A Sceptic's Guide to Magic

Review

The year is 1993 in a shithole called Birmingham, England, and a horrid murder. A young man has been found dead after reports of screaming coming from an abandoned house. You play as Lester, a forensic investigator, who happens to be on call tonight. Upon arriving at the crime scene, you notice some officers standing outside on the lawn, so you head over to them. After being told that it’s a bloody mess and enough to turn your stomach, you ask them questions to hopefully get some idea of the situation.

Once you’ve finished talking to the officers you can head into the house where you will speak with “Lady Death”, aKa D.C.I Phillips. After noticing some unusual blood splatters, and discussing whether or not it might be some sort of blood sacrifice, Lady Death then goes upstairs to check the rest of the house, while you investigate and take photographs of the crime scene. In order to investigate something, you stand next to it, then select it by pressing the “A” button on your game pad (or you can use your mouse and place the cursor over the item). Doing either of these will then bring up four options: Look, Use, Use Item and Cancel.  When taking photographs of the crime scene, you’ll need to move over to the scene you want to photograph, select Use Item, then select your camera from your inventory.

After experiencing what you thought was a form of psychosis brought on from the disturbing crime scene, you go outside for some fresh air, after which you enter Chapter One.  Here you play as Fianna (for now). Fianna and her friend, Val, are friends of the murdered young man (Jason) and they want to help find his killer. Soon they’ll team up with Lester, although what they have to say about their friend doesn’t convince Lester to believe them, especially in the manner in which they get him back to their place to talk with them. As the investigation continues, you’ll occasionally switch between characters.

Find new clues and unlock new places to investigate as you search for an answer as to who killed Jason. You’ll need to search in detail at each new venue you unlock.  You will find some items that you’ll be able to take with you; at other times you’ll be able to use an item from your existing inventory. When making a magic potion, you must collect the necessary ingredients and then bind them with an item (you’ll receive a clue as to which item you must use to bind a spell). Once you have your spell, you can select where, or on whom, you want to cast the spell; then select Use Item from your inventory and choose the spell you want to use.

The game has two versions: Standard and Adult. In the adult version, you’ll have more pixel gore, pixel nudity and some of the language is the type you won’t find at mother-and-toddler groups or other respectable places. However, I didn’t think the language (F**K, SH*T, B*LL*CKS), or the pixel boobs (you can’t see anything, really) was too bad. I haven’t tried the normal version; I went straight for the adult version, as I’m a big boy now (or so my Mummy tells me).

You can use either your mouse or game pad to move about, select items, talk or search etcetera. There are twenty game-save slots and you can save at any time by going to Save on the menu screen.

In the options, you’ll find Full Screen, Adult Content, Always Dash On/Off options, Music (Ambient, Sound Effect percentage controls).

Review written by Piston Smashed™ for Zeepond.com!