Buy Shades of Black

pros

-lots of exploring in a number of different and gorgeous looking environments.
-there are some interesting indoor and outdoor locations such as Sala Silver Mine Suite and Eco Lodges. these locations presenting with ımmersive and colorful first-person realistic photographic stills. it feels to you as if you re really there!
- there are many hard to solve but enjoyable puzzles.
- relaxing soundtrack
- lenghty gameplay.

cons

-story concluded pretty cliche in the end
-pixel hunting some in door locations.
-sometimes you don't know what to do next.

The Carol Reed games are wonderful point and click adventure games with an easy story, wonderful visuals and fun puzzles. Shades of Black is just as wonderful as the previous games even though it is a touch more adult in nature. The adult theme worked with the plot and wasn't overly done.
This game is the latest in the series of which there are 11 total. I recommend all of them to any lover of point and click games.

This installement of the Carol Reed series had been sitting on my desktop for a while as I had wanted to wait for a weekend when I had time to myself to play it. Carol Reed adventures are those kind of Games.

I reserved two days to play it, without interuption and once again Carol didn't disappoint.

The story was very quick to get into. The case is introduced in the first 5 minutes, which is somewhat quicker than previous titles and there is little to check out what's going on in Carol's home. From there the initial pace is quite rapid, with a stream of locations opening up as the plot thickens.

The storyline is intriguing and the conclusion was a complete surprise (no spoilers here...go play it!). The pace was a burst initially, then a steady series of clues to unravel the situation, with a very dramatic, though too short finale.

There is some great artwork in this game. The whole place looks beautiful and I'd love to vist the town one day. The colours are amazing as always and the paintings on the walls of a house you'll visit are fabulous.

Some of our favourite side characters make an appearance, though all very briefly. Stina pops up twice, Bigge is doing his usual job and we meet Jonas again.

We also meet a fabulous buxom Mistress who obviously caters to both sexes as she was very comfortable with a directly down to action approach when Carol knocked on her door. I hope Mistress will come back in future Carol Reed cases. Mistress's props are sprinkled thoughout the game and her wonderful nipple clamps are an essential tool for Carol, as well as for Mistress's devotees. We also hear the sound of the crack of Mistress's whip every time we move to the game menu and it actually sounds as if it is of the bull whip variety and it certainly raises the pulse slightly each time it cracks.


I found Shades of Black to be easier than other Carol Reed games, and possibly the easiest of the series so far, but this is due to the clear direction of the scavenger hunt type clues. I finished this title quite a lot faster than previous Carol Reed games, but maybe this is because I am getting better at them. There is a hint book, but I found it unnecessary, though I did resort to the space bar to highlight hotspots on two occassions. I found the hotspot bar too tempting in a previous episode and actually would prefer to have the no hint system of the earliest Carol Reed games. Maybe the developer, Mikael, could offer an option at the start of the game as to whether the player can choose to deactivate the spacebar hotspot highlighter and the hints book as they are a temptation.

So, for point and click adventure fans, here's another great Carol Reed investigation that will raise the blood prssure at times and take you on a further quest through beautiful scenes to uncover more nefarious Norrkoping life.

I have play for a few hours and it shows me all of the time spent and my accomplishments but it will not let me access the two times I saved the game. This game sucks!!!!!

Shades of Black is the eleventh entry in Carol Reed's series. Here, Carol tries to publish a book about one of her previous investigation (The Blue Madonna) but fails to do so. However, one of the publishers contacts her after a writer disappeared without contact. It's up to Carol to find why Gerald Black is hiding from the world and who wants to hurt him.

To remind you, Carol is a British national that visited Sweden and fell in love with the country. She's now living there and is a private investigator. As the gameplay didn't change from Bosch's Damnation, the previous game and the first one to be on Steam, here's part of my Steam review for this one.

It's a point and click game, you find objects, you use them, you solve puzzles thanks to clues and you speak with people. The game is done with real life pictures and real people. There is no video inside but you can see differences in the pictures: people are making differents expressions, if you open a door, you'll see it open.

It could be a walking simulator as you're walking from scene to scene without having to search something and each close-up doesn't bring everytime a clue or an object, just a nice view... and the fact that in real life, you would have looked at that.

The soundtrack is as usual a good one, and the voice acting is really interesting.

In terms of plot, the game is well-written. You're really going from surprise to surprise (Mrs Allegra was a huge help for example though your first meeting with her was kinda... intimidating). Besides, the achievements added aren't tied to the story but to actions you may do or not.... but there is one that nobody seems to find as it's the publisher and not the developer that did that (developers are selling their games on their site, I should perhaps play the older Carol Reed, now that they accept ways to pay that I can access).

Seriously, Shades of Black is really a good game. It's maybe less focused on Swedish culture like in Bosch's Damnation due to the fact that you've gone from museum to museum in that one but it's still enjoyable. Good idea to bring it on Steam!

I found the game less interesting than the previous ones, the plot is complex with final twist, perhaps less characters to interact with. but it is always a pleasure to play. advice, Bosch's the damnation, Cold Case summer, Amber blood, east side story.

Enjoyable.

You can say it is the most beautiful game in Steam!

It is a photo-adventure, that is, all screens are actual (100% photo-realistic) pictures of real places. MDNA Games makes such games for many years already - the hero is Carol Reed, an English girl living in Sweden and working as a private detective. However, you do not have to play all previous games to enjoy it - each one is a complete story in itself.

Definitely recommended to everyone!

Though I've only played this for a short time I found it different than most hidden/adventure object games I played. The tutorial was very straight forward and simple. I looked how real pictures are used and people with voices. I liked looking for things without all the clues (like sparkles saying "LOOK HERE!") It made the game more challenging having to watch for the curser icon to change from a yellow dot to a hand, magnifier or gears. It was nice to be able to pan around the room by clicking on the far right or left arrows when they appeared. I can say I like the game thus far.