![]() You can just click through the dialogue instead, but either way, most conversations fall flat. Zellner's dialogue is delivered in a stilted, unnatural fashion that makes listening to conversations unenjoyable. There's a haughty baroness, a suspicious violinist, and an Agatha Christie-esque mystery novelist among them, but interacting with these characters is typically a bore. His fellow passengers are a bit more memorable. The rare moments of crisis are easily overcome and don't generate much excitement. Zellner is a bland protagonist, lacking the preternatural deductive reasoning of Sherlock Holmes, the endearing persistence of Columbo, the believably complex, flawed humanity of Kurt Wallander, or any real quirks or characteristics of his own that might have made him an interesting figure through whom to experience this mystery. But in the case of The Raven, the story is too plodding to support the game on its own. There's nothing inherently wrong with a point-and-click adventure that doesn't challenge you with taxing puzzles, and some games in the genre with compelling stories benefit from puzzles that don't bog down the story's pacing. Nothing you do involves any deductive reasoning or anything resembling actual detective work. Once you've got the item or items you need to overcome a particular obstacle, it's usually obvious what you need to do. Also making matters frustrating is that you often need to examine something more than once before Zellner notices anything important about it, so you get in the habit of examining everything you can until either Zellner starts repeating himself or the option to examine or interact with an object goes away. You can employ the tried-and-true (and tedious) method of moving your cursor over anything and everything to see what you can interact with, or you can spend a small amount of "detective points" to briefly highlight notable objects, though doing so diminishes your final score. Objects you can examine or interact with in the environment aren't typically highlighted in any way. The hardest part is typically just finding the items you might need. The process of solving this and most of the other problems you encounter during The Raven is so straightforward that to refer to those problems as puzzles would be generous. Has the legendary thief the Raven (once believed to be dead) returned, or is this the work of an imitator? It's a setup with considerable potential, but unfortunately, rather than harnessing that potential and pulling you into the story right away, the plot squanders its momentum as you must instead deal with mundane problems like helping a train passenger get into his locked cabin. A priceless jewel, one of the two Eyes of the Sphinx, has just been stolen in a daring museum robbery. Wearing its Agatha Christie inspirations on its sleeve, The Raven begins with you, as Swiss constable Anton Jakob Zellner, aboard the Orient Express. This point-and-click adventure has many of the trappings of a good old-fashioned mystery, but fails to re-create the irresistible allure of a captivating whodunit.īeautiful scenery, boring conversations and basic puzzles. What makes for a compelling mystery? Is it a perplexing crime that pulls you in immediately and leaves you eager to discover who did it and how? Is it a fascinating central character whose investigative methods are a pleasure to watch? Perhaps it's a sense of urgency as the investigator races against time to prevent the criminal from getting away with any more nefarious deeds? Whatever it is, you won't find it in The Raven: Legacy of a Master Thief. ![]()
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