Review | Still Life 2

Format: PC | Genre: Adventure | Publisher: Iceberg Interactive | Developer: Microïds/GameCo | Release date: 19/02/10 | RRP: £24.99

Worse, though, are the timed puzzles that crop up every now and then for both playable characters. They’re a hideous inclusion, leaving you flailing around with no clue of how to progress, before the timer runs out and you’re promptly killed. There’s no way of knowing when they’re about to arrive, either – at one particularly hateful point in the game, a snake jumps from a cupboard out of the blue and bites you – meaning you’re not even given time to plan. It’s simply a case of replaying the same section of the game again and again, until you finally spot that tiny item, lodged out of sight, that allows you to safely progress.

Still Life 2 is obviously a fan of the SAW films. From the timed puzzles, to the taunting, disguised voice of the killer, right through to the gritty, grimy locations in which the game takes place, it’s practically an homage to that series. That isn’t a bad thing per se; it just presents Still Life 2 at its weakest and least creative.

It’s far more interesting when, as Victoria, you’re tasked with collecting and analysing a range of evidence from the woodland house in which the killer was last spotted. Early on, you’re given a staggeringly implausible testing kit which allows you to gather evidence and instantly determine, with absolute precision, who that strand of hair of blob of blood belonged to. An extended forensic search towards the end of the game’s first half drags on a little bit too long, and descends into irritating pixel hunting, but the feeling of being a super-efficient FBI agent is enough to carry it through.

TIME MACHINE
It’s an intriguing game, with a story that stays just on the right side of mysterious, even if you can spot the reveal a mile off. What’s even more intriguing, though, is the fact that this is the sequel to Still Life. If you didn’t know any better, you’d be sure it was the other way around.

Still Life, for all its problems, at least had style on its side. Theatrical and constantly beautiful, its cinematics and gorgeously pre-rendered backgrounds gave it a real identity. In its jump to full 3D, but an engine that simply can’t cope, Still Life 2 takes a spectacular step backwards.

Polygonal characters glitch and glide through bland and blocky environments, adorned with misaligned textures. There’s very little detail, and very little to give Still Life 2 a much needed boost of character. Even at their most evocative, the locations are derivative of a plethora of detective shows and slasher movies. At their worst, they’re not rendered properly at all: on one of the camera’s regular jaunts in the wrong direction, you can see up above the trees and into the void of nothingness beyond.

Even the peripherals lack polish. The inventory system is difficult and clunky. For no discernable reason, its background churns and jitters away like a bad animated gif, nauseating and horrible. In an incredible disregard for common sense, it prevents you from picking up even the tinest object – say, a strand of fibre – if the inventory’s full, while quite happily letting you cram a double matress into a small cabinet. Elsewhere, the fonts look like bad Word art, pushing out dialogue that would be better suited to a parody than a serious thriller. The voice acting’s no better – only Victoria’s actress, reprising her role from Still Life, provides respite from the high school drama club nonsense.

The first game might have been broken and incomplete, but at least it had charisma. Its sequel is chronically lacking in that department, and impressively feels significantly less finished than its predecessor. It’s not the worst adventure you’ll ever play. Far from it. But considering the enormous promise of what came before, and its decision to completely ignore it, Still Life 2 is a bizarre failure. By Lewis Denby

4/10

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