Recent reviews by Cantiras

Alter Ego is a decent adventure game. It was branded by its developer as a "dark adventure game"; I don't consider it very dark, but it is atmospheric. The game is set in Plymouth, England in 1894. Throughout the game you alternate between two characters, Timothy Moor, a petty hood seeking to find a better life, and Detective Sergeant Briscol, a rigid agent of law and order.

There are a few technical issues with the game; most notable for me was probably the discrepancy between the character models' mouth movements and the spoken dialogue. Occasionally characters' mouths would move while there was no dialogue, or there would be dialogue, but no mouth movement, or the wrong character would be in sync with the speech. Also, when a playable character reflected in thought to himself, sometimes his mouth would move even though he was only thinking, or there would be slight reverberation to his internal monologue in some environments, as if he had spoken aloud. There were occasional differences between the subtitles and the spoken dialogue, as well as at least one mislabeled inventory item(at the beginning of the game, Tim's manacled wrists are labeled "lucky horseshoe", an item which doesn't appear until later in the game), but nothing irritatingly glaring. I think the same sound effect was employed for both walking and running, and there were a few other details-oriented issues like that which should have been polished out prior to the game's release.

Much like The Black Mirror (which was also developed by Future Games s.r.o.), Alter Ego revolves around a compelling atmosphere, and I liked the soundscape. I noticed that a few of the sound effects and music samples are reused from The Black Mirror, but I don't consider this an issue, as they are as equally at home in Alter Ego as they were in The Black Mirror. The voice acting was competent, and didn't cause distraction. [quasi-spoiler]Like The Black Mirror, Alter Ego has a f♥ck-you-for-playing ending that hardly rewards for the time invested.[/quasi-spoiler] I believe the game would have benefited from having multiple possible endings. Perhaps a sequel was intended.

If you don't enjoy adventure games, you should probably pass on this game. If you do enjoy adventure games and see Alter Ego on sale, consider giving it a try. I recommend watching a few videos of it first, in order to get a feel for it. I bought it when it was on sale, and I do not regret my purchase. In terms of pacing, Alter Ego somewhat reminded me of a few ICOM Simulations, Inc games (such as Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective, Dracula Unleashed, etc), that is to say that it is leisurely paced. As for navigational efficiency, double-clicking on an action item or other point on the screen will cause your character to run to it rather than stroll (Note: Tim can't run until his handcuffs have been removed). Double-clicking on an exit allows you to leave the current screen more quickly, rather than the playable character having to traverse the entirety of the distance to the exit, but unfortunately you can't access the map whenever you choose in order to jump to a different location, first you must exit the current location. When playing, you can display the active hotspots if you abhor pixel hunting, although without using the hotspot display feature I don't recall ever feeling like I had to tediously search around, plus the cursor turns red when hovering over a hotspot. Some of the tasks weren't straightforward, not in terms of being challenging, but in terms of defying real-world expectation, and there are also several tantalizingly unfinished plotlines; however, the story makes up for these shortcomings, in my opinion. For the most part the game flowed reasonably well, although the game does feel somewhat rushed and incomplete content-wise, like the developers had more planned than they had time or budget to execute.

Alter Ego was the final release by Future Games before the studio closed. If you enjoyed an adventure game like Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers, you might like Alter Ego. And if you like Alter Ego, you may wish to also check out The Black Mirror (when it is on sale), although the graphics of The Black Mirror are more dated. Black Mirror II: Reigning Evil & Black Mirror III: Final Fear were developed by a different studio (Cranberry Production GmbH), and while perhaps technically superior, aren't crafted in a way that is as appealing to me. I would have liked to see what Future Games could have done with more resources at its disposal.

SCORE: 53 out of 100 - Fair

SUMMARY: If you enjoy the occasional adventure game, this isn't a bad game to add to your collection if you pick it up it when it is on sale. If you only buy a couple of titles a year, or don't care for the adventure game genre, this likely isn't the game for you and you should put your money towards something else.

ADVISORY: "Fix for invisible characters in Alter Ego"