By Gary W. Kearney
I remember back when I was a little video game reviewer, I once decided it
would be a brilliant idea to do a double back flip off of my parent’s bed. Well,
I ended up in the hospital requiring several stitches above my eye because of a
less than spectacular landing. It seemed like a good idea at the time. This is
basically the case with “Alfred Hitchcock: The Final Cut.” It would seem a
no-brainer to use the style, humor and ingenuity of the Master of Suspense to
create a wonderful gaming experience. While I still believe this is a good idea,
this isn’t the game that makes that idea come true.
Final Cut is an adventure game in the same spirit as the wonderful The
Longest Journey and the Monkey Island series. You assume the role of Joseph
Shamley, physic private eye who, by some odd coincidence, apparently became
physic when his parents died on the day of Hitchcock’s funeral; sure, why not.
As the fates would have it, while going on a vacation you’re persuaded by a mute
woman to check out some mysterious happenings at her rich uncle’s estate. Seems
that her uncle, Robert Marvin-Jordan, got the itch to film a suspense movie on
his estate, but overnight most of the crew and actors disappeared. I hate it
when that happens. So, off you go to solve the mystery of what happened.
Like most adventure games there are puzzles that you must solve in order to
progress through the game. Unlike most adventure games, these puzzles can have
solutions that seemingly come out of left field and have no logic behind them.
While almost all games have at least one puzzle where you say, “Uh, where did
that solution come from”, Final Cut has way too many of these. More often than
not you’re finding yourself going through your inventory and trying every
possible combination of items until something just works. Even more frustrating
is that even after you solve a puzzle, you still don’t really understand why the
solution worked. It’s one thing to finally solve a puzzle and say to yourself
“Of course, that makes perfect sense. Why didn’t I see that before?” and quite
another to wonder, “Why in the world would I ever think to do that?”
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