The Raven is one of the more enjoyable P&C adventures I've played in the past few years. And probably the best P&C mystery/detective adventure I've ever played. I really enjoyed Testament of Sherlock Holmes as well, but this was better done, in my opinion.

Many, many video games seem to be built by developers, programmers and artists, and then have a story sort of try and glue the pieces together loosely for an enjoyable experience. There is nothing wrong with that. There are a ton of really fun games out there with this formula.

In the case of The Raven, it felt like a team of writers (or maybe just one, I dunno) put together a fine story, and then built a game to wrap around it. For me, this was a departure from the typical game formula and a breath of fresh air. BUT, it won't be for everyone.

You get to play three different characters in the game (two male, one female) as you both try to unravel a mystery, and become a deeper part of it at the same time.

The game play is fairly typical P&C, with a few treats in regard to "repeat performances" at very specific "crossroads" in the game (I won't spoil it).

The game isn't without flaws. There are inconsitent commands when it comes to character movement, occasionally sloppy pixel area matching (when your mouse cursor can either click on an object well outside the object, or not at all). Audio sometimes cuts out, and the cutscenes occasionally get wonky. The game crashed on me a handful of times in the 14 hours I spent playing it. It has some warts when it comes to gameplay mechanics and execution.

But all that being said, it was STILL a joy to play. The character development is among some of the best I've ever experienced in decades of gaming. Dialogue that seems nebulous at times ties in wonderfully by the end of the game. In fact, SO good, that you'll even chuckle at the end at encounters that occurred earlier in the game when you realize the full context of the conversation later.

There is subtle and mature humor in just the right places when you've had enough serious dialogue. There are extremely mature subjects that are covered, and conversations that really pull you in if you've lived for longer than a few decades on this planet. And when I say "mature" I don't mean an ESRB version of it. There's not much in the way of sophomoric language or gratuitious violence. But there are very adult themes that many of us become sadly familiar with (or can laugh about) when we get older. And some we'll never laugh about.

The bottom line is that this is a true adult mystery with several wonderful twists, a killer storyline, some fun (but typical) P&C mechanics, and some fun and mostly logical puzzles.

If you enjoy a strong story in your games (or at all), or enjoy mysteries, or generally enjoy P&C adventures, I can recommend this. If you enjoy all three, then I think this title is a "can't miss" and even a bit underrated.

As someone who enjoys good point-and-click games, this was an averagely good one, though it wasn't an awesome one. As someone who's read and loved Agatha Christie, the constant references to her books, character and herself are simply adorable.

Things I liked about it:

• The plot felt like a tribute to Agatha Christie's mystery novels, even in certain apparently far-fetched plot twists. There are also nods to what became the "classic" plot in mystery novels. I loved it when one of the characters said something like "what do you think, we're going to come up with new surprise characters?" or similar. Even the cheesy romance that flourishes in the midst of adversity sounds like a nod to Christie's novels.
  
• The music is very nice and goes well with the game.
  
• NO PIXEL HUNTING. No extremely absurd combinations of inventory items, like "oh, let me glue cat hair to a baby rattle to make a crossbow".
  
• The voice acting is not outstanding, but it's good enough to keep you in the atmosphere.

Things I didn't like about it:

• There are several bugs. You get stuck walking but not moving, characters disappear in the middle of dialog, you disappear, objects disappear from your inventory, then they magically reappear. Sometimes you just have to restart from a previous save.
  
• The graphics looked unfinished. Sometimes I could see the eyeball through the angle of the eyelid, details like that.
  
• The movements were very awkward. Sometimes you arrive somewhere and have to examine an item, and for that, the character stops, turns left, stops again, turns a little more, stops again, then you have the animation of the character examining. Then, a pause, then the character's comment about it, then a pause, and then you can continue. It's not too bad, but it gets annoying after a few hours.
  
• There aren't enough puzzles, though it's probably fair to say that I don't count as puzzle using a key to open a door, even though sometimes these things can be considered puzzles by others. The very few puzzles are generally too obvious, especially with all the help you get. Sometimes you examine an item, and the character comments something like "Oh, that would be useful to do this or that...".

In general, it's fairly entertaining and I enjoyed it, probably because the continuous references to Agatha Christie kept bringing a silly smile to my face. If I had to grade it, I guess it would be 7/10, though I'm not sure I'd grade it like this if I hadn't been a Christie fan.

The game is corrupt on my mac. Cannot play it despite playing ££ for it, and reinstalling does not help. Greatly disappointed with the product that on the face of it sounded like fun game to play.

As a fan of adventure games, this game looked very intriguing. The story has a nice build-up with classic British mystery elements, however it all falls flat in the final chapter with a very anti-climatic conclusion. It felt like a cop-out to go that route. Other videogames have done this and it just does not sit well with me. It ruined the otherwise decent experience. As far as puzzles go it has some nice moments. Some frustration when you can't find an item you need to progress, but that's just part of the genre. The characters have nice personalities and voice-work. The game does control very clunkily, sometimes it's confusing to find out where to click to change screens etc.

Overall it's a decent adventure game, but since this is a mystery game I had high hopes for the story. Unfortunately, this disappointed me so much that it left a bad taste in my mouth and leads to my negative recommendation.

I had a lot of fun playing this game, I've played a good handful of detective-style games and this one was one of the most entertaining, of course the gameplay is slow like all detective games, but its not so slow and boring that it becomes uninteresting. I'd love to see even more in-depth detective games.

I'd rate this as a 5/10. I would not recommend this game.

I picked it up on a sale for $6.00. At that price I can live with the issues. But, for future gamers considering this title at the normal price tag of $24.99 ($29.99 for Deluxe) - I do not believe this to be a worthy spend.

The game does a good job with visuals, voice acting, and a decent story line. But, there are two things which have resulted in my negative review:
1) Be prepared for some frustrating character movements - there are times where you just want your 3rd person character to go to a specific location on the screen and he goes to another one altogether - prompting screen load times. This will happen quite a bit. Patience is king here, but I guarantee you this will happen if you use an XBox 360 controller as I do.
2) On two separate occasions (once in Chapter 1 and once in Chapter 2) - the game glitches and you will have to restart a long sequence of actions, repeating steps that lead up to the freeze.

On item #2 above - this is extremely tedious and nearly boring. The dialogues all over again because the game sequence got goofed up. I literally restarted the entire chapter and it was 30 minutes of repeating it all over again just because one of the "items" got stuck in a loop. It happened again to me a while ago in Chapter 2 in the museum. Rolling my eyes, I have to go through a few game saves to try and not repeat the entire chapter from scratch.

Hate to be negative (frankly - on any game developers), because I can tell they put allot of energy into this title. It just needs to be cleaned up (code) and the normal price should be no more than $9.99 in my opinion.

Excellent adventure game. A few areas are challenged by items that are hard to see (and therefore hard to discover) and a few times, you have the inevitable "oh, really, I was supposed to figure THAT out?" series of interactions, but overall a great game with a spectacular story. Execution is good to "above average" with two serious bugs encountered, but otherwise a smooth experience.

Um point and click episódico com 3 eps, alguns bugs na mecânica, o que atrapalha bastante na fluidez do jogo, e sérios problemas com suporte para o controle. Chega de detalhes técnicos, sobre plot, enredo, e desenvolvimento o jogo poderia ter sido bem melhor, a história possuia um potencial para ter sido um mistério bem mais elaborado, também a substituição de personagem na metade do jogo dificulta ao player se afeiçoar pelo novo protagonista, porém isso forneceu uma visão interessante sobre o jogo. Finalizando um jogo com dois primeiros episódios interessantes e, apesar de lentos, divertidos porém com um terceiro episódio de conclusão um pouco previsível e decepcionante com algumas pequenas parte aproveitaveis. Nota 6,10 para apreciadores de point and clicks clássicos e de experiências um pouco diferentes em desenvolvimento de enredo.

It's an interesting game if you like some point and click game that has mistery, puzzle and drama backed up with a really high quality soundtrack.

The characters are well made with good dialoge and some funny moments that make you giggle from time to time.

The locations are well thought out and camera angles are placed in such a manor that you don't miss clues or spend to much time scratching your head what to do next. Most of the hints are gathered from talking with other characters. There are some cases where you might get stuck as some objects are hidden more than others but it is not frustrating to figure out what's next.

There are some minor texture and character / object glitches but they don't take away from the overall experience.

In my opinion the game should have been more exposed as it brakes away from the flood of other games and it takes on a chance that not many publishers are willing to take on in recent years. I played the Broken Sword series and I enjoyed it very much so if you also have a background from those this will fell right at home.

If you don't want to pay full price than wait for a sale as it's worth it's asking price.

I've been on a point-and-click bender, lately. I don't know what sparked my intense nostalgia, but I'm pining for an experience like the old Lucas Arts classics. I'm jonesin' for some Indiana Jones or Grim Fandango. The Raven, unfortunately, was just lame and tedious. Really underwhelming. If P&C is your thing, it's worth a try, but this entry is probably not for a casual fan of the genre.

LOVED IT. Fun puzzles, not too hard plus an amazing twist ending.

It's a great game, Intelligent and complex. The plot and characters are interesting, and theres no annoying puzzles.
highly recommended.

Interesting concept with an ending that surprised me. Recommended!

Great for all ages, and a very positive atmosphere throughout the game. Some parts dragged on a little bit and the dialogue was interesting to listen to 80% of the time. The game reminded me of a family-friendly movie sort of similar to The Mummy. There was less action than I thought there would be, but as far as point-and-clicks go this was an enjoyable experience that even threw in some random educational facts here and there.

7/10

I really loved it! This became one of my favorite game.

The story itself isn't that heavy and could enjoy it without feeling depressed, (but put smile on my face.)
Some of the puzzles are little complicated but I had a fun trying out several methods.

I do so wish they will make this "The Raven"a series!

This is a lovely, traditional point and click made as a homage to Agatha Christie, and the references are delightful for fans. The graphics are good, the voice acting good and the music absolute perfection.

This isn't a hard game, but you can skip entire side plots by rushing. I both like and dislike that, and in the end I reloaded from an earlier save to experience that part of the game. So be aware, and listen carefully to what characters tell you. It isn't however important, but sad to miss parts due to scene triggers.

I would recommend this game as a solid title without convoluted puzzles and with steady story progression - all aboard the Orient Express!

All 3 episodes were fun to play. The characters were pretty good and their presence in the game believeable. The graphics were decent for this style of game. The only downside I would give was that it was sometimes difficult to find exactly where to click to get a chcracter to leave the scene and go to the next screen on.
But all in all this was a good effort by King Art's and for those that have never played the game I would recommend it. If I was going to give this a rating out of 10. If I was comparing this to a triple A title then of course it would score low but if I compare it to other games I have played that are similar to this one then I would give this a solid 7 out of 10

This was an excellent adventure game, though I can't say I'm surprised considering that this is the studio that brought the world The Book of Unwritten Tales, which I consider to be one of the best adventure games of the last 10 years at least. The puzzles are well thought out and make sense, while the story is very engaging, with believable characters and a plot that is told (and played out) from two totally different perspectives, which makes it highly entertaining.

Any adventure fan must play The Raven!

Finally a point'n'click with a not-dissapointing end. I enjoyed this game very well and the ending was also good enough, what is very unique in p'n'p adventures.
My only problem was, it's impossible to play on 4:3 monitor. The settings accept my resolution and didn't transform the picture, but cut the both side. So I cannot find every hotspot. But later I set the resolution to 16:9 and then everything went fine.

For a point-and-click adventure game, the main character is endearing, the overal scenery graphics are movie quality (there are weird glitches with the character though), and while it was fairly predictable, it was still good old fashioned fun! The music really fit this game as a time piece, and the dialog was well put together, if not a little long in the tooth.

I gave the entire 3 part series of the Raven: Legacy of a Master Thief a 4.25/5.0