Black Mirror

Rating:
Summary: EYE-CANDY, OLD STORY LINE
Review: I have played many of these type of adventure games alot by the Adventure company, (Dreamcatcher) This is a beautiful game to look at, from far away i might add as you never see the charectors up close, the story is old been done many times and the ending is just plain depresssing and silly. If you have not already played Syberia , spend your money on Syberia or Darkfall,Darkfall is a scary game, instead of The Black Mirror.

Rating:
Summary: Greatest Adventure Game
Review: I have really enjoyed playing this adventure game. It is challenging and has kept me interested. I love the dark
moods and the graphics are great! I would really recommend this
game to any of my fellow adventure gamers.

Rating:
Summary: The Black Mirror
Review: I hope I speak for others as well as myself. We are tired of having to repeat things over and over in our games before we can go forward in the game.! This really takes away the whole mood of the game.Once or twice to ask questions is enough times,anything more you have lost the mood again. There is no need to touch everything to continue on,why do you do this ? I was so disapointed after waiting so long for this game. The upside is, the special effects are wonderful,the rain and thunder are like you are there. The locations are beautiful.

Rating:
Summary: Needlessly tedious
Review: I like games where you have to figure out puzzles, trade items for information other items, that sort of thing. I had high hopes for this because there were "numerous characters" to interact with and "several locations" to explore. Halfway through I got tired of the pointless dialogue, the need to travel back and forth between locations to get one item to advance the game. The ending was so anti-climactic I wondered if that was really supposed to be the end of the game. I expected there to at least be some degree of difficulty for the end. I wouldn't recommend buying this game.

Rating:
Summary: Some Puzzles Take Away the Fun
Review: I liked playing this game, until I got to some of the puzzles. I like puzzles in games, but some of the puzzles are a little too much for a couple reasons. First, the game designers assume you have certain knowledge or have books or an internet connection to look things up. I don't want to have to do research while I'm playing a game. Second, some of the puzzle start points are random so it is possible that you end up with one that isn't solvable and you have to restart from a save file. But it's hard to know if something is actually unsolvable or if you just haven't figured out how to solve it yet. It stalls the game completely and is really frustrating.

Rating:
Summary: Not worth the money ....
Review: I love adventure games ... but this one was stunningly boring. As another reviewer commented, even if you know what your next move should be, the game will require you to go away and come back. Some of the puzzles were annoyingly esoteric. For example, your knowledge of the signs of the Zodiac would be useful. Finally, the ending was a complete let down and didn't, on some levels, even make sense. The graphics were nice but I've seen at least this quality in more interesting games. The "map" was only marginally time saving. All in all, I can't recommend it.

Rating:
Summary: Not worth the money ....
Review: I love adventure games ... but this one was stunningly boring. As another reviewer commented, even if you know what your next move should be, the game will require you to go away and come back. Some of the puzzles were annoyingly esoteric. For example, your knowledge of the signs of the Zodiac would be useful. Finally, the ending was a complete let down and didn't, on some levels, even make sense. The graphics were nice but I've seen at least this quality in more interesting games. The "map" was only marginally time saving. All in all, I can't recommend it.

Rating:
Summary: Best Adventure Game yet
Review: I loved this game, and I have played several Adventure Games. It has the right amount of everything. You get interaction with characters. Puzzels, hunting for clues and putting items together. Story is very well played out, and the spooky factor gives it plenty of interest all the way thru. Would recommend this game to anyone.

Rating:
Summary: How about adding a storyline?
Review: I really don't think that there is a reason to cover up, that this adventure had -NO- story. If you want me to spoiler the whole story, read on, if not just don't.
******The Story:
A bunch of people dies during you investigate the murder of your grandfather. You get deeper and deeper stuck in it, and can't solve who murdered your grandfather or the others - but you, as the player, most probably knew after the first three to five hours that your dearest Samuel was the murder himself. Surprised? Yes, this is kind of a new element in a story, really! There's no more story.
Now the main problems:
So Samuel didn't return for 12 or 14 years - well, whatever - so he probably won't live near this region, right? Or you would at least return home one time during the game. Well, Samuel is the murderer, possessed by this evil ancestor-spirit, or whatever... How the hell did he get to Black Mirror, could murder William, get back home, and wake up, as if nothing happened? The ghost drove there, killed William, drove back, put back everything, where it was before (keys, car, clothes, etc.) within one night? Wow. Why the hell should it? It needed five souls, or something - not quite clear - why didn't he just throw a bomb into the sanatory? No no, he has to kill people Samuel gets to know (Vick [The boy], Henry) or already knew a long time, and he also has to do it very complex. Why does the evil spirit put the boy onto an altar and kill him there instead of just cutting his throat whereever he found Vick?
And how does Samuel get to the victim and kill this one that complex and accurate, without leaving ANY trace at his clothing or at the place? It's a riddle every single time.
And what about this little subplots in the story?
The family history... it's only: "Well, yeah, there was a curse! OVER! Enough! The curse was... just there, you know?"
Samuel's wife... "Yeah, ahem, it was my fault that she died." "No, it wasn't!" "But the flames-" Yeah, and what exactly did happen? Ah, it doesn't matter, just add the beginning of deep mysteries, and there is no more need to solve a thing.
Robert's experiments... Yey, he tortured his patients... Hermann was involved... And? What for? Why? How? What was the liquid or whatever he gave them? Or was he just sadistic and had his fun with this? Oh please...
What exactly were the reasons, why no one wanted to work for the family anymore? "A lot has changed." ... Aha? Beat it, you won't find out anymore, Victoria is tired everytime, if she should talk about a storypart, very nice work to avoid to spend some thoughts on a story. Really.
God, why is there a mine under the crypt? What was the "thing" that killed everyone, who worked in this region?
What was James' story? How did they find him, why did they let him live in the mansion? The producers just let him hang himself to avoid thinking about a story for him.
It's a real shame. NOTHING, and absolutely NOTHING is solved.
The producers were so cunning, that they added so many mysteries and really suspenseful story-arcs until the very end, that you REALLY was excited, what the reason for all of this is, and then comes the BIGGEST disappointment: There is NO reason.
And at the very end you only begin to think, that they already had no more motivation to work at this game and just made a quick ending"dungeon" and -scene, in which Samuel kills himself. In approximately 3 seconds. Yeah, we know, you regret what the evil spirit has done in some miraculous way, and you kill yourself, so, that there is NO MORE way, to find out, what happened a long time ago. Thanks.
Really, this was great work, avoiding everything to think about a story. The producers should've better spend the time in thinking about a story, instead of thinking about how to avoid thinking about a story.
******The Gameplay
The Gameplay is quite good in some points. The control is really easy, you can double-click on an exit to leave immediately and save time that way, are able to travel from place to place very quick by using your map and you have no great loading times or retards, except for the people, who MUST first finish something, before speaking with you.
Example: The Barkeeper: First, he has to take a cup, look into it, clean it really slowly, then put it away, push his flannel in his pinafore and at last look at you, before he says something, so, that you are able to ask him about:... well, if you already have talked with him about everything, he does the same thing, says the same, but you only have lost time, because Samuel couldn't recognize before that he hasn't got any topic to talk with him. Real cool.
And besides: Most of the riddles are fun, they make you think about it, and search around the area, but some are really overdone. You see a string of skulls, and ONE of ten or more is slack, great, you have to find THIS one, and the skull doesn't even look else than the others. But the reason, why you have to pull this skull of: He falls onto the floor, and you can look at it, only to realize, that there's a key behind a grate. Oh, this wasn't possible, BEFORE THIS SKULL HAS FALLEN DOWN THERE? Nope, sorry. I mean, Samuel is a polite man, he never could look down into a grate, it is more noble to pull a skull off and investigate this.
But another frustrating thing was a riddle, where you had to know some symbols for zodiac signs, some not familiar symbols. How the heck should you know, in which order you had to push the zodiacs (You had one room free, so that you only could push one zodiac after another, it was terrible and frustrating, and not even a walkthrough could help you properly, you had to know these zodiacs.). How can you expect from someone, to know such things? I mean, as a player you expect from an adventure to force you to think about things, but the producers weren't able to create riddles, in which you have to think logically, no, they had to make a quiz about general knowledge.
******The graphics
The locations were really great, every single one. They varied and where really nice designed. Only the locations already created some atmosphere, and this Victorian style was so great. I loved it. The only thing, that was disturbing was, that the characters didn't really fit, and some had a really unnatural physique.
******The Atmosphere, Sounds
Atmosphere was the main motivation to play "The Black Mirror". They mastered to create such a wonderful vicinity, they've well varied with the designs and you couldn't get bored to look at the different locations, until "The Black Mirror" became a "Run there, to get there again, to return to this place, to move to this again, in between return five times to Black Mirror" - I don't know what happened, but it was as if their house of cards collapsed.
>>>As if they lost every motivation and every passion for this game. The graphics varied, the sounds remained great, the rudiments of the story were amazing, but nothing was solved, locations were just used a few more times, to avoid creating new ones, the atmosphere wasn't kept. But I tried. I tried to play the game to the end, and because the tempo of the events raised and raised, it was exciting, though the passion got lost, and I just wanted to find out everything, what the riddles and mysteries were all about... - Nothing. It was a total loss of time. It was like you sat at a hot seat and just couldn't wait, but you suddenly froze.
Black Mirror is maybe worth buying for 10-15$, yes, because it is fun a long time, if you don't know how disappointing the story is. It is nice for 50% of the game, your attention is arrested for a long time, so it probably isn't a total loss of money, but if you are focused on a story in an adventure, like I am: Borrow it, but don't BUY it.

Rating:
Summary: I Did Love This Game..But...............
Review: I really liked this game, and the mystery behind it, but the only reason I gave it a four instead of a five, was the ending...I won't give it away, but I was disappointed!! Other than that, it was great!!!