I have a rather high tolerance threshold when it comes to adventure games, especially old ones. Campiness and minor technical flaws are often part of the package, and I'm okay with that. So I was fine with realizing that the intro gave me a game breaking bug (on Win 8.1 64x) that there are no known solutions for: I watched the intro on youtube, then skipped it when launching the game, and thought little of it. The terrible (not an exaggeration) voice acting didn't deter me and neither did the really bad translation into english. Especially not since the art was decent, the animation fine enough for its age, the smooth jazz score impressively good (way WAY above the call of duty), and the start to the story a promising noir gumshoe's-tale-of-woe, the kind you probably can appreciate if this game peaked your interest.

And then I realized how bad the controls were. And while that too is very often to be expected, these specific controls really go out of their way to make your life miserable. (They're also nowhere explained, read the manual before playing.) It would be much easier to forgive that if the game didn't saddle you with a huge amount of seemingly useless items (stuffed into an inventory system only reachable through F1) that you have to individually pick out every time before you attempt to try them onto yet another tiny, unreachable hotspot for some unfathomable reason. I cannot explain how soulcrashingly clunky the system is, especially when you may have to repeat it 20 times in a row on a single hotspot and still not get a result.

I didn't hate the story, at least so far in. Not that it was good, but it was bad and campy in an interesting way. ;) But the gameplay is just really really bad. The controls and horrible puzzle design finally got the best of me.The term "illogical puzzle" that we throw about so often in adventure games? If you haven't played this game, you have no idea what that term means. Combine that with the insane amount of unusable items, the big maps, the complete lack of clues or guidance and those punishing controls, and you have a real recipe for frustration.

If you are still willing to play this game, do as everyone tells you and play it with a walkthrough. And yes, I realize how odd that sounds, but trust me (and everyone else) that's the only way to play the game without dropping it halfway through like I did. Alternatively you could just watch a Let's Play, and enjoy all the campiness and fascinating flaws of this odd bit of gaming history without suffering any of the frustrations yourself. At least that's what I'm doing. ;)

Jack Orlando: Director's Cut is a point & click detective game developed by Toontraxx Studios.


The unsuccessful and alcoholic private detective Jack Orlando wakes up next to a corpse after a night of sleep and is arrested shortly afterwards. However, he can persuade the responsible police inspector to give him 48 hours to prove his innocence. Jack Orlando is a 2D comic-style adventure that was drawn using the airbrush method. The backgrounds and characters are detailed and the mood of the 30s has been captured well. The “Director's Cut” offers additional locations and puzzles. In addition, you can choose between the levels of difficulty "normal" and "easy", which means that some puzzles are omitted in the easy level of difficulty and / or the plot is different.


+ great detective story
+ Characters with depth
+ Puzzles that make sense
+ great background music
+ several dialog options
+ Control well integrated
+ Trading cards


- Language often disappears behind music


Jack Orlando: Director's Cut takes you back to the 30s and also offers you a crime story that was thrillingly staged.



Jack Orlando: Director's Cut ist ein Point & Click Detektivspiel, welches von Toontraxx Studios entwickelt wurde.


Der erfolglose und alkoholabhängige Privatdetektiv Jack Orlando wacht nach durchzechter Nacht neben einer Leiche auf und wird kurz darauf verhaftet. Er kann den zuständigen Polizeiinspektor jedoch dazu überreden, ihm 48 Stunden zu gewähren, um seine Unschuld zu beweisen. Jack Orlando ist ein 2D Adventure im Comicstil, das im Airbrush Verfahren gezeichnet wurde. Die Hintergründe und Charaktere sind detailliert und die Stimmung der 30er wurde gut eingefangen. Die „Director's Cut“ bietet zusätzliche Orte und Rätsel. Außerdem kann man hier zwischen den Schwierigkeitsgraden „Normal“ und „Leicht“ wählen, wodurch im leichten Schwierigkeitsgrad dann einige Rätsel wegfallen und/oder die Handlung anders verläuft.


+ tolle Detektivgeschichte
+ Charaktere mit tiefgang
+ Rätsel die Sinn machen
+ tolle Musikuntermalung im Hintergrund
+ mehrere Dialogoptionen
+ Steuerung gut integriert
+ Sammelkarten


- Sprache verschwindet oft hinter der Musik


Jack Orlando: Director's Cut entführt dich in die 30er und bietet dir dazu noch eine Kriminalgeschichte, welche spannend inszeniert wurde.

For completing my Papers, Please card set, I got a 75% discount on this game. I've been playing LA Noire and like adventure games, so I figured why not if its only $1.25.

The first line of dialouge sets the tone for the entire game. The voice acting is the perfect amount of hilariously bad. The inflections, tone, and delivery are universally bad and I had a smile the whole time I was playing. Everything that any person says or does is hilarious. In the opening, Jack is given a Colt pistol by the Mayor and just waves it around. Its so hilariously bad, you can't help but smile.

Impressivley, the entire game is done in hand drawn animation and it shows, usually in a good way. Although very early on, someone gets shot and the artist just drew a hole in the victims suit. No blood, no wincing or leaning over, the suit had a hole in it and the victim fell over. Additionally, the game calls itself a "Cinematic Experience", but between the art style, the way talking heads pop up in a box, and how any action is done in a seperate bubble (leaving the main scence as static characters who are only capable of moving their feet unless specifically in an animation), the game feels more like an interactive comic book.

You have some choice of what your character says, but they seem to lead to the same result or they are not representive of what you want to say. Early on (I don't feel this is a spoiler since its in the game's description) you're read your rights by a cop and they want you to say something. There is no "Remain Silent" option, all you can do is act like a smartass at all times. This is even worse when Jack visits his next door neighbor who tries to set him up on a date and his only response is to be a total jackass to her. Its so hilariously bad, you really have to see it for yourself.

Something that is instantly a problem is lack of direction. The very first time I was granted use of the mouse, I had to look up what to do, because I had clicked on everything and was totally stuck. Turns out, you need to right click to select an action: Observe, touch, punch, or talk. Later, I picked up a feather duster and Jack's neighbor said "I need a new feather duster", but I couldn't figure out how to open my inventory, turns out you press F1. None of this was told to me prior to starting the game. There is no tutorial, you're just dropped in the world and that's it. I understand that this is a game from the late 90's and was rereleased in early 2000's, but when compared to modern adventure games, it falls short because of how little slack it gives to the player.

I recommend this, only because of how hilarious the first five minutes are. As I continue to play, I hope it maintains that standard of terrible.

The top review is correct in my opinion. I got this game in a bundle, unfortunately. As a gamer that owns a few point and click games, I can honestly say this is the worst one in my library.

CONS:
The controls and gameplay mechanics are clunky and can be frustrating at times.
Bad voice acting.
Story that goes all over the place.
If you don't do certain things in the beginning, you will have to restart to an earlier time in the game.
Unless you do everything right from the beginning, you will need a strategy guide.
Not fun

PROS:
The music was good..

3/10

BottomLine at the Top: A perfect example of why I wish Steam had a neutral option for recommendations. Although the graphic style is nostalgic and it has some decent music, this game is mostly a mess and should be avoided.


-------------------------------------
Pros
-------------------------------------
-My favorite feature of this game, by a far margin, is the fact that you essentially have infinite save slots. This is such a pet peeve of mine on modern games that only feature a few save slots. Its save interface is very clunky (basically just opens up a standard windows save window in game that does not mesh at all with the aesthetics of the games interface) but the fact that you can make as many saves as you want is something I just loved. It was def needed to, as there are multiple ways to die and there are both timing puzzles as well as the opportunity to miss items that you needed from earlier parts of the game.
-I enjoyed the music in this game even if it did get repetitive.
-Graphic styling holds up mostly well. This was definitely a Broken Sword clone. Animations have some rotoscoping.
-It’s kind of funny picking fights with random people/pulling your gun on everyone.


-------------------------------------
Meh.
-------------------------------------
-Has autosave but only one autosave slot. If you missed something and didn’t save it’s not always easy to rely on the autosave to bring back to a point that you need to get what you required to complete the game.
-No Steam overlay integration. Can't take screenshots. No steam achievements.


-------------------------------------
Cons
-------------------------------------
-So, I think one of the biggest issues for most people is going to be this games jaw dropping racism/homophobia/and misogyny. I won't go into pointing out the specific events, if you play they are not hard to miss. There is a big difference between risqué inappropriate humor and whatever this game has. I'm not sure if it’s a translation or cultural issue (I believe this game was made from a Polish developer) but even for the late 90's when this game came out this game has some real tone-deaf moments. I mean I used to work in construction and some of the stuff that was said in this game even made me blush. I myself do not fall into any of those groups that are insulted but I can easily see how some players could be very offended.
-Voice work is terrible. Actors sound professional enough sure, but I think another reviewer described it best by saying they all sounded "mechanical". Dialogue is clunky and boring, especially Jack's description of items in his environment. He literally just lists off what the things are with no other description. Also, I know Jack is supposed to be this acerbic character, but it sounds as though his voice actor is just actually mad himself that he has to be in this game.
-Voice audio recording quality is poor. Game seems to have some kind of issue whereby it sounds like voices are coming from as far left or right as the speakers allow. No positional audio for where the characters are on screen.
-Control scheme is awful. No in game documentation of how to open up inventory or how to talk to characters. Often times an object that can be picked up won't "take" right away. I usually have to move Jack or place my cursor back and forth and click a couple times before it finally recognizes what I’m trying to do. Having to use the Function keys to open inventory is dumb (supposedly you are supposed to be able to click on Jack to open inventory, but I never got that to work.)
-Dialogue is really clunky. It’s mostly translated from its originally Polish fine, but I think the original writing was just really weak.
-The story is dumb. I really lost interest halfway through and it felt like a chore to finish.
-Some real "non-sequitur" scripting events (for instance you can't open a gate and now a can of grease randomly appears in a different location that you would have no idea to go and check to see if it’s there)
-Poor proofreading, noticed several misspellings.
-Poor "tone". Is the game supposed to be a semi-serious film-noir style detective mystery? If so, why does it awkwardly break the fourth wall by referencing things that don’t take place in the story's era? (i.e. referencing Miranda rights which didn’t come about until the mid-60's. Or making a joke about reality shows...
-Which by the way, that reality show joke was made in a bar.... with multiple tv's...that you only reached after going through a bunch of catacomb style screens (that were mostly empty of things to do) ...I really don't know what was up with that whole thing, but it was really bizarre.
-Several other reviewers have given this negative reviews due to game crashing bugs/errors. I only had this happen once after dying once in the harbor. Not sure if it’s something that has been mostly addressed with patches or if I was just lucky.
-Game messed up the order of icons on my desktop after alt-tabbing or closing the game.
-Not an easy game to pick up again if you haven’t played in a while. Easy to forget what you were doing or what you need to do.
-Definite examples of irritating pixel hunting.
-Weird mechanic in this game of there being lots of "junk" items to pick up. Not sure what the purpose was there. It’s not easy to have to program in all these objects that you ultimately do nothing with and serve no purpose. It also makes it easy to stay stuck as you can't do the old "click everything on everything" brute force attack to progress in the game when you don't know what to do.


Final Thoughts: Overall I can't recommend this to most players. If you have a nostalgia for this era and style of P&C game...just go replay a Broken Sword game. If you absolutely must try every P&C game out there, definitely wait for this to go on sale I think I picked it up for less than a dollar and if I paid any more than that I would have been pissed...


For more point & click goodness, check out our P&C fan Steam group, The Coalition of Point & Clickers!:

• Coalition of Point & Clickers Main Page
• Coalition of Point & Clickers Curator

👑 Powered by HoI 4 Deu Curators group in German / English 👑⠀⠀⠀

• Follow Main group
• Follow Second group

If you want a laugh, get this game. So bad it's good. Best laugh I have ever had from a video game. Worst game ever. It's great.

I like point&clicks, even older ones but there's a reason why this one isn't as famous as others are.

The art is about the only thing that's positive about this game. The story is incoherent, the controls and the navigation through the city are clunky and the voice acting is mechanic at best. It also doesn't help that there's a lot of scenery in the game that isn't used at all and the random catacombs and libraries were just bizarre in a 1930s noir setting.

Get it in a bundle and play it with a guide if you really want to, you'll just end up dead or with a broken save otherwise.

Be prepared, that is may be not as easy, as you think.. this game is merciless at times, when you risk to much or go into certain situations unprepared -you may die ! But otherwise, it is a really good story of a private eye, who got into a difficult situation and has to clear his name.

You will be with him for 48 hours, doing so and hopefully avoid being convicted for murder or just die by accident on the way - I loved it ! Manual saves plus a good autosave

Highly recommended.

If you're looking for a good story, noir feeling and great music, then this is your game. I'd say that nostalgia is not required, but it's an old school adventure game, so be prepared for that. When I played this as a kid, I had to clean up my PC because I had not enough free space. I deleted a folder with the funny name "Windows" ... http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3035834253 http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3019930823 http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2997673361

-- Review for Linux version of the game --

Fun old game, with lots of humor and with good setting. It looks a bit dated and low res on modern screens, however it's playable and enjoyable. Controls a bit clunky, but as a point & click game it's not game breaking as you can take your time to perform any action.
Issues: When you try to play it in Engligh game fails to load inventory menu (F1), crashes on attempt to save or load saved game. Devs suggested to use F5 to quick save and F6 to quick load but these keys don't work which leads to non-playbale version of the game under Linux. Luckily enough I'm fluent in Polish (original language this game developed for) so I switched to this language and all keys worked as intended, no crash on saving (I guess this bug appeared after localizations?). After trying both versions I suggest to play it in original (if you know Polish) because of better quality of dialogues and lesser bugs.

conclusion: for Linux users recommended if you're fluent in Polish. Not recommended if you're not.