end so I won’t, but just don’t expect all of your questions to get answered. Hope isn’t lost though; Black Mirror III is set to be released very soon. So be ready to have your questions answered in what I can only hope will be a worthy conclusion to such an epic series.
Now that I’ve teased you with snippets of story from Black Mirror II, we should probably talk about the gameplay. Gameplay in Black Mirror II is exactly what I would expect, click here, click here, click here, ok, ok I know that this is what the point and click adventure genre is all about. So I’m not going to dock any points from BM II (I got tired of typing the whole thing so live with it) just because it’s genre of gameplay is a little bland. What I am going to say is that this game does do a great job of stretching your mind out to the thinnest it can.
What I mean is that puzzles in this game can be hard at times, real hard. For the most part the puzzles will come to you with time, but honestly there are a few that made me shout out "HOW WAS I SUPPOSED TO KNOW THAT!" A perfect example of this is at one point you are trapped in a jail cell. To get out you will have to take a knife and scrape rust off of the bars and then combine it with the aluminum of a meal tray. After this you’ll compact the mixture into the lock and light it with a sparkler creating your own miniature version of a welding rod to burn the lock off with. That being said, our hero Darren is one of the best escape artists to ever exist. Despite what the story may say, I have come to the conclusion that his father must have been MacGyver. Ridiculous accusations aside though, the puzzles really are great.
Alright let’s talk about the graphics in this game. Backgrounds are rendered in 2D and are beautiful. There is so much detail to be found in every area of the game. Whether it was the bright and happy looking town of Biddeford or the dark and gloomy village of Willow Creek, the backgrounds really did provide the correct atmosphere for the correct situations.
Character models in this game aren’t half bad either. Actually the character models look great, it’s only when they move that there is a problem. Animations for just about everything in this game are clunky. All characters move as if they had sticks shoved down their spines. Also on a few occasions I noticed some rigging errors where the texture of a character would get stuck and stretch out the face of a character to extreme lengths. It didn’t happen too often and there was really only one character who suffered in a major way from it.
Time to talk about the sound of this game; specifically we should start with the voice acting. Here comes a problem with BM II. While some of the NPC’s in the game really are voiced well, others are absolutely horrible. This actually had me avoiding talking to some characters unless it was absolutely necessary. It gets worse though. Our hero Darren (or Joey as I have dubbed him, kudos if you get that reference) has one of the worst voices in the game. This wouldn’t be so bad if it wasn’t for the fact the Darren talks out loud almost 24-7. Sometimes it’s about the most obvious things to. "Yes Darren I do realize that Fuller just left the shop" or "Ok Darren I get that the place is creepy." Some of the voice work just ruins the mood, the music and graphics do enough to make it feel creepy so Darren doesn’t need to try to tell me that I should be creeped out.
This brings us to our next stop in the sound department, the music. The music in BM II is great! As I said above, the music does a great job at creating the atmosphere for the game. Songs will leave you on edge about what could be around the corner, or leave you feeling that it’s a beautiful day in good old Biddeford. There isn’t much more to say honestly, the music is great (now if only the voice acting would follow suit).
As you can probably guess from what you’ve read so far, BM II is a great game with a few problems. Most are small enough to not really interrupt the game while others leave you wishing you could shoot Darren in the head so you wouldn’t have to listen to him anymore. Even with these problems, the game is definitely worth picking up and I’m really looking forward to the final chapter is this dark trilogy (I’m also going to hunt down the first one, ebay Ho!).
Black Mirror II: Reigning Evil gets 3.5 GiN gems out of 5