OUTCRY

GAME DETAILS :-

Developer : Phantomery

Publisher : The Adventure Company

Engine : Panopticum Engine

Genre : Adventure

Release Date : August 26 , 2008

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS :-

Operating System : Windows XP / Windows Vista

CPU : AMD Athlon XP 2100+ / Intel Pentium 4 Processor

Memory (RAM) : 512 MB

Graphics Hardware : DirectX 9.0c Compatible Video Card with Memory 128 MB

[NVIDIA : GeForce FX 5200 Series
ATI : Radeon 9600 Series]

Hard Disk Space : 1.5 GB

GAME FEATURES :-

Even the basic storyline is tough to figure out, because you're given little to go on. The game begins with the anonymous protagonist (you have to check the manual to find out that you're a "middle-aged writer") receiving a letter from his estranged brother. Apparently your brother is a scientist working on a "paramount experiment that unlocks new horizons of human cognition" and involves getting "in precise sync with inner frequencies." The letter he sends you is tangled and nonsensical, and it hurls you into the game knowing precisely zip about what you're supposed to be doing. Getting the news that your brother has disappeared is the only part of the game's opening that is the slightest bit understandable. Various documents and recordings left around his abandoned residence seem to indicate that his experiment involved ancient megaliths, time travel, checking out alternate dimensions, separating human consciousness from the body, coming up with a recipe for really great salsa...that sort of thing. You eventually uncover a grab bag of goofiness about ancient secrets and the nature of reality. Still, none of it really connects. Either something was lost in the translation from the original Russian, or the storyline was just too New Agey in the first place. Outcry's visuals are downright hallucinogenic. Every scene is overlaid with an aging filter loaded with dark sepia tones, skips, a main light source that dims and shines like a strobe effect, and other film flaws that make it seem as though you're viewing a long-lost movie reel. Some scenes are even in black and white. Because this layer is placed between your first-person perspective and the backdrops of the adventure, everything seems like a dream or an old memory. Everything around you is decrepit--one of the first things you see in your brother's house is an old gramophone--but it's hard to say for sure what year it is despite references to the early 20th century, such as notes mentioning Sigmund Freud's "new" theories. The rooms are so dingy and the machinery is so rusted that they appear to have been abandoned centuries ago. It could be yesterday, it could be 1920, or it could be who knows when, which is an unsettling notion that goes hand in hand with the surreal story to keep you off-kilter throughout the game.

The game mixes traditional adventure puzzles involving collecting and combining items with set-piece logic brain-twisters where you twirl valves, pull levers, and crack codes, but there is zero feedback provided for your efforts. It's nearly impossible to determine if you're on the right track, because the protagonist never says a word and the interface doesn't offer up any information about your surroundings. Interacting with objects is just as frustrating. Items that can be picked up look exactly the same as those that form part of the immobile scenery. Pixel hunts are necessary in every location you visit, and it's extra tedious here because those stylish, old-timey visuals make everything so dark and grimy that it's almost impossible to spot everything during your first run-through. You constantly find yourself backtracking to pick up objects that you have overlooked. Clues are present, although they tend to be buried in the text-heavy diaries, random scraps of paper, and academic textbooks that your brother left scattered all over the place. This forces you to wade through a ton of dull science-speak about everything from botany to ancient megaliths. Just about everything is written in an awkward style, and the diary entries are accompanied by stilted spoken dialogue read phonetically by someone whose sole experience with English. Outcry is one of the more surreal and impenetrable adventure games ever made.

GAME REVIEW :-

4/10

Outcry Trailer :-