The Black Mirror

The Good
I loved the gameplay system. If you're a big fan of 3d person point and click adventures, you will want to check this game out. Even though the sprites are 3d, they are not that ugly like they are in older games like Grim Fandango. The backgrounds are beautiful, and the weather effects are great.

I did like the puzzles in the game, they were not overly complicated and very logical. You will have to backtrack in this game in order to pick up certain items or converse about certain subjects, but I liked that because it is very structured and logical.

I did not think the story was 100% original. A man returns to a dark castle to investigate his family's past. But the game does incorporate a lot of horror and mystery elements. You won't just dive into corpses and blood and eyeballs; the game makes very nice transitions.

The sound was nice. It helped elucidate the mood and feelings of the particular scene.

Using your inventory was quite simple. I like how the programmers set the game up like a wide-screen movie and put the inventory in the bottom black bar.

The Bad
The voice acting was not good at all. Almost every character had no intonation or detectable changes of attitude. The script was not too bad, but the voice acting could have been better.

At certain points in the game, you will have to wait actual time before you can proceed. You may visit other locations, talk to other people, and just explore, but you will still have to wait for an event to pass before you can continue your "adventure." Sometimes I would return to a character to see if he was done researching a fact for me and each time he would say "Not yet. Come back later." for at least 10 minutes. It may have been realistic, but I did not enjoy that.

Though I did like the story, the ending was sort of a letdown. There was no climax, no fight, no epic battle, and hardly what I would call a resolution. Perhaps the writers ran out of ideas, but honestly, I could have written a better ending. And although I do like using logic, the ending could have been a bit more surprising and a bit less contrived.

The Bottom Line
If you find it for 10 US dollars like I did and you are a fan of adventures, especially 3rd person horror/mystery adventures, you should pick it up. More of an action or RPG fan? Probably not the game for you. But if you're in the mood for a decent mystery/horror game, you should probably pick it up. It will provide a few hours of entertainment.

The Good
The death of his grandfather, William, brings Samuel Gordon back to Black Mirror, the family's ancestral home. Although William was considered a kook and his death most likely a suicide, Samuel is investigating the matter. Samuel is convinced that the death was no accident and that the mystery's answer lies in the research William conducted, sequestered in the castle's tower. But will uncovering ancient family secrets bring new light to the matter or shroud the Gordon family in doom?

Black Mirror is a third-person, point-and-click adventure game set largely on the sprawling grounds of Black Mirror Manor including an asylum, the church and its grounds, and the town of Willow Creek. The game begins immediately after William's funeral and Samuel is reintroduced to his estranged family and meets the household staff. An uncle who secrets himself away in his study, an ill-tempered gardener, and a family doctor who hints that he knows something are just some of the cast members Samuel will deal with. In all, Samuel will explore an ad blurbian 150 locations and listen to five hours of spoken dialogue.

Like most adventure games, Samuel spends a good deal of time collecting inventory objects and dealing with environmental obstacles. Left-clicking on hotspots makes Samuel do something: open a door, use a key, start a conversation. Black Mirror also lets Samuel right-click hotspots, at times, for a more thorough investigation or to make a general comment about a person. While it does have its share of puzzles, Black Mirror is not a puzzle-heavy game and Samuel will make it through large chunks of the game simply by using the correct object at the correct time or by talking to people.

Conversation plays a huge role in Black Mirror and the designers did a good job of weaving household intrigue into the storyline. For instance, a casual mention that someone imbibes too much leads to the discovery of a household feud and a reflection on the state of the Gordon family. While much conversation relies on clicking icons, occasionally Samuel has the opportunity to be gentle or abrasive. This doesn't affect the game's outcome, but it does reflect on Samuel's character.

Black Mirror is atmospheric and has wonderful ambient sound effects that draw the player into a largely static scene. Although the story is clearly a horror/mystery, whether its origin is natural or supernatural is wisely left open until the game's ending levels. And as the death toll rises (and finally reaches the game's M-rating), events become more unsettling with Samuel's life increasingly placed at risk.

The Bad
Like many games, Black Mirror has an alphanumeric code the player types in the first time the game runs. Black Mirror also uses the insidious StarForce Copy Protection System which analyzes the disk to make sure it's an original. It does this every time the game starts and takes between thirty seconds to two minutes. Thank you, Adventure Company!

Anyway, Black Mirror has a lot going for it in terms of story and design, but suffers from poor pacing and weak game play. To begin with, things take longer in Black Mirror than they should. Early on, Samuel realizes that he should document the arcane symbols he finds around the manor. The easiest way to do this is to use his old camera, but he needs film. Luckily Robert has film in his trunk in the tower. So Samuel goes to the tower and finds that the trunk is locked. Trek back to Robert and Robert says, Oops, here's the key. Just wait until you have to get the film developed.

Backtracking seems to be Black Mirror's theme though. Samuel tends not to notice inventory until he needs something. Expect to revisit areas and pixel hunt from time to time, just to see if something new pops up. Occasionally characters will ask you to wait a bit before they can help you. This doesn't mean just waiting though, it means leaving the area and reentering it to see if "time" has "passed."

More annoying is Black Mirror's expectation that players draw from an external pool of knowledge rather than using hints within the game. While I wasn't stumped by basic chess moves or identifying planets by their shape, I did have trouble with a slider puzzle that relied on knowledge of the order and symbols of the zodiac. Utterly amazing, especially for a game that isn't afraid to be wordy.

Finally, at times I was completely jarred by what Samuel was expected to do. How do you get a kid to talk to a stranger? Give him candy! Wow. Samuel is, at turns, a prissy snob who doesn't want to get his hands dirty as he talks down to the staff and a conniving liar who sets up an elaborate electrocution trap. I have no problem playing a right bastard as long as the game establishes that he's a right bastard. Samuel seems more misguided, so this adds unnecessary confusion—like when a character asks you to go into town for something and tells you specifically where to find it, it's easy to think that's really what you are supposed to do.

The Bottom Line
I imagine Black Mirror had a lot of back-story that never made it to the game. As such, the story is interesting, but elements like the main character's tortured soul come off as self-important. Some elements that did make it to the final game should have been better developed. Samuel takes pills for his headaches. Couldn't that be incorporated into game play? It seems like Samuel has a hallucination at one point, spotting blood in a grinder. Wouldn't it be interesting having a character that sees things, unless he takes his medication—and then limit the number of pills he has? Why not let Samuel's personality options, apparent in some conversations, have a real affect?

Instead Black Mirror is a typical adventure game, which isn't to say that it's a bad game, but don't expect to be whisked away.

The Good
Have you ever played a game that you liked so much that you couldn't stop playing ... depriving yourself of sleep just to play a few minutes more? The Black Mirror is that type of game - at least it was for me.

The story is deeply "immersive" and creative. You can tell when Samuel first arrives that his family has had a long and prosperous history. The Gordons have lived in the beautiful "manor", Black Mirror Castle, for centuries. Servants take care of the mundane tasks around the lavishly decorated manor and its grounds. The Gordon home hides many secrets in the main living quarters and in those parts that are unknown (there are "secret" areas, of course!). The discovery of an early family feud between twin brothers and the curse one put upon the other is only the beginning of the intrigue. This tale kept me on the edge of my seat the whole time.

The Black Mirror has all of the components that make an adventure great. Besides the wonderful story, it is easy to install and use, and the graphics are utterly beautiful. 3D effects were carried out wonderfully! Babbling brooks, horses bobbing their heads in the stable .. even moths fluttering around a lamp at night.

Try wearing your headphones while playing it! You'll be amazed at the sound effects and the mood-enhancing music. Double the experience by playing in a dark room! Everything from the lovely sounds of birds in spring to the pitter-patter of rain was authentic sounding. The lightning made me jump out of my skin! The actors and actresses did a marvelous job portraying the parts, their speech laden with natural inflections, tones and accents.

The puzzles are so well integrated into the plot that they feel like mere "problems" to be solved. But, not all of them are easy - quite a few are downright hard.

The Bad
There's a misprint on the box and in the manual. Try installing this on a Pentium 2 and you'll be sorely disappointed. The "Read Me" file corrects the specs - it needs a Pentium 3 400 minimum.

I don't blame companies for wanting to copy protect their software, but I didn't particularly like the brand of software they chose for this one.

Several puzzles had me digging into the dictionary and encyclopedia to find the answers since none were provided in the game.

I didn't particularly like the ending. I was really anticipating a huge confrontation with the forces of evil. What I got was ... well, a bit disappointing. Although I must admit that what happened naturally concluded the "family curse" dilemma.

The Bottom Line
I loved The Black Mirror! Other than the few things I listed above, I thought it was absolutely wonderful. I can see why they released it just before Halloween. This is a really good, haunting story with all the suspense of a detective mystery .. with a twist. It played flawlessly throughout ... not a glimmer of a problem anywhere. There's quite a lot of dialogue between characters, and just a bit of reading. Plenty of save slots too. Wonderfully designed and a game I won't easily forget. My rating 5/5!