Mindcop Review (7th Place Peggle Champion)
Mindcop: Cranial Cops & Memory Mysteries
-Overview:
Mindcop is a non-linear detective game about solving a murder in a tourist attraction. You go about the campgrounds finding evidence, talking with suspicious characters, and gaining access to their minds. After completing a short minigame, you are able to view a truth, a falsehood, and something in between that correlates to the specific character's thoughts and memories. Combine that with a strict time system, and you have a rather interesting take on detective games!
-The Good:
-The Artstyle:
I absolutely love the psuedo-monochrome color palette that is used here, establishing an unnerving, mysterious atmosphere. The sparse use of maroon highlights only serves to enhance the wonderful look of this game.
-The Sound Design:
The sound in this game is nothing short of phenomenal. I can still hear the crashing of symbols as Linda runs around, and the pen clicks that advance dialogue. The music is wonderful as well, with great low key tracks that accompany your investigation, alongside amazing high energy tracks that play during more action-focused moments. It's gotten to the point I've found myself humming the mindsurfing theme without realizing it!
-The Bad:
-The Characters:
There are 13 different characters you can talk to in this game, and they are all quite realistically written. This sounds like a good thing until you take into account the game's short runtime, and vast amount of characters. While they all felt realistic and grounded, that made it difficult for me to differentiate most of them on my first playthrough. Only a few characters have big distinguishing traits, so for the rest, they all got lumped together in my head.
-The Dialogue:
While I can appreciate the attempt to create a straight man-funny man dynamic between Mindcop and Linda, a lot of the dialogue really fell flat. Most characters don't have chemistry with each other, and dialogue often feels like an attempt to explain what happened as simply as possible rather than sounding like a realistic conversation.
-The Time System:
I liked the idea of a time system, but in practice it really hurt my enjoyment. It felt like there was so much to explore and investigate, but the game wouldn't let me. I consistently felt rushed, and with how many time-wasting interactables litter the streets, you're punished for examining your surroundings. I would seek out every line of dialogue in other detective games, but couldn't do so here in fear of losing a precious resource. Even if I thought something could be important, I wouldn't let myself investigate it unless I KNEW it would be worth it.
-The... Confused?
-The Story:
The thing that really frustrated me was the story. I wanted to love it, I really did, but due to the time system, I wasn't allowed to see it all on my first playthrough. This lead to me feeling unsatisfied with the ending, because while I did catch the culprit, it felt less like I had pinpointed the killer, and more like I found the most likely candidate. This changed however with my second playthrough, as I was able to fill in the gaps, figure out what really happened, and finally see the big picture. I ended up really enjoying the story, but I can't ignore my initial frustrations. It really is a 8 hour story packed into a 5 hour game.
-Closing Arguments:
While it took me a little bit, I do like this game. If I could give new players one piece of advice, you are probably going to fail your first time through; In fact, I think you SHOULD fail on the first playthrough. Afterwards, go through it again with what you've learned, and you'll have a much better experience. This game's story is truly amazing when you play it twice. It allows you to notice all the small details, get to know and appreciate each character, and understand the story the game is ACTUALLY trying to tell you.