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lathanyThe short version: Excellent plot, decent puzzles with the added interest of character switching.
The long version:Resonance opens with you watching various catastrophes taking place all over the world. The game then rewinds to 60 hours earlier and puts you in charge of Ed, a mathematician who works for a brilliant scientist.
Resonance is a point-and-click game set in the present day. You play four characters and the gameplay makes use of the facility to switch between them. The controls are all fairly intuitive; although there are a couple of additions to the standard point-and-click approach. These are that you can switch between characters for much of the game and that you have both long-term and short-tem memory "slots" as well as item "slots". The short-term and long-term memory slots are there primarily for conversations with other characters. It takes a little getting used to - copying scenery into the short-term memory - but is well worth it for the additional scope it provides to gameplay.
The game has an excellent range of puzzles, helped along by its memory slots and multi-character approach. Resonance does not resort to bizarre combinations of items but instead comes up with solutions that you could believe the characters might try. Some situations are solved simply by raising an short-term memory with an NPC, others involve using several different items and characters. Usually, completion of a puzzle is obvious, although, very occasionally, I felt that I had solved the puzzle and was trying to find an approach that would result in the game confirming that I had. One other thing, some puzzles had more than one solution.
Resonance is set across a city and the characters can visit a number of areas which range from being large locations themselves to being a room or two. The locations all make sense and consistent and their purpose has been thought through carefully.
The four main characters each have a short pre-credits gameplay section which gives you a feel for the type of character they are (geeky mathematician Ed, quiet doctor Anna, brash police detective Bennet, on-line journalist Ray). They are very different from each other, have different relationships with the other main characters, and will chat to each other when on screen and you are not doing anything. The wider cast of characters are also good and you can find out more about them if you decide to do so by your actions. I particularly liked Bennet’s partner Reggie and security systems creator Tortoise.
The story is really impressive. It starts off simply enough, a character at a time, then builds to the events shown at the start. There’s a great plot twist towards the end that I did not suspect despite the in-game clues leading up to the moment. Many of the earlier events and coincidences are revisited to show that they are not the random or unlikely things they first seem. On top of that, your characters get to make choices to which there is no obvious good or evil solution.
The game was released this year by Wadjet Eye Games who also publish the Blackwell Legacy series and Gemini Rue. If you are curious take a look at their website which has a downloadable demo.
As is probably clear, I loved this game.
The long version:
Resonance is a point-and-click game set in the present day. You play four characters and the gameplay makes use of the facility to switch between them. The controls are all fairly intuitive; although there are a couple of additions to the standard point-and-click approach. These are that you can switch between characters for much of the game and that you have both long-term and short-tem memory "slots" as well as item "slots". The short-term and long-term memory slots are there primarily for conversations with other characters. It takes a little getting used to - copying scenery into the short-term memory - but is well worth it for the additional scope it provides to gameplay.
The game has an excellent range of puzzles, helped along by its memory slots and multi-character approach. Resonance does not resort to bizarre combinations of items but instead comes up with solutions that you could believe the characters might try. Some situations are solved simply by raising an short-term memory with an NPC, others involve using several different items and characters. Usually, completion of a puzzle is obvious, although, very occasionally, I felt that I had solved the puzzle and was trying to find an approach that would result in the game confirming that I had. One other thing, some puzzles had more than one solution.
Resonance is set across a city and the characters can visit a number of areas which range from being large locations themselves to being a room or two. The locations all make sense and consistent and their purpose has been thought through carefully.
The four main characters each have a short pre-credits gameplay section which gives you a feel for the type of character they are (geeky mathematician Ed, quiet doctor Anna, brash police detective Bennet, on-line journalist Ray). They are very different from each other, have different relationships with the other main characters, and will chat to each other when on screen and you are not doing anything. The wider cast of characters are also good and you can find out more about them if you decide to do so by your actions. I particularly liked Bennet’s partner Reggie and security systems creator Tortoise.
The story is really impressive. It starts off simply enough, a character at a time, then builds to the events shown at the start. There’s a great plot twist towards the end that I did not suspect despite the in-game clues leading up to the moment. Many of the earlier events and coincidences are revisited to show that they are not the random or unlikely things they first seem. On top of that, your characters get to make choices to which there is no obvious good or evil solution.
The game was released this year by Wadjet Eye Games who also publish the Blackwell Legacy series and Gemini Rue. If you are curious take a look at their website which has a downloadable demo.
As is probably clear, I loved this game.
