<\/p>\n

At the time of the first Jane Jensen game, my computer didn\u2019t have a CD-ROM drive, so I unfortunately never got to hear Tim Curry perform the voice of Gabriel Knight.\u00a0Not having the CD version didn\u2019t matter, though, because Gabriel Knight and the rest of the settings in Sins of the Fathers<\/em> were so rich and interesting and well crafted, that playing the game sans voice work allowed me to interpret Knight on my own.\u00a0I was hooked.\u00a0Sierra On-Line pushed the boundaries of point-and-click adventure games with each Gabriel Knight<\/em> title.\u00a0Sins of the Fathers<\/em> included high quality voice work.\u00a0The Beast Within<\/em> took things further by doing full motion video performance in what was traditionally a 2D flat animation medium.\u00a0The third chapter, Blood of the Sacred, Blood of the Damned<\/em>, evolved further with the introduction of a full 3D game engine.\u00a0While watching the tech continue to grow over the course of the series was kind of fun, it was the narrative and characters that made the games worth playing.<\/p>\n

Jane Jensen was the creative force behind the characters and deep historic narrative of the three Gabriel Knight<\/em> games.\u00a0The same creative spark has returned with the new release of Moebius: Empire Rising<\/em><\/a>, a collaboration between Jensen’s Pinkerton Road studio and Phoenix Online Studios, makers of the excellent adventure thriller Cognition<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n

Moebius<\/em> differs slightly from the Gabriel Knight<\/em> formula. Malachi Rector stars as a dealer of antiquities who has a gift for finding fake or modified items, but does so with a rare and unique gift of remarkable memory and the ability to see patterns where many cannot.\u00a0His talents have earned him a healthy sum of money as well as a bit of a reputation.\u00a0Rector is slightly off-putting, but charming in his Sherlock Holmesian manner of deduction and logic.\u00a0He reminds me of a slightly less socially awkward blend of Sheldon Cooper from The Big Bang Theory<\/em> and Benedict Cumberbatch\u2019s interpretation of Sherlock, confident and suave yet gangly and slightly aloof.<\/p>\n

The voice work is confident and enjoyable, but there are times when the character model of Rector (and anyone else he comes into contact with) just seems a bit skewed.\u00a0 Rector almost looks like a bulked-up version of a wavy tube man with a nice suit on, his lanky movements across the screen causing a jarring distraction.\u00a0The game allows for double clicks on the screen which instantly transports Rector to that location, almost as if to acknowledge that character animation wasn\u2019t the highest priority during development.\u00a0While this is passable and not offensive, it does seem a bit out of place when looking at the depth of the narrative arc presented in Moebius<\/em>.<\/p>\n

The title Moebius<\/em> refers to a theory in which certain archetypes repeat throughout history.\u00a0The same rich, smart, politically minded female appears in different moments, such as Cleopatra, Anne Bolyen, or Livia Drusilla mirroring that of a modern woman somewhere around the globe now.\u00a0Rector is hired to discover which modern woman meets the same characteristics of the past to stop her from being murdered.\u00a0The summary sounds a bit far-fetched, but when combined with the references of historically significant figures who also fit the profile of Rector and his bodyguard, David Walker, the coincidences don\u2019t seem like too much of a stretch.<\/p>\n

Aside from the oddly lanky character models, there is something else weird with Moebius<\/em> (and point-and-click adventures in general). Usually the world is static with a hand painted background in which a 3D rendered model of the character will be able to move about. What stands out, is the fact that only objects that can be picked up are identified as interactive when the mouse cursor moves over it and the cursor changes.\u00a0It seems a bit silly, though, to put a lot of effort into making gorgeous background art but then to only have some of it be interactive. Of course, impatient gamers have a way to speed up the process by simply holding down the space bar to highlight every object that can be interacted with in some form. This takes away a bit of the fun of trying to find what should be clicked on, but also removes the frustration of pixel hunting by moving the mouse over every inch of the screen.\u00a0All objects that can (or will eventually) be used have some sort of interaction; however, not all objects can be picked up or used until certain events have been triggered.<\/p>\n

This leads me to one of the biggest goofs with Moebius<\/em>.\u00a0There are times where interacting with one character may require more than one conversational meeting.\u00a0What’s even more ludicrous is how, for example, a character Rector needs to talk to might be in Washington, D.C., yet key inventory items are only available in New York City.\u00a0During the course of one conversation in D.C., Rector realizes he needs to procure items from New York in order to progress the encounter and further the story.\u00a0Rector excuses himself, flies to New York, collects the items and then flies back.\u00a0One time I flew to New York, got one object, flew back to D.C. and started the conversation up again only to realize that I needed yet another object from the Big Apple, at which point I had to retrace my steps all over again. I don\u2019t know about you, but even if I had a private charter jet, flying back and forth between two major cities simply to continue a conversation seems overly expensive and unnecessarily tedious.\u00a0The game doesn\u2019t allow objects to be collected prior to the conversation yet clearly teases that an object is needed in the near future simply by being highlighted when the space bar is pressed.\u00a0This sort of design logic breaks any and all gameplay momentum.<\/p>\n

Overall, the puzzles aren\u2019t the typical find Object A to place into Object B like so many other point-and-click adventures, which is great. Instead, Rector\u2019s ability to deduce character traits from a given set of patterns forms the basis of many of the puzzles.\u00a0Logic deduction puzzles like this are my Kryptonite.\u00a0I can handle reducing down four or five characteristics from a short list, but having to reduce thirteen historic figures down to three led me to a resource that makes me proud as a father. I had to call upon my 11-year-old to help reduce all of the characteristics in what amounted to one of the most dense and cryptic logic charts I\u2019ve ever encountered.\u00a0Fortunately, the mind of my daughter is much sharper than that of her old man.<\/p>\n

Moebius<\/em> has a lot of potential, but is stymied by old-school animation and design logic.\u00a0While I enjoyed the characters and story, the manner in which certain elements unfold made for moments of pure drudgery.\u00a0I grew to like Rector\u2019s character by the end of the game and I would love to see another adventure take place in this world, with these characters, I just hope that a bit more polish can be applied if there happens to be a next time. It doesn’t measure up to the standard of Gabriel Knight<\/em>, but fans of Jane Jensen\u2019s work should still find enough point-and-click enjoyment in Moebius<\/em> to make it worth their while.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Pros:<\/strong>
\n+ Fascinating storyline with historic ties to a modern setting
\n+ Not every puzzle has the same tried and true inventory object-based solution
\n+ Interesting and well written characters that have depth<\/p>\n

Cons:<\/strong>
\n– Janky character animation
\n– Puzzle logic and conversations can be overly tedious
\n– Some objects can’t be collected until certain points of the game trigger them, which leads to tedious backtracking<\/p>\n

Game Info:<\/strong>
\nPlatform: PC, Mac
\nPublisher: Phoenix Online Studios
\nDeveloper: Pinkerton Road \/ Phoenix Online Studios
\nRelease Date: 4\/15\/2014
\nGenre: Adventure
\nPlayers: 1
\nSource: Review code provided by publisher<\/p>\n