The Low Road

This is a rather tedious little point and click adventure, although with slightly more graphical sophistication than your average point and click game, and almost no galaxy brain puzzles and a decent enough play time (not too short, not too long)......unfortunately those are about the best things I can say about the game. Note that almost every complaint I have is purely subjective, so you may love the (for example) art style, and that's okay; feel free to disregard the review. IMHO though, this is a thoroughly un-enjoyable example of the genre. [b][u]Positives:[/u][/b] -Time Investment- The game largely respects your time, although the glacial walking speed results in even the minimal amount of back-tracking feel sooooooooooooo much longer than it actually is. -Puzzles- Definitely doable and you probably won't need a walkthrough as they are mostly common sense and/or fairly deducible. Note that some of the mini-games require something that almost approximates hand-eye coordination. -Music- It's pretty darned good! Unfortunately, you can't adjust the bloody volume........... [b][u]Meh:[/u][/b] -Failure States- I think it's interesting to have dialogue exchanges or mini-game puzzles in a point and click adventure that you can actually fail at and receive a series of short, acidic text comments on the aftermath of your failures, before rewinding back to the situation at hand so you can try again. It's interesting and all, but at the end of the day, I'm not sure that it brings anything too special to the game. [b][u]Negatives:[/u][/b] -Art Design- If you're like me, then you've looked at the videos and stills on the game page, and probably even watched a quick youtube video to see if the gameplay appeals before buying. And you may have found yourself a little turned off by the artwork and/or character animations, but you convince yourself that it can't be that bad, and you won't notice it much while playing the game for yourself on a bigger resolution screen. Well, you (just like me) would be wrong. Ugly. Just so bloody ugly. Both the character art and the character animations are just astoundingly unpleasing to the eye, and I'm not even joking about how unfun it makes playing this game, because it's all just so aesthetically displeasing. -Options Menu (Or Lack Thereof)- Other than saving a game, loading a save, quitting to the main menu (which also has no options), or quitting to the desktop, there are no real other options, including the ability to adjust dialogue or music volume, meaning that you're constantly getting blasted out by the background music. It's just baffling why no one thought to put in a volume toggle, or frankly ANY kind of game feature menu whatsoever. I just don't get it. -Achievement that Requires You to Replay Over 1/2 the Game- Says it all really.......while the main story absolutely didn't waste your time, being forced to play all of Chapters 4, 5 and 6 just to get the last achievement and alternate ending, just gargles dead coyote arse. So, all in all, I just can't recommend the game, as there's far too many friction points to truly be enjoyable, and why play a game that's you're just not enjoying? Not recommended, but obviously YMMV.