The characters are all interesting and you can become easily consumed with trying to understand what is happening. Unfortunately, I noticed who was doing the crimes in five minutes. Then you become stuck with making sure you do everything in order or some actions will disappear completely leaving me to start a new game. Plenty of bugs in the game.

More bugs outside of the game especially with trying to use it on windows 8; before starting the game it had an error saying something about a 3D also once you minimize the game it kept crashing. Thankfully since the game is extremely short, constantly starting over wasn't bad. I probably have a bunch of hours on this game from walking away from it to snack and watch t.v. lol. You can probably finish the game in an hour. Once I reached the end, it felt dry and very unsatisfying. So i tried to go back and do different things in the game but it was pointless.

Overall the game was interesting but you can definitely save yourself money and time because it is just not worth it.

First off... reason that I do not recommend this game comes from the fact that:
- this is an old game which means it's not compatible with Windows 7 64bit.

You can make it run, by changing settings on exe to run as admin, also you can choose compatibility mode (Win NT was ok).
But to be able to recommend I would have to be certain that any player will be able to make those adjustments, and that you will be able to bear other issues (like random freezing on loading game, or crashing after ALT-TAB to check walkthrough, because you will need it, trust me)

Now, I'll review this game, from perspective of story and play mechanics and puzzle quality.

STORY:
Story is intriguing but could be better. If you were a fan of Still Life, then you probably could neglect all issues (technical and gameplay wise) that you will find here. What I found to be most annoying was that conversations and results in some cases depended on your answers and questions, and in some cases it did not matter. For that reason I was not sure, how important is right selection of answers. Also, in some cases I was able to talk with NPC of things that I still have not discovered which effectively ruined the story line and suprise moments. Try not going ahead of yourself. Make sure you collect all evidence before talking with people as it will effect what they give you back storywise, so you could miss some important parts. Make saves before talking with NPCs so you can revert if you make mistake.

PUZZLES:
I needed walkthrough in 2-3 points, where I simply could not determine what puzzle is about. Story is too thin and there's just not enough clues to help you "connect the dots". At one point there are 3 puzzles in same room. And I haven't had a clue why was I doing any of them, and how are clues in the room connected to this 3 puzzles. Text that was supposed to help me with one, was just to abstract even to be sure to what that relates. Ability to do things ahead of story adds up to the confusion.

GAMEPLAY:
Discovering items is extremely easy unless they are hidden. You can usually spot items from the first time you enter the scene. Although if something is on shelf, you should examine shelves thoroughly as you might miss something. To be able to examine something you have to "stand in right perspective". For example, you want to make a closer look on something, it will not work, unless if you're in right spot, and there's one odd spot close to game end. Also, when examining some things, you will have trouble figuring out that there's additional to examine, because nothing points out you should look more closely. This is poorly done. Should be covered in story so you at least know why are you doing something. Through whole game, you will never combine items, so don't bother.


Important tip!

There are 3 alternative game endings. The end game results, depend on your previous actions, one of them being if you succeded to clear certain suspect in jail from guilt, did you provide ALL evidence. Don't talk with inspector unless you have everything ready. Save before talk, and make inspector to interogate that suspect again. If he does, you succeeded, this leads you to ending #2 and #3. You can later revert to save, not clear suspect of guilt and go for possible endings #1 and #2. Endings also depend on last conversation.

Movement isn't perfect, but workable. Multiple endings make the game interesting to play a few times, but there are difficulties in finding a walkthrough for my specific playthrough if I get stuck. The way to choose your responses is not ideal, I like to see all of my options at once, and choose one from there, this method of tabs leads me to accidentally say things, changing my intended storyline. The graphics arent perfect, but the story overrides that. Drawing the sketch of the suspect is difficult, some things are too vague to finish the sketch. There have been multiple places I have not been able to complete things that the walkthroughs have instructed me to complete, but I have mostly moved on without those. Overall it's a good game, with critical flaws

You are gonna need a walkthrough son.

Alt + Tab crashes the game.

Good luck.

Post Mortem is an Adventure game from the French maker Microids. They’ve been in the Adventure game business since 1985. Post Mortem was released around 2002 and is the prequel to the Still Life series but, it is rather dated now. After looking through the other reviews of this game, I see a few people have had some problems running this game. I have a Windows 7 64bit Gaming Machine and everything runs fine. Yea, I know, why am I using a Gaming Machine for an Adventure game? I have plenty of great games but, there comes a time when I get tired of killing zombies and such. I like Adventure games and I have about 15 of them. Post Mortem is nothing special. The graphics and sound are typical for that time period. It has a great story line as you play a PI in this Murder Mystery. It’s a little different from the other Adventure games that I’ve played in the past. There’s not a whole lot of searching and collecting objects, you mostly interview suspects, extract clues and try to put the pieces together to solve the crime. I recommend you Save your game before any conversation because if you ask the wrong questions, you may miss out on some of the vital clues. There are also several different ways to end the game. Post Mortem has some interesting puzzles throughout the game. There are a few towards the end that are quite challenging. If you get stuck, a true adventurer will put the game down for a while and think about it but, you can also look for a Walkthrough, there are several on the Internet. A word of warning, you cannot toggle between the game and the Walkthrough without the game crashing. And for the love of God, don’t sit there and play the game with the Walkthrough in front of you, I mean, what’s the point? I saw in one of the reviews that a player completed the game in so many minutes. Sit back and enjoy the game, live it. On a scale of 1 – 10, I give the game a 4.5. I recommend the game only to true adventurers. Catch the game on sale like I did at Christmas 2013 on Steam. I bought the Still Life series, Post Mortem, and Scratches real cheap, and I’m glad to have added them all to my collection.

it's ok, not as good and the Still Life sequels but worth a play though if you like adventure games.

This is the zeroth entry in the Still Life series and is an interesting if at times buggy adventure game with a few slow moments but the puzzles, story and atmosphere really make up for all that, well worth playing if you're an adventure game fan looking for something a bit different (Victorian era France anyone?)!

Creepy atmosphere, and very good for an old game. It is a bit difficult though, so may require the use of a walkthrough.

I have completed no-Steam version (CD box) some years ago. This game is a very good quest with interesting story and tough puzzles. I like it.

Imagine if the creative genius, Tommy Wiseau, decided to make his own game. The outcome would be something similar to Post Mortem, yet perhaps slightly more unintentionally entertaining. Two words: Knights Templar. Yes, exciting, another point-and-click adventure game centred around the Knights Templar, sorcery, and eternal life! As if that conspiracy ♥♥♥♥ wasn't milked nearly enough during the '90s and early '00s.

Since there are almost no positive aspects to this game I will do my best to mention the most negative of the negatives:

• The voice actors can't decide if their accents should be French (with the game being set in Paris), or Dutch, or Swedish, or Arabic, or North American. They're absolutely horrendous and they lack any semblance of enthusiasm. It makes Post Mortem an incredibly droning and boring experience. It's so bad that some accents actually change half way through a conversation.

• The conversation panel is oddly arranged. Where most point-and-clicks present their dialogue choices as a list, with every choice in full view, instead you have them separated into tabs here. It's incredibly tedious to read through. Luckily the game automatically chooses the most appropriate tab in order to progress the discussion if you can't be bothered reading through the other many choices.

• The lip syncing to the actor's voices is strangely hilarious. Instead of animating the jaw moving in time with speech, the lips seems to do most of the work. They vibrate and tremble, as if they're flapping in the wind.

• The story is extremely disjointed and redundant. Every character you meet repeats the same things multiple times, not only what they've said one sentence ago but also what other characters have mentioned in previous conversation. It's tough to sit and listen to these completely one-dimensional characters, whose voices hold about as much personality as Kristen Stewart's face holds expression.

• The puzzles are lacking and tend to be quite vague as they go overboard when introduced. The inventory system is a complete cluster♥♥♥♥. You will only be shown around five items at a time, requiring you to scroll horizontally to the next necessary item, one by one. This becomes quite daunting and frustratingly confusing once you've acquired more than a dozen items, as most of them share similar icons and are not sorted in any particular order. There is no option to examine items either, so you play a sort of Russian roulette; clicking on items in order to discover if their contents can be viewed.

• The biggest issue is the amount of times the game has crashed and locked up on me. Remember when Windows or Internet Explorer would lock up and you could paint pictures with the mouse, as the pointer repeatedly imprinted itself on your screen? Yeah, that ♥♥♥♥ happens a lot in this game. You also can't alt-tab, otherwise the game will force close on you, so if there's a program running in the background that minimises Post Mortem you will lose all your progress. I actually can't legitimately exit the game without going through the whole "Post Mortem has stopped responding" thing...

I honestly have no idea how Post Mortem's Metacritic score is so high. I have no idea how it still receives such critical acclaim. To paraphrase Michael Scott from the television show The Office: if I had a computer, with powers of space-time control, and I found the original source code for Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing, Superman 64, and Post Mortem, I would completely wipe Post Mortem from existence twice.

I like it... for the way I played it. Until bugs.

Despite not being terribly attracted to horror games, I was impressed enough with Syberia to want to see another set of games by the same group, and I decided to start with the "prequel". I sincerely hope the others are better as games, honestly.

Based on the other reviews, I have been pretty much treating this like a more interactive version of a graphic novel; rather than pixel-hunt and flail around in the dialogue trees, I grabbed a guide almost from the start. The small amount of play I did without it, combined with my memory of the beautiful but hard-for-the-wrong-reasons Syberia games, have me very certain that I would not have enjoyed it as much if the plot was delayed by my having to figure out which items matter, which of many logical solutions the game is actually trying for, what odd result will be achieved by certain (non-reversable) dialogue options, etc.

The graphics are okay, but the majority of the scenery is designed as trompe l'oiel; flat images that (when seen from the right angle) look 3D. The problem being that even though you can only stand in certain places in each room/area, they didn't re-render the flat scenery, so depending on where you are standing, the graphics can look either very realistic, or like you have stepped into a surrealist painting. A few key structures in rooms are immune to this, as are any people or objects you will need to interact with. It's not game-breaking, but especially combined with a play style that encourages you to look closely at everything, it is very noticeable. Especially when the scenery includes people.

Despite that, I was enjoying my more-interactive-graphic-novel until I hit a bug where certain (important) documents I had picked up weren't actually readable. :-( I found there is a thread from a couple of months ago in the Discussions about someone else having the same problem. Until I can solve that, I will definitely not be playing this game any further (as not getting all the story makes this entirely pointless for me), and likely won't be playing the Still Life games, since I really would like to finish the prequel before I play the rest of the series.

So, for the moment, it would be a bit sadistic of me to recommend the game. If you are okay with the risk of game-breaking bugs and spending a lot of flail time, go for it; the parts of the game that work are interesting and well-done. If not, skip this one for a while, until you see posts indicating that the major bugs have been updated out of existence. :shrug:

I really enjoyed this series...excellent !!!

Ever since I bought it I have had problems. From the beginning you could hear all other noises, but not the voices of the people. You had to play by subtitle and even then you can't get too far without it crashing.

I used to play this game when I was little. It was so much fun then, I've gotten further this time but now I'm stuck, haha.
If you don't mind how bad the graphics are (since this game came out in 2002) I'd suggest playing it. It reminds me of Sherlock Holmes vs. Jack The Ripper.

Pretty decent game for what it is, even though it isnt as good as its sequel it still is a somewhat entertaining title especialy for fans of the genre. One point that needs to be noted is that this is NOT a horror game nor is it meant to be scary it is supposed to be a Mystery Thriller (even if the identity of the killer is pretty obvious about an hour or so into the game). GIve it a try if it is up at a discount and if you are a fan of the genre.

I'm gonna go with an anti-recommendation. This is a Microïds adventure game (that should tell you many things) in a pre-rendered first-person, weird panoramic perspective and some human characters superimposed in realtime polygons. They look hilariously awful. What struck me was that for the puzzles, there're sometimes multiple solutions, which seem sometimes to get randomized. That's pretty great, but as with Microïds often, some of the puzzles are pretty much trial and error based and there is one of those police mug shot drawing puzzles where you are given clues and have to get the face absolutely right to proceed. Ugh. Also, the dialogue trees and the protagonist's important diary-keeping journal both glitched badly on my playthrough. It's a bit of a mess, really. It's cool that this game's the prequel to Still Life, though, considering how much more conventional SL is.

In my Steam library chock full of adventure games, from a strictly gaming standpoint, Post Mortem is probably the worst of the bunch. Despite, it has some strengths that should be commended. The horror story is strong and the graphics, while dated, do much to support the atmosphere. The exploration feels paced and open ended enough to give a real sense of private eye work; I found myself going back to talk to NPCs with new information and going back to locations for clues/objects I must have missed. This repetition, while perhaps a turnoff to some, helped the immersion in my playthrough.

Unforntunately, these assets don't come close to warranting a recommendation. The aforementioned strong plot is hampered with unconvincing voice acting, mediocre dialogue (perhaps due to translation from the original French), and atrocious dialogue trees that give the player conversational options too early and too late to make any sense. The inventory interface is convoluted; sometimes objects can be used directly with the environment, othertimes they can only be used when you click on the environment first, and other times still you need to talk to an NPC for them to come into play. What's worse, there's no classic adventure game "Nah, I don't want to do that," when you try an unfruitful combination which quickly frustrates.

I only recommend Post Mortem for an academic understanding into what Microids did far better in their Syberia and Still Life titles.

Good game ... except for the ALT Tab crash

This is a total garbage I hate point to click games but on this you can't skip the animations or pause them and the game settings are terrible on my speakers I heard only the music in the background not the characters voices and the worst part is that you don't have the option select screen resolution so the game runs at 640x480.
If you have Windows 95 this game is perfect for you :))

Post Mortem was badly recieved when it first was puplished, at least in some gaming magazines in germany.

Truth is, the game isn't as bad as they said back then.

But you have to note, it has some bugs which might lessen the joy for the game, some of them can be game breaking and you have to get a workaround for those bugs. Some might be caused by our Windows OPs 7 or 8, some might be caused by corrupt save game files, others might inherently be caused by faulty coding.

If those occur, sometimes you might be able to catch the game again with a restart of a saved game.

I don't need to tell about the story, do I? Let's say it's a murder mystery adventure. Though you will quite early see who is the murderer - at least if you are accustomed to that kind of games.