Black Mirror
An Ominous Turn of
Events…
You see a dark foreboding castle, cloaked in
darkness and the pouring rain. As lightening flashes and thunder
rolls, we move towards a tower with candlelight shining through its
windows. Entering the dim lit room, we see an old man come in,
clutching a massive candlestick. He places his candlestick down upon
an old roll top desk and takes up his pen. He is writing to his
Grandson, Samuel Gordon. Is it a warning, a plea or perhaps a dark
legacy for the intended recipient? He seems nervous and on edge –
glancing frequently at the window. Something is coming, something
sinister, perhaps even evil. It rolls up the outside of the tower
wall making it’s way towards that tower room. The man writes with
deliberate haste, driven to finish his message. He startles as he
senses some force drawing ever closer. The candles flicker and then
abruptly go out. Our view shifts and we are now looking up at the
blackness of those tower windows. The darkness deepens to an
oppressive level and then the window bursts open as the old man
screaming falls to his death on the iron fence below.
The Path of Evil
Samuel Gordon arrives to attend the funeral of his
beloved Grandfather, William Gordon. He has been away 12 long years
and yet has no desire to remain. Black Mirror, ancestral seat of the
Gordon family, signifies dark memories and loss for him. He suffers
from disjointed nightmares, filled with dark images and headaches
that level him to the floor. However, he is distressed when he
receives no ready answers for Williams violent end. Samuel decides
to stay at Black Mirror, at least for a short time, so he can learn
more about his Grandfather’s mysterious death. Disturbing details
about the last months of his Grandfather’s life, quickly surface. He
had become reclusive and obsessive, locking himself away for days.
About what specifically, no one seems to know. Samuel also finds
increasing evidence of a darker mystery, rooted not in the present,
but in ancient times and mystical evils. For Black Mirror’s
foundations are laid in the blood of others, brother against
brother, good against evil. As Samuel is pulled deeper into this
mystery, his resolve to leave is muted by his determination to find
the truth at all costs. The costs may be far more than Samuel
imagined, perhaps his life – perhaps his soul.
The story of Black Mirror is finely tuned. There
is plenty of back-story to be picked up along the way and details to
be gleamed from any number of interactions. If you just want to get
through the main story and take the shortest path through the game,
you will enjoy yourself. However there are a large number of items
that you can take note of. Some upon closer inspection serve merely
to enhance the creepiness of the game. Others provide interesting
historical filler about the family and events of the past and today.
There are a number of side stories that serve to enhance characters
stature as suspects in a series of ongoing murders. Again I suppose
it’s not necessary to push the limits of the plot as far as the
developers allow. But here is my advice. If you bypass much of these
points of interest, you will experience a watered down version of
the game. The fact that some probably passed up the wealth of
delightful hints, details and sub stories may explain the variation
in reactions to Black Mirror.
I would like to say that all the threads are
obvious to a careful eye or even fully explained. Again, this game
has so many details, characters, dialogues, puzzles and side
stories. I expect that I missed out on more than a few plot points
while playing Black Mirror. Some seemingly unexplained story lines
might have been red herrings. Perhaps they never even existed. One
of the aspects of the story in Black Mirror is that it is a tale
seen through a glass darkly. It is designed to play with our
perceptions and take advantage or our pre-conceptions. This leaves
us open to surprise, by sudden twists in the game. I have a good
idea that this game will generate more than its share of interesting
debates over these plot twists. This is the mark of a good tale.
Perhaps some things are just best left to the thoughts, imagination
and debates of the players.
Welcome To The Family
After the riveting cinematic that opens the game,
we are treated to a voice over against a black screen. The game next
opens in a traditional English drawing room, with all the main
characters in attendance. This is a cast such as those seen in
English or Hollywood horror films made in the 40’s and 50’s. The
figures in Black Mirror would seem very familiar to fans of such
films as: The House of Wax, The Black Cat, The Mummy, Ten Little
Indians and other classics. To be complete, we need only have Boris
Karloff (a footman) walk in and say “Good evening and please allow
me to introduce the Gordon family and friends.”
We have Samuel, our leading man. He is reluctant
to be back at Black Mirror. Returning only to attend the funeral of
his beloved Grandfather William, Samuel is unsettled and not set on
lingering for very long at Black Mirror, the name given to this
ancient family seat. There is his Grandmother Victoria. She seems
distant and quite proper. Much the same can be said for Samuel’s
Uncle Robert, and Bates, their butler. These characters are revealed
through the developing story, documents and dialogues. There is a
formality to these people and their interactions. Rather than a
reflection of slightly sluggish graphics, I think it is a deliberate
style choice made for the game. It really suits the tone and
atmosphere well. I also saw this as a deliberate, measured flow to
gameplay and the plot. There are other people who round out our game
cast. We have the village residents; a charming young boy, his
step-dad the pub owner and those that frequent the tavern. We have
the fatherly priest and the requisite gravedigger, as somber and
still as his clientele. There are a large number of characters you
interact with in this game and it is a pleasure to travel through
the many environments in Black Mirror and interact with such a
diverse group. Voice talent is very well done for the most part.
Though some, especially Samuel have an oddly stilted manner of
speaking. However, he constantly refers to his medication and
suffers from horrifying nightmares, which increase in intensity
during the game. I came to view Samuel as a person with an unnatural
response to events, one who seemed artificially sedated and maybe a
tad too tightly wrapped. It is interesting that the one close up in
the game occurs with Samuel, when he learns a final twist in this
tale. In that one scene, Samuel reacted vividly and with great
emotion. So I think Samuels odd delivery through out the game, was
another deliberate style choice. It suits the plot extremely well
and adds to the growing tension in the game. I did find the
dialogues themselves to be a bit clunky and too formal at times.
Much of this I attribute to the fact that the game was originally
written in another language other than English. Translation is often
an area not quite as good as it could be in many games created in
Europe. But again, it felt quaint after a short time and it didn’t
affect my enjoyment of Black Mirror.
There is a slight delay of perhaps 3 or more
seconds when you transition through dialogues with other characters.
It appears to be a slight lag that develops as the character
responding finishes their animation loop. One thing that could have
been improved is the animation speed in some areas.
The Darkness Rises
The look of this game is outstanding. I spent a
great deal of time, walking around and exploring all the nooks and
crannies of each new setting. This game has so many places to travel
and explore. It has an extraordinary variety of game settings. You
arrive initially at Black Mirror, the family estate. The estate and
family line dates back to the earliest days of England as a nation
state. The original founders, two brothers, are the stuff of legend
and pre-date ancient tomes from the 13th century found in
the library. You will wander across the estate, within the house,
through underground cisterns and ancient passages. You will visit
the local village, a cemetery, an old mine, a church, an asylum and
so many other locales. There are just too many unique environments
to recall and list in the space of one review. There is further
travel to visit another branch of the Gordon family and this estate
is again rich with areas to search and investigate. This is
definitely a game that I will soon replay just to really see what I
am sure I must have missed the first go around. The graphics are
crisp in some areas, darker and muted in others. If game graphics
are important to you, Black Mirror will thrill you. Lighting,
shadows and the little touches were not once neglected or misplaced.
Instead of using shadows, lightning and such additional animations
everywhere – special touches were used only where they would truly
add to the scene and mood. Where they made sense form a game
consistency viewpoint.
The sound effects, music and ambiance deserve
their own separate review. I can’t rave about this aspect of the
game enough – but I am sure going to give it a good try. It is not
just the individual choices of effects or the music written for the
game that excels. It is the way in which these things were so
meticulously built into this game. The devil may well indeed be in
the details and boy did they spend time on them in Black Mirror. If
you don’t get the chance or take the time to play this game with
headphones, you will miss out on a fabulous experience. One scene
in particular illustrates what I am trying to describe. You are in
the cavernous entry room of the sanitarium. It has a tiled floor, as
contrasted with the carpeted interiors of the estate. When Samuel
speaks with the night nurse in attendance, their voices echo through
the room. If you turn your character the voices shift appropriately.
I was so blown away. The entire game is like this both visually and
acoustically. They have liberally made use of incidental anims in a
variety of scenes. As you make your way through the side garden, a
bird flits across the sky and a few dry leaves drop from the trees.
This is often at your periphery, so it startles a bit and creates
this lush feeling and a sort of suspended reality as you move
through this game. In other areas the gloom darkens, the sound of
the wind rustling through the trees gives you pause. There is also a
murmuring sub recording that is very subtle and occurs during some
scenes. It barely rises to a sound level that you consciously
notice, but if I paused in the drawing room or in places to take a
few notes – I would suddenly hear it there subtly scratching at the
corners of my thoughts. These wonderfully constructed nuances merge
together into a total ambiance that deftly enhances the mood and
atmosphere of the game. These also serve to gently elevate the
tension and suspense you feel as you progress. Just stunning.
The Challenges we face
The puzzles were logically integrated within the
plot and environments. We have locked doors, ancient mechanisms,
mechanical devices to get running and items to pick up. I found the
puzzles in Black Mirror to be fairly straight forward in design and
none were exceptionally difficult. One element that causes a few
unnecessary game delays, are some pixel hunting moments. The curser
glows red when there is anything to interact with, so this is always
a matter of too much haste in any location. But because the scenes
are so richly detailed and large, it is easier than you think to
miss items. Another reason to take your time when entering scenes in
Black Mirror. The game also has its share of items that you cannot
use yet or pick up, but they will become very important later on. So
take note of things that look useful for later interaction. If you
get stuck, always go back and re-check areas you have visited before
or speak with characters again. They may have something new to add.
The large scale of the game does make for some frequent traveling,
but fortunately all movement between areas is done through a handy
map feature.
There is one odd game feature that needs to be
noted. The inventory is adaptive to where you are in the game. Not
consistently, but it happens. Inventory items you have picked up may
all of the sudden vanish from your inventory. This happened to one
item that I picked up early in the game. It was fairly obvious it
was a key item. It stayed in my inventory for much of the game, then
poof it was gone. I half thought I had dropped it at an earlier
point where I had been trying things from my inventory on some
mechanism. But, I decided to keep on with the game and figured if I
hit a dead end, I would re-load a saved game. When the time came for
its use – poof there it was along with just the other items I
needed. So be aware when this happens – it’s no glitch or worry.
No, it’s just a quirky thing about this build.
One other caveat. The game has only 24 save slots.
This may seem adequate, but I saved a great deal in this game. There
are a few games over moments. It is a creepy game, so I doubt any
will catch you truly off guards. But you will save a great deal more
times than 24. So if there are any you want to save in particular,
be careful not to over write these when you start doubling over
prior saved games. Obviously, remember your standard adventurers
rule number one. Save and save often, whenever things look risky.
Final thoughts
There are a few things that could have been done
better in Black Mirror. More save slots, keeping items that need to
be found away from the periphery of game scenes, faster character
animation loops and a more attentive translation of game dialogues
and scripts. But these flaws are completely overwhelmed by the big
picture. This game amazed me. I haven’t been this immersed in a
game, since I played Syberia. I even loved the way the menu slammed
shut with a resounding bang every time I quit the game. Bottom line
for me; the lush graphics, astounding sound effects, rich story line
and incredible eye for detail create a game that is truly destined
to be an adventure classic.
Grade: A
I played this game on the following system:
Pent 4 - 2.6 GHz
XP home edition
512 RAM
Nvidia Ge Force 5200
128 Mb video
SB Live sound card
design copyright © 2003
GameBoomers
Group
