The Raven: Legacy of a Master Thief
Chapter 3: A Murder of Ravens
King Art games
Chapter 1 promised much, chapter 2
felt like filler, so here we are 2 months later at the third and final
instalment. So what to make of it?
First off, thumbs up for the time
between first and last, although if you were being antsy you might say
it suggested it was always one game deliberately chopped into three bits
to maximise the return on investment. I say there is nothing more
frustrating than waiting forever for the next instalment, and who’s to
say even the best of episodic adventures don’t eke it out deliberately.
Next, it’s better than the middle
bit. Not a big accolade, but not as good would have been a death knell.
It is however somewhat
disappointing, not least of all because of the less than plausible
ending, plus it clocks in at a less than generous 3 to 4 hours. Some
cantankerous puzzles, one of which gives no indication that you have
missed something important (unless I missed it) doesn’t help.
The voice acting remains of a high
quality, as too the music, albeit a bit “heard it before”. Ditto the
locations, which still look good, but are still the museum and the ship.
Time out.
If it was a single game, would
revisiting the same locations be an issue? There are many games where
you go back to places, either to search for things you missed or because
that is where stuff happens. So why should episodic games have a
multitude of new locations? Or is that just me – new episode, new stuff,
new people, new places. Am I being completely unreasonable, or is it the
case that we think “episodes” should feel like something new? And
therefore if they feel they have been artificially chopped up are we
appropriately or inappropriately miffed??
Time on (and speaking of, at the
time of writing Mr Victorino just spanked a 0-2 hanging curve over the
green monster and go the Sox!!)
The extras are cool, consisting of
concept art, an orchestra performing the soundtrack, and how things
could have looked.
It’s probably harder than the
other episodes, but maybe that’s me just feeling a little deflated.
In the end, played from go to
whoa, this won’t be a bad gaming experience. The front end though
promises more than the back end delivers, not helped by a highly
disappointing middle and a dud end. I can’t help thinking that as a
single game, it would have been more than the sum of its parts, but that
might just be me. Even so, in my opinion play it in one go, and have
your eyes wide open to the fact that its strength is up front.
B-
I played on:
OS: Windows 7
Processor: Intel i7-3820 4GHz
RAM: 12GB Ripjaw DDR3 2133 Mhz
