Here’s something you don’t see much of these days – a point and click adventure on the PC. Apart from the episodic Sam and Max games these are a very much dead breed. This one leaves a thin veneer of humour but it does have some reasons to play for people who like to enjoy their games at a slower pace.
You play as psychiatrist David McNamara as you question five young patients in a hospital. From there you play as these five people and play through their stories in reverse order. It’s a psychological thriller that at times has some nice filmic moments.
Controls are simple – this is a point and click game after all so that’s what you do – you point at things and click. When you hover the cursor over an item you can interact with, more icons appear and you can click on whether to pick something up, use it, look at it etc. Items in your inventory are stored at the bottom of your screen to be used or used with other objects. It’s a streamlined approach which works very well.
Most of the time you’ll be going to and fro from your hotel and then back to the hospital, where you use your PDA to access voice recordings and piece together your interviews with the patients. Piece things together and you go into the mind of one of the patients where the main puzzle solving happens.
As you play through the story it’s compelling at first but then does lose a sense of direction about halfway through, where you may find the story a bit silly – like one of those straight to VHS action movies you got as a kid on a boring Sunday afternoon.
Still, for just under £20 this does provide something different to all the strategy and FPS games out on the PC at the moment.
Overclocked: A History of Violence gets a good 6 out of 10.
