Sorti en 2009, ce point & click très classique est le deuxième de la trilogie Secret Files et Nina Kalenkov en est à nouveau l'héroïne.


Le scénario commence avec un mystérieux parchemin assez convoité pour justifier une série d'assassinats et une secte dont le gourou annonce l'imminence de l'apocalypse. On retrouve Nina Kalenkov à Hambourg alors qu'elle s'apprête à embarquer pour une croisière pour oublier son copain Max avec qui elle s'est brouillée. Les vacances vont naturellement s'avérer mouvementées puisqu'il faudra stopper les agissements des membres fanatiques de Puritas Cordis, découvrir quelques secrets de l'église et accessoirement éviter la fin du monde.


Au niveau du gameplay, on reste dans le très classique et dans la droite lignée du premier opus.
Il s'agit toujours de savoir utiliser de manière utile les objets récupérés en chemin et de résoudre les quelques énigmes qui bloquent notre progression.

Bien-sûr, il faudra faire preuve d'un minimum d'imagination pour détourner de leur fonction première les différents éléments du bric à brac accumulé dans notre inventaire. Si les solutions sont naturellement souvent peu réalistes, elles restent néanmoins d'une certaine logique et cohérente avec l'esprit du jeu. Comme dans le premier épisode, il faudra veiller à observer attentivement chaque lieu afin de repérer les objets parfois petits et les zones d'action parfois discrètes.

Certains casse-têtes sont ingénieux et proposent souvent des énigmes sympas mais le tout demeure loin d'être introuvable avec un minimum de perspicacité. On est cependant régulièrement content d'avoir résolu un problème sans recourir aux systèmes d'aide disponibles dans le jeu (afficher les zones actives et indices pour les puzzles).
Le journal est toujours précieux pour ne pas perdre le fil de l'intrigue mais surtout pour rassembler quelques indices importants.

Outre Nina, on aura à nouveau l'occasion de contrôler également Max mais aussi Sam (celle-là même qui est l'héroïne du spin-off paru en 2013 intitulé Secret Files : Sam Peters) soit dans des séquences solitaires, soit dans des phases de coopération.

La seule nouveauté notable est que les protagonistes savent enfin courir. Ils le font uniquement de manière automatique quand on leur désigne un point suffisamment éloigné de leur position.


Les lieux visités dans cette aventure sont moins nombreux que dans la précédente mais ils sont chacun mieux développés. On se promènera ainsi essentiellement sur les ponts d'un bateau, dans la forêt indonésienne et en France.
Les graphismes ont sensiblement été améliorés mais surtout chaque endroit possède une vraie atmosphère, de jolis décors et des animations suffisamment convaincantes.

Un humour parfois pince-sans-rire ou s'amusant avec le 4ème mur sert de manière sympa une ambiance globalement agréable qui ne manque pas de faire également quelques clins d'oeil aux événements vécus près de Tunguska. Une vraie amélioration là aussi.

Je suis en revanche moins convaincu par le scénario qui s'avère faible et très convenu. De longues cinématiques ou des monologues interminables ralentissent le rythme et réduisent inutilement l'interaction.

Le doublage est très correct grâce à son casting mais les voix sonnent parfois faux par rapport au personnage ou au contexte de l'action. Décalage déjà observé dans le 1.
Pire, la traduction est à plusieurs reprise inadéquate, tant dans les textes que les doublages.

Enfin, on pourra regretter une durée de vie qui se limite à environ une dizaine d'heures si on se passe des indices ou d'une soluce et qu'on ne reste pas durablement bloqué dans la progression.



Bref, un point & click classique très agréable à jouer qui bénéficie d'améliorations appréciables par rapport au premier titre de la série. Je dirais qu'on peut éventuellement comparer ce jeu à la série des Runaway au niveau de l'ambiance et de l'humour.
Je recommande à tous les amateurs de point & click et à ceux qui ont aimé le 1 (qu'il n'est pas indispensable de jouer avant celui-ci).





Mon évaluation de Secret Files 1
Mon évaluation de Secret Files 3

Autant le dire directement : cette suite était à la hauteur de mes attentes ! Des graphismes bien meilleurs que le premier Secret Files, une musique et des bruitages plus prononcés et agréables, un scénario bateau mais des personnages attachants tout de même ! Dommage qu'il n'y ait pas de réelle continuité dans l'histoire à proprement parler entre les différents titres ! Par rapport au premier soft, le second opus bénéficie en plus d'une pointe humoristique non négligeable. Le gameplay est toujours aussi agréable même si les énigmes restent trop tirées par les cheveux et les puzzles pas très compliqués (ce qui n'est pas pour me déplaire en même temps pour les puzzles). Une aventure un peu courte (environ 5 à 10 heures de jeu) mais qui vaut vraiment le coup ! >> 15.5/20

Bon, c'est certain, ce n'est pas vraiment très compliqué comme jeu. Les énigmes sont parfois un peu bancales...
Il n'est pas aussi bon que le premier en terme de scénario (et d'énigmes) mais on se plait à retrouver nos héros dans cette aventure..
Je le recommande parce que j'aime bien les répliques de l'héroïne. Et que je me suis quand même bien relaxée avec ce jeu.

I kinda liked it :o)

I'm a sucker for mystery, conspiracy and/or secret society stories, and that is what you get here. The story isn't fully fleshed or in any way intricate, but rather a bit shallow and simplified. One can't help to think that they could've done a lot more to get a more fully story told, but I still found it entertaining enough.

It's an old game now, and it shows through looking at the characters, several backdrops and the cutscenes. Several are a bit blurry and low on detail. However, some backdrops looks a bit sharper. Anyway, it probably looked damn good when it came out, and it doesn't look half bad today. That is acceptable.

The voice acting is overall ok, but it lacks a bit emotion and suspence. There are several tongue-in-cheek comments from the main characters that sometime works and sometimes don't. It is hard to tell at times if the game takes itself seriously or not.

Figuring out the puzzles in this game was entertaining enough, with proper clues given and mostly quite logical solutions. Sometimes, though, they felt a bit cheap and out of context. The locations you go to are also mostly interesting.

The game as a whole seems based on a good foundation, but a bit rushed and inconsistent. The coincidences within the story is a bit too much to swallow. I'm sure it is probably based on time and budget like most others. Either way it is still entertaining enough to enjoy if you are into these sorts of things.

I also played the first in the series and enjoyed that one as well. There are a few references to the previous game but you certainly don't need to play that one to enjoy this. It is a whole seperate storyline.

I can absolutely recommend this game for fans of point'n'click adventure games and for people who like a bit of mystery. If you're not into these types of games to begin with, it is probably not going to change your mind.

I rate it 6/10, because it has aged a bit and has that thin storyline. If I had played it when it came out and rated it at the time it might have been rated a bit higher.

As always. If you are looking into buying this, don't base your decision on this review alone. Others-, any your opinion might differ from mine.

Happy gaming :o)

TJ

I enjoyed the first one, though many of the flaws are still present in the sequel. The voice acting is atrocious, with dialogue seemingly dragging on forever with pointless conversations that really don't need to be as long as they are.

The puzzles are... random and often don't make sense. I've played a lot of point-and-click adventures over the years, but even I had to resort to reading walkthroughs occasionally. Rather than solving puzzles through logic, often it is a simple case of clicking on every item in your inventory until one of them works.

What’s better

• Backgrounds looks much better and are animated
  
• Character graphics are a little bit better … but just a little bit

What’s worse

• VOICE ACTING !!! – What definitely was the worst part of previous installment actually got even worse. Voices of secondary characters are ok but main cast will probably annoy you as hell. Sometimes they can sound pretty decent but most of the time dialogs (and monologs) are WAY overreacted or use completely wrong intonation for given scene.
  
• Some illogical puzzles – not much but still. Plus for me one case of pixel hunting (yes even with hotspot highlighting)
  
• Plot is still ok but weaker then in predecessor

I SO wanted to like this game. Everything about it screamed ADVENTURE GAME! The graphics are beautiful. The story seemed interesting and there are some parts where you pick-up objects, talk to people and navigate through scene based puzzles, what could be better, right? Well that's what I thought. But that's where it ends. First of all there are limited scenes, so many times you find yourself backtracking and worse yet clicking objects too early which makes you believe you did the wrong thing; yet clicking on that same object a bit later is what's called for. This is beyond frustrating. Then the game has you combine ridiculous items that make no sense, not even within the game itself, telling us that the only one(s) it made sense to, was the game's author(s). There are times when you run around stumped for 5-10-15-20 minutes only to have to consult a walkthrough. There are even times when you did the right thing, but have to exit and re-enter a scene to have any effect! The puzzles try to be clever only to fail miserably. Too bad because this game seemed to have so much potential, but it's just wasted on pointless puzzles without any reward. A good example is in the jungle, the door puzzle's riddle says the EYE looks down on all. Okay so that would be the TOP slot. And the only object with an EYE is the PEACOCK FEATHER. But that's NOT where it goes! Super frustrating. Where the hell is the logic behind that?!! Ridiculous.

I finished the first Secret Files on the Wii, and I have to say that Part 2 so far is much nicer. The graphics are much better and the controls on the mouse are much easier to use. I like how the game ties into part 1 nicely.

I was really glad when the game started and the voices were different. But, while in the first game they were insufferable (cheery and full of excess energy without reason), in this one I still needed some getting used to them, because they were on the opposite end of the spectrum: They were totally bland and made the characters seem apathetic. I was expecting Nina to utter "Why do I even bother?"!

There was again a plethora of riddles (logical and illogical) and I've found it a bit refreshing actually, that half the game seems to have mundane, every day objectives. When we get to the grand ideas and plots many games (as well as this one) lose their charm.

The dynamic between Nina and Max is better in this game. As their relationship is already established from the previous one, we get to see how it evolves. Oh, and Max has become way more handsome! :D

What I didn't like was the casual misogyny. Of the 4 women in the game, 2 were playable characters (Nina and Sam), the 3rd (Katharina Jordan) was described as a "bimbo" from Nina, (also Sam mentions another "bimbo"), and the 4th (the police officer in Paris) as "average in all respects", and "ugly". Way to go Nina for your stance towards other women!

Also, breaking the 4th wall can be fun, but Nina kinda overdid it. Too many references that we're playing a game. We know we are, so enough already...

All in all, it is a more than decent game, and I even liked it quite a bit more than the first one.

Very good aventure game. Not overly difficult, but not just dialog and finding and combining objects either. With patience it is solvable, a few puzzles are annoying and not obvious. At no point will the game get so discouraging that you'll end up giving up and using a walkthrough to get through the whole thing.

The game is funny when it wants to be, and dramatic too. Overall this is a great adventure. Highly recommended. I'd already played Tunguska, and I'm looking forward to Secret Files 3 based on this game.

Did see wierd bug where the characters walked being the background image sometimes. This is noticeable in one of the first areas, there is an infirmary on the ship and I saw it there as well as a few other places. Might be video card specific. Not bad, but just in case you end up looking at a screen and wondering why characters are talking but nothing is there, that's why.