Posted By: oldmariner
Gray Matter - 03/05/11 09:04 AM
Gray Matter
This is a difficult game to render any final decision on or to assess a rating. It suffers from many years of hype and expectations placed on it because of who its creator is. Jane Jensen gave us Gabriel Knight rich in characters with highly developed stories immersed in historical research. Gabriel was blessed with outstanding research where it was difficult to separate actual historical events from Jensen's historical extrapolation. How many game players actually were driven to look up facts about the Bavarian King to see how crazy he was? Jensen almost had you convinced he was a werewolf. With that anvil around Gray Matter's neck it suffered from an impossible task. Did it live up to that? Quite likely no, was it good, of course it was. Did it have flaws? It most certainly did. For those of you who remember Bob Uecker, the professional baseball player and "voice" of the Milwaukee Brewers, perhaps he said it best. Uke, who had a lifetime batting average of 200 and hit 14 home runs over twelve years, stated he could have hit 40 home runs a year. But in doing so he would have raised expectations and he did not need the pressure. Jensen stepped up to the plate and almost hit one out of the park.
The story is richly detailed with flawed characters who draw you in and keep you guessing. No spoilers here as any one of them could have been the bad guy except for our heroine, Samantha. As the story unfolds we do not know if the Doctor obsessed with the loss of his wife is going to do a Dr. Frankenstein or not. Jensen does not tip her plot off until the very end and I won't tell you either. There is no shortage of possible villains and the story will keep you guessing. This could either be a horror story or a romantic fantasy game. The story arc leads in both directions and throughout it could turn in either direction. It does strongly suggest it is a modern day Gothic romance.
As I usually do I will discuss how the game works rather than sing it praises or trash it. You decide I can't tell you to like a game or not. This is a third person point and click affair with no timed puzzles no action quick reflex challenges or musical notes to decipher. You can't get maimed or killed. Not one slider puzzle rears its ugly head. I will warn you in chapter eight there is the maze from H---. To make it worse once you complete it you get to do it again. It comes in the form of multiple rooms with numerous possible exits and devious clues to puzzle out so you can get to the next room. Most puzzles are of the inventory variety with the exception of having to employ magic tricks. I left out the part where our heroine was a street magician. A pretty good one at that and she does have a book of magic tricks. Look at the book you will use every one of those tricks. When you have to relieve someone of something you need Sam has to pick a magic trick from her little book. You must take an item and place it in say her left hand while sticking something in her right and then either instruct her to manipulate it or employ the art of misdirection. These little tricks are not easy in fact they are down right devious. To say you get to do this a lot is an understatement. To claim Jensen is a genius or sadists is for you to decide. Either have a walk through handy or plan on staying up late with a pot of coffee, or two.
The magic shop is where you get all the goodies for your "tricks". The problem is you cannot stroll into the shop and clean the place out as we are accustomed to in pick up everything in sight games. You need to know that you have a use for a particular item before you can take it. You figure that out when you decide upon whatever trick you need to play. Like I said it can be devious. Do I have to say many trips to the store are required? The good thing is you have a map for instant teleporting. The game is said to be non linear, it almost is. You cannot advance from chapter one to chapter two without completing all task but logical progression keeps the game in a point A to point B format. But you can do things in any order. However, it is easy to miss triggers requiring you to look at everything you can. Graphics are pretty standard fare with nothing that will present a wow factor. Overall they are pretty good as is the voice acting. The cut scenes are a different issue. In Becky's fine review she said "Much cut scene content has a surreal quality". Becky is a nice lady who was being kind. All I could think of regarding the cut scenes was they reminded me of the video quality you got from that 1985 fifty pound vhs camcorder. With that said the colour and visual detail are very well done. The setting is Oxford in the fall and the foliage rivals Saranac Lake in the Adirondacks
Playing this game on my Dell XPS410 with XP, 4gigs of ram and a mid range video card there were no crashes. I was playing the Lace-Mamba import from England not the US version. But there were some issues which I am unsure of the origin. The cut scenes more often than not would loop. In other words when finished they would immediately replay without returning to the game. Clicking on the screen you were given the option to cancel the cut scene and the game returned to where it was supposed to go without missing a beat. I never saw this happen before with any game. It was sometimes difficult to combine items in inventory and you had to try more than once to complete the task. There was one scene in chapter three that required use of a scanner. It just refused to work, finally after several tries it did. Use of the space bar provided a listing of all hot spots. The issue was the icons were so close together it was difficult to isolate on the one you needed. There are only twenty save slots which I used up before starting chapter five. I copy and pasted them into a separate folder and rewrote over the ones in the game as I progressed. I am not sure why I wanted to keep all the saves as I am doubtful this game has a second play to look forward to. Though one heck of a good game it is not Gabriel Knight.
When you first load the game up before hitting new game listen to the song that is playing. The whole song will play through if you listen without clicking anything. "Never Look Back" Sam's theme written by Robert Holmes performed by the Scarlet Furies, lead singer Raleigh Holmes, his daughter and Robert is on guitar. At the credit roll end of game you will hear "Safe in Arms" David's song by the same group. All in all there are 22 original songs some vocal some instrumental played through the game. All nicely done and not taking over the game. Search youtube for videos of the group and you can hear most of these songs. We are back to the opening question, did this game live up to the hype? Some will say yes and some will say no. I am still considering it. There is no question that it will entertain you. Jensen/Holmes and now their daughter demonstrate serious talent.
This is a difficult game to render any final decision on or to assess a rating. It suffers from many years of hype and expectations placed on it because of who its creator is. Jane Jensen gave us Gabriel Knight rich in characters with highly developed stories immersed in historical research. Gabriel was blessed with outstanding research where it was difficult to separate actual historical events from Jensen's historical extrapolation. How many game players actually were driven to look up facts about the Bavarian King to see how crazy he was? Jensen almost had you convinced he was a werewolf. With that anvil around Gray Matter's neck it suffered from an impossible task. Did it live up to that? Quite likely no, was it good, of course it was. Did it have flaws? It most certainly did. For those of you who remember Bob Uecker, the professional baseball player and "voice" of the Milwaukee Brewers, perhaps he said it best. Uke, who had a lifetime batting average of 200 and hit 14 home runs over twelve years, stated he could have hit 40 home runs a year. But in doing so he would have raised expectations and he did not need the pressure. Jensen stepped up to the plate and almost hit one out of the park.
The story is richly detailed with flawed characters who draw you in and keep you guessing. No spoilers here as any one of them could have been the bad guy except for our heroine, Samantha. As the story unfolds we do not know if the Doctor obsessed with the loss of his wife is going to do a Dr. Frankenstein or not. Jensen does not tip her plot off until the very end and I won't tell you either. There is no shortage of possible villains and the story will keep you guessing. This could either be a horror story or a romantic fantasy game. The story arc leads in both directions and throughout it could turn in either direction. It does strongly suggest it is a modern day Gothic romance.
As I usually do I will discuss how the game works rather than sing it praises or trash it. You decide I can't tell you to like a game or not. This is a third person point and click affair with no timed puzzles no action quick reflex challenges or musical notes to decipher. You can't get maimed or killed. Not one slider puzzle rears its ugly head. I will warn you in chapter eight there is the maze from H---. To make it worse once you complete it you get to do it again. It comes in the form of multiple rooms with numerous possible exits and devious clues to puzzle out so you can get to the next room. Most puzzles are of the inventory variety with the exception of having to employ magic tricks. I left out the part where our heroine was a street magician. A pretty good one at that and she does have a book of magic tricks. Look at the book you will use every one of those tricks. When you have to relieve someone of something you need Sam has to pick a magic trick from her little book. You must take an item and place it in say her left hand while sticking something in her right and then either instruct her to manipulate it or employ the art of misdirection. These little tricks are not easy in fact they are down right devious. To say you get to do this a lot is an understatement. To claim Jensen is a genius or sadists is for you to decide. Either have a walk through handy or plan on staying up late with a pot of coffee, or two.
The magic shop is where you get all the goodies for your "tricks". The problem is you cannot stroll into the shop and clean the place out as we are accustomed to in pick up everything in sight games. You need to know that you have a use for a particular item before you can take it. You figure that out when you decide upon whatever trick you need to play. Like I said it can be devious. Do I have to say many trips to the store are required? The good thing is you have a map for instant teleporting. The game is said to be non linear, it almost is. You cannot advance from chapter one to chapter two without completing all task but logical progression keeps the game in a point A to point B format. But you can do things in any order. However, it is easy to miss triggers requiring you to look at everything you can. Graphics are pretty standard fare with nothing that will present a wow factor. Overall they are pretty good as is the voice acting. The cut scenes are a different issue. In Becky's fine review she said "Much cut scene content has a surreal quality". Becky is a nice lady who was being kind. All I could think of regarding the cut scenes was they reminded me of the video quality you got from that 1985 fifty pound vhs camcorder. With that said the colour and visual detail are very well done. The setting is Oxford in the fall and the foliage rivals Saranac Lake in the Adirondacks
Playing this game on my Dell XPS410 with XP, 4gigs of ram and a mid range video card there were no crashes. I was playing the Lace-Mamba import from England not the US version. But there were some issues which I am unsure of the origin. The cut scenes more often than not would loop. In other words when finished they would immediately replay without returning to the game. Clicking on the screen you were given the option to cancel the cut scene and the game returned to where it was supposed to go without missing a beat. I never saw this happen before with any game. It was sometimes difficult to combine items in inventory and you had to try more than once to complete the task. There was one scene in chapter three that required use of a scanner. It just refused to work, finally after several tries it did. Use of the space bar provided a listing of all hot spots. The issue was the icons were so close together it was difficult to isolate on the one you needed. There are only twenty save slots which I used up before starting chapter five. I copy and pasted them into a separate folder and rewrote over the ones in the game as I progressed. I am not sure why I wanted to keep all the saves as I am doubtful this game has a second play to look forward to. Though one heck of a good game it is not Gabriel Knight.
When you first load the game up before hitting new game listen to the song that is playing. The whole song will play through if you listen without clicking anything. "Never Look Back" Sam's theme written by Robert Holmes performed by the Scarlet Furies, lead singer Raleigh Holmes, his daughter and Robert is on guitar. At the credit roll end of game you will hear "Safe in Arms" David's song by the same group. All in all there are 22 original songs some vocal some instrumental played through the game. All nicely done and not taking over the game. Search youtube for videos of the group and you can hear most of these songs. We are back to the opening question, did this game live up to the hype? Some will say yes and some will say no. I am still considering it. There is no question that it will entertain you. Jensen/Holmes and now their daughter demonstrate serious talent.