Game review: 1954: Alcatraz PC
The gameplay is typical Daedalic, simplified point and click. Nothing much more than clicking your cursor on the right things at the right time. It’s an age old formula that never seems to get old although some of the puzzles present in the game requires some fairly quick thinking for example making a glass shiv before the guard gets to your cell door, it ramps up the tension somewhat and kept me on my toes. For the most part though it’s just clicking dialogue options to get the correct information to carry on with the game which may please some but may bore others. Decisions you are made to make carries the game in either direction, this makes you want to play through again upon completion to see what happens when you choose the other direction. 1954: Alcatraz sports some nice hand drawn back grounds and some impressively designed 3d character models. Problem is, they don’t go together well, putting these two factors together only works when they have the same design, like if the character models were hand drawn too or if the backgrounds were 3 dimensional. Both though are very nicely designed, Mickey has a sinister weasel appearance whilst Joes holds something more charismatic and desperate. The setting is superbly drawn and 1950’s San Francisco looks amazing, so too does the indoor scenes faithfully recreated with the help of original footage which has clearly been hard studied.
Summary
The point and click genre delves into the most notorious prison of our time and delivers an indulging story covering multiple mature themes and executes them well. The mismatched graphic design is a little off putting however the game is easy to play and engaging from start to finish and even replay to see those alternate results of those decisive moments.
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1954: Alcatraz
Developer: Irresponsible Games
Publisher: Daedalic Entertainment
PC
Genre: Adventure/ point and click
Release Date: 12th march 2014
Story – 4/5
Graphics – 3/5
Gameplay – 4/5
Overall – 4/5