Its impossible to say
exactly what Alfred Hitchcock would have thought of The Final Cut. Would he have seen it
as a fitting tribute to his extensive oeuvre of legendary psychological thrillers, or
something closer to an awkwardly executed, derivative scrap of superficial entertainment?
Probably a little of each. The Final Cut succeeds in treading some interesting ground in
the growing field of media that bridges video games and cinema, but it ultimately works as
little more than another puzzle-laden adventure game for the Myst set thats
augmented by some Hitchcockian turns of the screw.You play Joseph Shamley, a man
burdened by haunting memories of the mysterious deaths of his parents in a car crash. But
fortune hasnt completely abandoned Josephhe is gifted with psychic powers that
allow him extrasensory insight into the history of an object. These powers have helped
Joseph become a successful private detective; moreover, theyve attracted the
attention of millionaire eccentric and Hitchcock afficionado Robert Marvin-Butler, who
interrupts Josephs weekend getaway with a difficult case. It seems that Robert was
filming a psychological thriller a la Alfred Hitchcock when his entire cast and crew
mysteriously disappeared. You must discover what happened to the missing people, as well
as unravel the mysteries surrounding Roberts shady business dealings and his mute
niece cum love interest Alicia. While the tangled plot sometimes borders on being
contrived and overly complicated, it manages to stop just short of the edge, providing a
mystery intriguing enough to keep player interest yet manageable enough to solve.
Each
clue is locked inside a puzzle, and, unfortunately, The Final Cut doesnt manage to
overcome the single biggest flaw of video game puzzles: their limited solutions. Human
beings are highly adaptive creatures blessed with ingenuity; when were confronted
with a puzzle, we can not only solve it but also discover many different solutions.
However, video game puzzles typically have just one solution, and solving the puzzle
quickly turns into guessing what the game designers had in mind when they designed it. For
my money, thats an unnecessarily limiting and sometimes frustrating way to play a
game. But the success of adventure games proves there are plenty of people who are
entertained by solving video game puzzles, and fans of the genre will find most of
TFCs puzzles challenging, and probably fun.
TFCs
player interface is surprisingly fluid, allowing game play not to interfere with the
puzzles. Only once did the interface make a puzzle more difficult to solve than it should
have been. Detective Shamleys palm-pilotesque pocket organizer serves as notebook,
inventory list, game map, and command console, and is accessible by right-clicking the
mouse. Shamley is driven primarily by keyboard controls via arrow keys and space bar, and
the mouse is only used when examining something up close. Shamley can run and jump, and
while hes less responsive and has a bigger turning radius than a Honda Civic,
Shamley is never called upon to leap flaming lava pits or dance around razor pendulums,
which makes his awkward handling a minor nuisance instead of a hair-clenching
hate-generator.
Unfortunately,
the graphics render Shamley, Alicia, and the other players into blocky, flat-faced,
ham-fisted models lumpier than an early Laura Croft. The environment, on the other hand,
ranges from adequately rendered to beautiful, and Shamleys psychic flashes appear as
cut scenes of footage from Hitchcock films that look as good as VHS. Overall the graphics
are passable, though they wont win any awards. The voice acting is quite good. Apart
from a slightly maddening Myna bird, none of the voices are nerve-shredding, and most
impart emotion or nuance that the lines alone do not. However, in a bid to ally the game
more closely to the films that inspired it, TFC is rendered from a jumpy third-person
point of view that doesnt necessarily follow Detective Shamley. The result is an
occasional long shot that makes it difficult to see the environment in Shamleys
immediate vicinity, or a closeup that cuts him from the picture altogether. Moving to a
different location usually corrects the problem.
In
addition to the awkward, sometimes bumbling camera work, TFC is still fairly buggy. I lost
access to my pocket organizer for minutes at a time in places where that shouldnt
have happened, I had to solve some puzzles twice because the solution didnt take the
first time, and some players report dead ends if they save and quit between particular
tasks. Moreover, walkthroughs are already available on the internet, and many players will
likely find themselves consulting one at least once, as its sometimes unclear where
Shamley should continue his investigation. As with any adventure game, players should make
it a point to search every inch of the environment, because missing a key card in an early
room can mean a lot of frustrated head-scratching in later acts. This close scrutiny means
as much as twenty or more hours of game play, though highly experienced players might
solve everything in half that time.
Fans
of adventure and puzzle games will certainly enjoy TFC, and the Hitchcock-obsessed will
appreciate the games many references to the master of psychological thrillers. A
broad knowledge of Hitchcocks work will actually help players solve many of the
games puzzles. But newcomers to the genre should be wary until theyre more
experienced with the strategies particular to solving video game puzzles. Ultimately, the
key to this game is patience. If youre not the calm type, you should just rent Rear
Window, or Psycho, or The Birds. But if youre a patient gamer with a knack for
thinking inside the game designers box; if you love Hitchcock and are hungry for a
way to put your Hitchcock trivia to use; and if you love a good mystery with plenty of
corpses, go ahead and pick up TFCits sure to give you a few good evenings.