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 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'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.

Game is broken and unplayable. After starting this game multiple times, I'm finallly realizing that it's just a lost cause. This game came out about 10 years ago, and was a crappy game even then. It's a simple point and click mystery game. However, actually finishing the mystery is one part skill and two parts luck that a bug won't pop in and make the game impossible to finish. Don't buy this one, even if Steam is giving it away for free.