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Genre: Adventure Developer & Publisher: Robust Games/Chucklefish Released: November 21, 2024 Requirements: OS: Windows 7 or above Processor: Minimum, Intel Core i3 4160; Recommended, Intel Core i5 3570 Memory: 4 GB RAM Graphics: Minimum, Intel HD Graphics 4400; Recommended, Nvidia GTX 660 Storage: 1 GB available space
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By flotsam Robust Games/Chucklefish This is a rollicking, rambunctious 10 to 12 hours or so of goodly fun. Loco Motive is high end pixel art, of the 2D point and click murder most horrid variety. On a train of course, one chock full of quirky characters, inventory items begging to be taken and lots of sultry jazz. Plus all sorts of other suitable sounds, and all of it voiced. You start as Arthur A. Ackerman, attorney to the heiress Lady Unterwald and a devotee of paperwork and wearing uniforms. Then it's on to Herman Merman, a would-be detective and semi-successful crime novelist, and lastly the enigmatic Diana Osterhagen, she of the distinctly spying nature. All three of their narratives overlap but then come together, at which point they are all involved in solving the ‘whodunnit,’ working together and requiring you to switch between them at will to successfully get to the end. The three playable characters was an excellent way to take advantage of what for the most part is a single setting. The Reuss Express might be a long train, but it’s the same train, and while segments of gameplay occur elsewhere, much of the game will take place between the train lines. So playing the events from three different perspectives (who also might access a few different locations) helped keep things fresh. Which was but another upside in a long line of many. So many things sparkle – the voice acting, the musical score, and the writing to name just a few. The middle one of those warrants special mention, given I often turn it down to almost not hear it. Here it did what good musical scores should do, enhancing rather than overwhelming and never feeling like it was just for the sake of it. It is also rather amusing, in a French-farce slapstick sort of way. I always say that humour is a matter of taste, and so it is, but I imagine most players will get a chuckle or three. Whilst there are some dialogue puzzles and the need to discern a code or two, puzzling is very much of the finding and using inventory items variety. In lots of interesting ways, and I confess to wondering more than once why on earth I would do that. I did have regard to a walkthrough to keep things moving, and the in-game hint system is rather good too. Find a phone and make a call, and get progressively nudged towards what needs doing. Visually, there is no getting away from it being pixel art, but it looks lavish nonetheless. There is a cinematic feel to how it displays, from letterboxed, to full screen, to stylishly framed fixed scenes Scenes can also slide sideways (it's a long train), and even transition in other interesting ways. Cutscenes punctuate the events. Loco Motive plays with the mouse and a minimal set of keyboard controls. Explore the game world with the mouse, and left and right click icons will indicate actions at hotspots. Tab to highlight those (although you need to be close enough for them to be revealed), use 'I' for inventory or click the icon bottom left. Click to use an item in the game world or to combine it with another. Double click to run, and I discovered that if you hold down the mouse, the character will run towards it, and as the scene slides or transitions so will the mouse, resulting in one continuous run. It autosaves regularly, but you can also save at will. Tweak various settings, and you can even play noir style (black and white) should you wish. I had a very good time aboard the Reuss. I played on: OS: Windows 10, 64 Bit Processor: Intel i7-9700K 3.7GHz RAM: Corsair Dominator Platinum RGB DDR4 32GB Video card: AMD Radeon RX 580 8192MB
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