Blacksad: Under the skin
It's less ambitious and more videogamy than wolf among us, and I think it's better because of it
blacksad is a noir detective game with gameplay similar to the ones of telltale. The game is based on the french comic by the same name. First of all, what's up with noir crime drama and furries, this is too common of a trope.
The game is fairly simplistic, there is as crime and you solve it, the game a I said is not very ambituous, it's not really emotional as you don't really develop a connection to the characters, the game doens't try to send any deep societal message either, there are no big turnabouts in the case, instead of having reveals that recontextualize everything like in ace attorney, proof just keeps piling up and up.
In many ways that is the weakest aspect of the game, the mistery is honestly just kind of a bit boring, however, in many ways I feel that is the point of the game?, in this game, you play as a detective, and I think the acutal roleplay aspects are really well done. The case isn't fucking crazy like in other detective games, but that just makes it feel more grounded, the game also sometimes shows the mental state of the protagonist, and while this game doesn't even try to sell you in the notion that your choices matter, having control over what the character says, does help you immersed on it. In this mistery most of the time you're going through the motions of solving the case but without the excitement of other works in this genre, kinda like if it were your job, which, it is. the end is also kinda depressing, this is also in part becauase of my decision to let the police arrest the woman at the end, but I like that ending, unambitious, anticlimatic even, the protagonist doesn't really fix their mental state, but he's also not depressed, this is his job and he is happy to do it, life just goes on
Still, despite me respectign the idea and honestly really liking the ending, the game for the most part was just kind of average. The fact that the game had it fair share of technical issues. doesn't help either The set camera angles can frankly be a problem when it comes to finding clues, since in this game, unlike the wolf among us, there is A LOT more walking around and interacting with objects. In the wolf among if you interacted with anything was to see the flavour text as the way to continue was very clearly marked, this is not hte case in blacksad. Despite the game being super simplistic mechanically, the game also controls like ass on keyboard+mouse, in fact, the mouse isn't even locked to the window. The game does recommend for you to play with controller so I only got myself to blame, but still, I didn't expect they would mess up the controls of a game with gameplay as basic as this. Also got softlocked once, had to reload.
Compared to the wolf among us this game also doens't try to be a tv show at all, it's a videogame first and foremost, not trying to bring the evolution of the medium, instead tehy just wanted to make a very detective game and they thought tis format was the one that fit best, as this game is essentially a 3d point and click game like monkey island (tbh, the developers of this game, pendulo studios, are specialized in making point and click games, in fact, I want to play their old 1997 game "hollywood monsters", had that noted even before this was requested).
The qicktime events are also better, they're a lot tighter and mroe dinamic, kept the flow of the action a lot better.
solid game even if ia bit average, still, got no real problems with it, placed on c rank.
---
next: Later Alligator
have yet to start the manga, will probably do it in the following 2 days tho.
It's less ambitious and more videogamy than wolf among us, and I think it's better because of it
blacksad is a noir detective game with gameplay similar to the ones of telltale. The game is based on the french comic by the same name. First of all, what's up with noir crime drama and furries, this is too common of a trope.
The game is fairly simplistic, there is as crime and you solve it, the game a I said is not very ambituous, it's not really emotional as you don't really develop a connection to the characters, the game doens't try to send any deep societal message either, there are no big turnabouts in the case, instead of having reveals that recontextualize everything like in ace attorney, proof just keeps piling up and up.
In many ways that is the weakest aspect of the game, the mistery is honestly just kind of a bit boring, however, in many ways I feel that is the point of the game?, in this game, you play as a detective, and I think the acutal roleplay aspects are really well done. The case isn't fucking crazy like in other detective games, but that just makes it feel more grounded, the game also sometimes shows the mental state of the protagonist, and while this game doesn't even try to sell you in the notion that your choices matter, having control over what the character says, does help you immersed on it. In this mistery most of the time you're going through the motions of solving the case but without the excitement of other works in this genre, kinda like if it were your job, which, it is. the end is also kinda depressing, this is also in part becauase of my decision to let the police arrest the woman at the end, but I like that ending, unambitious, anticlimatic even, the protagonist doesn't really fix their mental state, but he's also not depressed, this is his job and he is happy to do it, life just goes on
Still, despite me respectign the idea and honestly really liking the ending, the game for the most part was just kind of average. The fact that the game had it fair share of technical issues. doesn't help either The set camera angles can frankly be a problem when it comes to finding clues, since in this game, unlike the wolf among us, there is A LOT more walking around and interacting with objects. In the wolf among if you interacted with anything was to see the flavour text as the way to continue was very clearly marked, this is not hte case in blacksad. Despite the game being super simplistic mechanically, the game also controls like ass on keyboard+mouse, in fact, the mouse isn't even locked to the window. The game does recommend for you to play with controller so I only got myself to blame, but still, I didn't expect they would mess up the controls of a game with gameplay as basic as this. Also got softlocked once, had to reload.
Compared to the wolf among us this game also doens't try to be a tv show at all, it's a videogame first and foremost, not trying to bring the evolution of the medium, instead tehy just wanted to make a very detective game and they thought tis format was the one that fit best, as this game is essentially a 3d point and click game like monkey island (tbh, the developers of this game, pendulo studios, are specialized in making point and click games, in fact, I want to play their old 1997 game "hollywood monsters", had that noted even before this was requested).
The qicktime events are also better, they're a lot tighter and mroe dinamic, kept the flow of the action a lot better.
solid game even if ia bit average, still, got no real problems with it, placed on c rank.
---
next: Later Alligator
have yet to start the manga, will probably do it in the following 2 days tho.