Just because there's only a couple days left in the sale and I probably won't finish the game by the time it's over, here are some impressions for Gray Matter (80% off for the duration of the sale - 2 bucks. Will it go lower? Who knows? But...it's 2 bucks.)
The story: You play Samantha Everett, an American magician with a hint of con woman, whose bike breaks down between London and Oxford, England, and she stumbles into a job as a neurobiologist's assistant. There appears to be a connection between experiments the reclusive doctor is conducting and strange occurrences at the university. Further, Sam finds a magic shop around Oxford and completes riddles courtesy of a secret magician's club. In at least one chapter, you get to play the doctor as well, and the entire chapter plays out in your house. So far, the story is really well-told, the main character is great and not exactly the clean-cut look of most women in video games with her tattoos and numerous piercings. The other characters are well put together but has the feel of television diversity - your group of new acquaintances includes an Englishman, a Scotswoman, a Jewish-American from New York, a woman from "a small European country you've never heard of", and what I can only surmise is an Indian. Still, it's enjoyable; I'd expect nothing less from Jane Jensen.
The gameplay and puzzles: So far, solid. The riddles can be a bit surreal but they're invented by magicians so you can hand-wave a lot of it. Many of the regular-game puzzles involve manipulating people using magic tricks. The interface for performing magic tricks is pretty clunky and takes some getting used to, but that might be my only complaint with the gameplay, and overall it's a unique system that's pretty cool. I've always enjoyed an adventure game where the protagonist has a job he or she can draw upon. The game does fall into the adventure game trap of "you can obtain items before you know you need them" and that includes buying magic trick props. Oh, I can buy a thumb and fake blood now? Guess I'll be doing the bleeding thumb trick today!
The dialogue and voices: Excellent. The accents are mostly true-to-form without being too stereotypical. Sam is in turns charming, sassy, snarky, and sarcastic, but never once (so far) does she come off as unlikeable or a bitch. It was kinda weird to play this game directly after Mirror's Edge considering Sam is also the voice of Faith's sister Kate. But she's a good voice actress and I can't help but wonder why she didn't do more stuff. The rest of the dialogue is sharply written, head and shoulders above Daedalic's inconsistent translated efforts. It's not as good as Cognition in this respect, but it's good.
The graphics and music: The environments look great. The characters look good for the most part, but during scenes of dialogue they show the character's rendered face at the bottom. The mouth moves, but blinking is seldom. It's kind of off-putting. But it is done simultaneously with the face on the character's body. It's neat to have the character look in the mirror and describe something, seeing both faces moving in concert. There are also nice subtle touches to the graphics: when you play the doctor, you're wearing a shirt, but if you leave the house to visit the garage, you're wearing a jacket. The music is especially good, and if you've played Cognition, you'd know that it isn't a Jane Jensen game without the Scarlet Furies. (Were they even around in 2002, when the reference to the band takes place? Oh well.)
The length: The game says I've put in about 6 1/2 hours and I'm a little less than halfway done, so it'll probably be about 15 hours all told. It's a good amount of content: I was kinda surprised when the download exceeded 5 gigs.
The verdict: So far it feels like a fine adventure game. It had been on my radar for a whle and I'm glad I finally got around to it. I feel like I already got my toonie's worth, so if you like adventure games you'll feel the same way.
