A thief who wants to leave for America, and a police detective. The port of Plymouth in the 1800’s. A murder, and the ghost of the deceased that makes people frightened. This is the general setting in which you find yourself when playing Alter Ego.
Let’s start with the title. ‘Alter Ego’ could mean an inner-self. It could mean two people sharing the same story from a different perspective. Maybe, a very close and trusted friend who is almost a part of you.
Well, none of the above applies to this game. The 2 characters live their lives without knowing about each other, until very late in the game. When they finally meet, the plot moves so quickly that leaves you basically with the task of just watching a movie, until the game ends.
About the technical aspects. The backgrounds are beautifully designed. The characters are typical of the era. The graphics deserve a big applause!
The game also runs smoothly. I played for hours without saving, and had no crashes. Alter Ego runs flawlessly.
A big problem is music. The game has no background music, except from the cut scenes. Believe me, one cannot understand what a disappointment this is, until he experiences it! It’s hard to watch or play something without music!
Things like bad lip syncing and the sort, are not important to me, so I didn’t care much. A story is more important, than a technical glitch.
The riddles. Typical inventory combination. Take an item from place A, and put it at place B. You will have no problems here. If you get jammed in a place, you simply click all items in your inventory, and voila!, you continue.
Since there is a detective involved, some of you might be expecting things like clues and evidence combination. Don’t. The detective has a notebook where he notes his findings. You simply click on an image of his findings , and you hear an explanation. No interaction by you. The evidence is examined by the game, and you just get the conclusion. So, all of you “Sherlocks” will be greatly disappointed here.
Finally, the characters. The thief is a typical lazy person who wants the easy way out of problems and responsibilities. The designers made a decent effort in this area. The issue I had with Mr. Moore, was the tone of his voice. Throughout the game, he speaks very softly, with the same monotonous pattern, and no color in his voice. It’s like a robot constantly whispering in your ear. Being chased by the police, being locked up in jail, or flirting with a woman are all the same for Mr. Moore. He speaks the same way to all. There was a actually a scene where I needed the subtitles to hear what the man was saying. If you add to the above the fact that there is no music during gameplay, you could easily end up falling asleep. Seriously! Don’t play Alter Ego after a long day at work. You could end up sleeping in your chair after a few minutes, like me (actually, now that I think of it again, this could be a plus for a game
).
The inspector. Well, he was obviously the comic sidekick of the story. He is the disgrace of the British police, a true fruitcake!! This guy, gets mugged inside the police station the minute he arrives to Plymouth by a woman and her “protector”! He looks at the smashed doors of a mausoleum where the body is stolen and his comment is something like“what kind of strange customs do they have here, leaving the entrance of a tomb open!!”. After that, he stands in front of some bent bars and he is asking himself “I wonder how they got away”.
Click here for picture I’m telling you, you should play this game just for the laughs you’ll have with this fella!!
The story ends suddenly, leaving you with an open mouth because you simply don’t know what happened. The game screams of a sequel. Generally, in my opinion Alter Ego was a great story, with a promising scenario which lacked in implementation. If they decide to make a sequel, I hope they pay more attention to the title, because the idea behind it is original, and deserves more attention.
Thanks for reading,
Leo
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