Published by a corporation that needs no introduction, THQ Nordic, and developed by KING Art, a company with a very small list of releases comes Black Mirror (2017). This title is said to be a full reboot of the original Black Mirror trilogy; a set of horror/mystery point and click adventures that came out in 2003, 2009, and 2011, respectively. Though the games did not gain a whole lot of popularity, certainly not enough to garner an entire reboot, they did manage to accumulate a decent cult following.

While the initial series took place during the 1980s and 1990s, Black Mirror (2017) is set in a much earlier time period; 1926, to be exact. Although both the publisher and developer stick by the statement that Black Mirror (2017) is a total reboot of the original franchise, this re-imagining brings with it an entirely new cast and setting. Rather than playing as Samuel Gordon, players now take on the role of David Gordon, a man who has been summoned to his rich family's mansion in order to take over ownership after the death of his father, John Gordon. However, John was an avid enthusiast of Occultism, and many strange circumstances surround his death; David soon finds himself unraveling not only those mysteries but also the dark and forbidden secrets of the Gordon Manor.

Players who enjoyed the older releases will see very little that actually resembles anything from them. While both the initial games and the 2017 reboot focus primarily on point and click gameplay style, this release, in particular, has an additional heavy focal point on a graphic novel style of storytelling; very much akin to older TellTale games. With that said, the plot is despairingly boring. Out of the hundreds, if not thousands, of games I've played in my life, I've only ever fallen asleep playing two different games; one was Sherlock Holmes versus Jack the Ripper, and the other one was Black Mirror (2017). Despite any and all best efforts to really get into the plot, there's nothing to cling on to; the cast is worse than lackluster, and there's no real reason to care about any of them since no character building is present. Who cares what happened in a family mansion, when the family themselves are disinteresting?

Those who have played KING Art's The Raven - Legacy of a Master Thief will see many similarities in regard to gameplay and graphics. Overall, Black Mirror (2017) is exceedingly clunky for a point and click title, especially when using the keyboard and mouse. It's genuinely easier to submit to using a controller, which is an unfounded thing to do on PC for the genre in question. The graphics are equally as awful, with character models donning wax skin and clay hair; the developer didn't even take the time to sync mouth movements with dialogue. In fact, there's a pretty hilarious scene involving an older lady that's groaning, and her mouth moves wildly the entire time. It's easy to tell that most of the budget went into the environments, and that's not saying much since all of the textures are blurry when you get into a close-up with them.

For a title that launched at AAA pricing, and is still selling for $32.99 CAD just a year later, the lack of polish and care that was put into Black Mirror (2017) is abysmal at best. The game also launched with horrendous load times, but thankfully this issue has been rectified on PC. On console, however, it's an entirely different story; of my 3 and a half hours that it took me to complete the game on my PlayStation 4 Pro, I estimate that about 30 minutes of that was spent waiting on loading screens. Loading screens when you launch the game into the main menu, loading screens before AND after a literal 5-second cutscene (on multiple occasion), loading screens every single time you enter and leave a new location.

If you're really dying to check out Black Mirror (2017) despite all of the aforestated, it's best to bite the bullet and pay more for it on PC than on console; on sale, of course. This generally backward pricing makes sense once one realizes that KING Art decided not to fix the tedious loading times on console, and as such it's selling worse there than it is here. Of course, you could save yourself some money by just avoiding this game altogether, and pretending it never existed at all.

The Horror Network Curator | Group Click for Gore

Published by a corporation that needs no introduction, THQ Nordic, and developed by KING Art, a company with a very small list of releases comes Black Mirror (2017). This title is said to be a full reboot of the original Black Mirror trilogy; a set of horror/mystery point and click adventures that came out in 2003, 2009, and 2011, respectively. Though the games did not gain a whole lot of popularity, certainly not enough to garner an entire reboot, they did manage to accumulate a decent cult following. While the initial series took place during the 1980s and 1990s, Black Mirror (2017) is set in a much earlier time period; 1926, to be exact. Although both the publisher and developer stick by the statement that Black Mirror (2017) is a total reboot of the original franchise, this re-imagining brings with it an entirely new cast and setting. Rather than playing as Samuel Gordon, players now take on the role of David Gordon, a man who has been summoned to his rich family's mansion in order to take over ownership after the death of his father, John Gordon. However, John was an avid enthusiast of Occultism, and many strange circumstances surround his death; David soon finds himself unraveling not only those mysteries but also the dark and forbidden secrets of the Gordon Manor. Players who enjoyed the older releases will see very little that actually resembles anything from them. While both the initial games and the 2017 reboot focus primarily on point and click gameplay style, this release, in particular, has an additional heavy focal point on a graphic novel style of storytelling; very much akin to older TellTale games. With that said, the plot is despairingly boring. Out of the hundreds, if not thousands, of games I've played in my life, I've only ever fallen asleep playing two different games; one was Sherlock Holmes versus Jack the Ripper, and the other one was Black Mirror (2017). Despite any and all best efforts to really get into the plot, there's nothing to cling on to; the cast is worse than lackluster, and there's no real reason to care about any of them since no character building is present. Who cares what happened in a family mansion, when the family themselves are disinteresting? Those who have played KING Art's The Raven - Legacy of a Master Thief will see many similarities in regard to gameplay and graphics. Overall, Black Mirror (2017) is exceedingly clunky for a point and click title, especially when using the keyboard and mouse. It's genuinely easier to submit to using a controller, which is an unfounded thing to do on PC for the genre in question. The graphics are equally as awful, with character models donning wax skin and clay hair; the developer didn't even take the time to sync mouth movements with dialogue. In fact, there's a pretty hilarious scene involving an older lady that's groaning, and her mouth moves wildly the entire time. It's easy to tell that most of the budget went into the environments, and that's not saying much since all of the textures are blurry when you get into a close-up with them. For a title that launched at AAA pricing, and is still selling for $32.99 CAD just a year later, the lack of polish and care that was put into Black Mirror (2017) is abysmal at best. The game also launched with horrendous load times, but thankfully this issue has been rectified on PC. On console, however, it's an entirely different story; of my 3 and a half hours that it took me to complete the game on my PlayStation 4 Pro, I estimate that about 30 minutes of that was spent waiting on loading screens. Loading screens when you launch the game into the main menu, loading screens before AND after a literal 5-second cutscene (on multiple occasion), loading screens every single time you enter and leave a new location. If you're really dying to check out Black Mirror (2017) despite all of the aforestated, it's best to bite the bullet and pay more for it on PC than on console; on sale, of course. This generally backward pricing makes sense once one realizes that KING Art decided not to fix the tedious loading times on console, and as such it's selling worse there than it is here. Of course, you could save yourself some money by just avoiding this game altogether, and pretending it never existed at all. [h1]Rating: 2.0/5.0 - It's not awful, but it's not great.[/h1] The Horror Network [url=http://store.steampowered.com/curator/28221963/]Curator[/url] | [url=http://steamcommunity.com/groups/thehorrornetwork]Group[/url] Click for Gore