Moment of Silence (some spoilers)

D.A.Lewis · Post by **D.A.Lewis** » Sun Dec 05, 2004 4:17 am

Moment of Silence

This is an old school adventure game that has not been released in the States and based on the content, it just may never get released here.

The box says the game is about Peter, a Communications designer working on the governments 'Freedom of Speech' campaign. When his neighbors apartment is stormed by the NYPD swat team one night, Peter is drawn into a nightmare world of corruption, power and global domination.

Spoilers:
But get this, Peter is depressed because his wife and kid were killed in a plane crash caused by a terrorist. There are a ton of 9/11 comments in the game although that actual incident has thus far not been mentioned. Additionally Peter's job smacks of contemporary political media consultants that are for the most part soulless. In any event the story is playing out sort of like 'Deus Ex' with all the conspiracy stuff. Thus far, I see a lot of finger pointing at our (USA) way of life. And as far as gaming goes, that's a good thing.

Unfortunately, the game play is lacking. Many times in order to solve a puzzle you have to totally exhaust all the dialogue options, even though some of the dialogue choices are totally contradictory. Also, like many adventure games your actions are limited within the scene and some places can't be entered until a story event sets it off. And also a lot of the gaming is strictly a pixel hunt. That is, looking for the hot spot that either lets you out of the scene or finding the quest object.

One reason the genre pisses so many people off is that so many designers hold on to these archaic design decisions. When you think about it the standard adventure game has changed only in two areas. One better graphics and two point and click as opposed to a parser. But every thing else is pretty much the same. Still given those parameter a graphic adventures can still be a great game (Sam & Max, Grim, Longest Journ, Syberia).

But as far as Moment of Silence, I like these types of conspiracy stories and the writing is first rate. Also most of the voice actors are excellent (although I think most of these New Yorkers are clearly British) and the music is very good. But while the graphics are not Myst quality, they work quite nicely. So what we have is a top notch production with questionable game play.

But the story is very good and Peter's story is quite compelling. I'm sure this is a game I am going to finish. I will of course report back at games end.

Moment of Silence

JayG · Post by **JayG** » Sun Dec 05, 2004 8:39 am

I was tempted to pick this one up. It's been getting great reviews here in Europe, and it's been an age since I played a decent adventure game. I do hate games which refuse to continue until you have exhausted every dialogue choice though. Seems a cop out.

D.A.Lewis · Post by **D.A.Lewis** » Mon Dec 06, 2004 5:24 pm

Okay people

This game has the absolutely worst play design in an adventure game I have ever encountered. You are basically running around all over the place for no reason other than to solve a puzzle. It's an off shout of the puzzle genre in the adventure games where you have to move tiles or pikc the right gears but in this game it is all about talking to people extensivly over and over again and many time for no other reason than to advance to the next plot point.

Example
I am searching the whereabouts of a my neighbor who was kidnapped by the police. The trail leads my to an underground hacker lair. The point me to the direction of The Seti Telescope in Puerto Rico. Fine the only problem is that they only way I can get a ticket is by going back to work (and by the way I had to go through special hoops to get the time off to do my investigation), dig in my bosses desk and steal a ticket. The game provides no logic why I should have ever went back there in the first place.

Still, regardless of the piss poor game mechanics they game story is fascinating and I have to play just to find out what is going to happen next. The game writers have tapped into a new world conspiracy that is starting to just now see the bright light. Too bad they had absolutely no design. Playtesting would not have helped this game is so poorly constructed. Still, with the help of my walk through I am going to finish this story.

Clearly you don't want to spent big bucs on this game but when it is bargin bin, download the walkthrough and enjoy the game.

Gorath · Post by **Gorath** » Fri Dec 17, 2004 2:22 am

I have to agree to a certain degree to your criticism. There´s way too much running -or better walking- in this game and theirs a lack of quest hints/feedback. It´s sometimes pure luck to find out where to go next. I hope this improves in the 2nd half of the game.

The production values are quite good for an adventure. Even the English translation was good. Music very good, FMVs also only one level behind Blizzard.

Story, storytelling and writing are absolutely top notch. You´ll be hard pressed to find a game better in this area - over all genres. I played KotOR 2 weeks ago, it´s very good but not better than MoS.
The story makes you move forward, no matter how mediocre the rest is at times.