When the Germans take on any genre of media production, they do it seriously and quickly earn their rightful place in the production and publishing sun. No, we are not talking about that specific area of the film industry that you are now thinking about. It’s about quests.
Number of adventure games created at home Bach And Goethe (and you probably immediately remembered Hitler), can only be rivaled by the number of detective television series produced in this country. Moreover, German developers have gotten into the habit of taking bread from others. For example, Czech studio Future Games suffered from truly Aryan competitors from Cranberry Productions, who first made a sequel and now a threequel to one of the best representatives of the genre – the game Black Mirror.
By the way, last time the Germans came up with a rather controversial project. Black Mirror 2 was only vaguely reminiscent of the original, but overall it corresponded to the spirit of a high-quality mystical quest. Will it surprise us? Black Mirror 3 after two full-fledged incarnations of the topic raised?
Striped sky
Anyone who has read Black Mirror 2 will remember that in the first half we were mainly engaged in things that had little to do with secrets, mysticism, horror and other interesting fun. The plot required a long build-up to bring the player into the right direction of murders, tragedies and chills in the skin. Apparently, the developers realized that this approach might slightly scare off various people in a hurry. And this time they decided to throw us right off the bat, or rather, into a prison cell.
The hero of the previous novel, Darren Michaels (aka Adrien Gordon), falls into the clutches of the police as a suspect in murder and arson. The narrow-minded and embittered incompetent inspector intends to put the guy behind bars and close the case quickly. It would seem that here we can end the saga about the descendant of the Gordon family, but loyal English laws come to the rescue. Darren is released on bail provided by an unknown well-wisher. Maniac, not maniac – what difference does it make, everyone has the right to walk free for money.
And then everything is as usual: the young man begins his own, alternative investigation with blackjack and psychotherapists. At the same time, Michaels will have to fight nightmares and visions of uncontrollable aggression, undergo hypnosis sessions and survive universal condemnation – oddly enough, in Willow Creek no one likes murderers and arsonists. Except, perhaps, the hotel owner Murray, for whom the “horrors of our town” form the basis of the tourism business.
For a person who started immediately from https://playhub-casino.uk/ the third part, there will be a lot of incomprehensible things in what is happening. They didn’t tell us a summary of the previous episodes, which in the case of Black Mirror seems wrong, because the events of the threequel are directly related to the plot twists from the first and second games.
Style without comfort is nothing?
The first impression of a project is always largely determined by the degree of convenience for the player. Black Mirror 3 as convenient as Black Mirror 2. Classic, intuitive point-and-click controls, highlighting of active zones, accessible inventory, the ability to instantly switch between locations, clear assignment of tasks in the diary – all this makes the gameplay enjoyable. Comfortable.
Developers keep up with adventure fashion: puzzles can be skipped. Otherwise, the hero’s actions are logical, simple and not overloaded with a set of conventions. For example, you can wet a sponge in a river or in a bucket of mops – if only you had water at hand, but what kind doesn’t matter. Ease of passage combined with an abundance of dialogues and videos brings the quest closer to the growing genre of interactive films. All this, of course, benefits the dynamics and makes the third part of the epic tale of the Gordons more exciting from the very first minutes than one might expect from the second part. On the other hand, the bright contrast between Darren’s calm, measured life before the collision with the evil fate of the Gordon family and the series of horrors that befell him after looked, on the whole, more unexpected and fresh than the well-worn scheme “sinister town – sinister castle – investigation – nightmare”.
Yes, and I would like more originality of the gameplay. We are again forced to perform a bunch of "distract and steal" tasks: make the waitress turn away to get to the donuts prepared for the inspector; put donuts in the freezer to detain a lawman in a cafe and almost steal a package of documents from his office. You’ll also have to dig into the wires – where would we be without it?! – tinker with the films and think about the password. In general, the entire “gentleman’s set” of adventure riddles without any claim to novelty.
If the uniqueness of the gameplay can be considered as a desirable, but optional bonus, then without the atmosphere of a mystical thriller with horror elements, a quest from the Black Mirror series cannot exist. And this is where the biggest problem lies: everything seems to be correct, verified, the script runs quickly forward, problems are solved at once, the musical score is excellent, the landscapes are moderately gloomy. But it’s not scary at all. We don’t recoil in sweet horror when Adrien-Darren’s face turns into an eerie monster-like mask, we are not scared by the hellhounds attacking the main character in the forest, we only wince in disgust when we are shown a charred corpse.
Perhaps it’s because our character is very difficult to truly sympathize with. He… none. Michaels’s statements come down to two types: stupid and unnecessary naming of useless objects in the style of "it’s a chair, it’s eaten" and whining about "oh I’m poor, miserable.". It is almost impossible to identify yourself with such a man, so to speak. Therefore, the fate of the hero turns out to be more or less indifferent to the player.
Other characters look even more frostbitten than Adrienne. The stilted inspector, the overly pretentious Lady Victoria, the sickeningly polite and correct psychoanalyst aunt… Somehow the personalities didn’t work out. That’s why the dialogues are mostly bland, ordinary, boring. In the context of the plot, they may be nothing, but in themselves they only make you want to fast forward. But it is in dialogues that eighty percent of the entire story is concentrated.
Adrian-Darren has strange habits. Either he climbs into abandoned huts, or wanders around the ruins of all sorts. Smacks of a penchant for looting, don’t you think??
Beauty won’t save you
And what’s surprising is that the feeling of general blandness and emasculation of the gameplay arises despite the very decent graphics and quite suitable sound design. The forest, the castle, the town of Willow Creek and other locations were created with love for composition and atmosphere. Almost every “screen” can be perceived as an independent “art on the theme” of the original Black Mirror. There are a huge number of inspectable parts scattered throughout. And it’s simply melancholy to think about how the “text writers” from this area disposed of this visual wealth Cranberry Productions.
We won’t hear a single original commentary on the subject from the lips of the hero – solid cliches and statements in the spirit of Captain Obvious. As a result, by the middle of the first chapter, any desire to explore every bush disappears and a serious motive arises to search for a passage. Despite the fact that the game is not difficult to complete.
It is not entirely clear, however, why, with such beauty of graphic statics, the developers did not make animation equally attractive. After all, the technology has been mastered a long time ago: the problem of facial expressions and movement in quests can today be considered solved. But not for Cranberry Productions. To cover up the lack of changes on the faces of the characters during the conversation, gentlemen, the authors try to start all negotiations in the background. No face – no problem.
In general, it cannot be said that Black Mirror 3 was a disappointment compared to the previous part of the series. The plot gained in dynamics and lost in originality, all other elements remained in place. The thing is that for a threequel to be successful it is clearly not enough to repeat everything that we have already seen in the sequel. And the developers have problems with fresh food.
Pros: dynamic plot; logical tasks; beautiful graphics.
Cons: weak atmosphere; spineless protagonist; stilted characters; stamped riddles; boring texts; curve animation.