Reviewed: March 11, 2006
Reviewed by: Roger Cox

Publisher
Got Game Entertainment

Developer
Nucleosys

Released: March 2, 2006
Genre: Adventure
Players: 1
ESRB: Teen

8
7
7
6
7.3

System Requirements

Scratches is a full fledge adventure game with little action that was developed by Nucleosys and tells the story of Michael Arthate (you). As a novelist that specializes in horror and mystery you’ve just completed your debut novel. The money and fame are starting so you decide that it’d be a good idea to buy an old Victorian style house which is located in the Backwoods village in England. It is here that your character hopes to find the inspiration for the ending of his latest novel. The very one you hope will launch your career to new heights.

The game features very linear gameplay with a point and click interface. Its inventory based and there are puzzles found throughout the game that complement the games eerie story. So if this style of game appeals to you (it does me) then you’re in for a treat.

That’s the opening that sets you up for the entire game. If one things for sure it’s that adventure games are interactive stories. And in order to tell a good story you need to have a strong presentation to back it up. Scratches succeeds in both these categories, but the same old PC adventure gameplay mechanics are still in place (clicking, finding and item, clicking again and again and again). Theoretically you could put the CD in the drive and installed and play the entire game without ever having to use a keyboard. In fact you don’t even need one to name a game save.

I can’t say it enough; it’s a good thing the story’s good because it supports the gameplay entirely. It’s not unlike most other games in this genre, simply find items then combine them and figure out where they go. It’s a sequence of trial and error and doing so will tell you how everything related to the story as well as keeping you involved. If they didn’t do this you would sit there and watch it like a movie.

This rather dull, simple, but somehow effective formula isn’t always used in every Adventure game. Some are in full 3D with action like Obscure, but for the most part Scratches is a linear game. The only reason it’s classified as a non-linear game is that you can click on items in any order you want and figure out the end result.

The problem with most non-linear (mainly linear) adventure games is that they give you items that don’t make sense. They expect you to figure out a certain puzzle with them, but the majority of the time they are confusing or you haven’t been given enough assistance to know where to put it/use it. The developers realized this problem and made sure it wasn’t the case in Scratches and they succeeded. Throughout the entire game you will rarely have any doubt where something goes or what to do.

Unfortunately the game’s not perfect and its greatest fault is its locale. You never once leave your mansion property. This creates for a lot of repetition and you’ll soon master the layout of the house since there are only a few other (small) buildings outside of it to visit. I realize this sounds bad and trust me, it gets old, but the story makes it all worthwhile.

One of the cool features are the disguised load times which are done much like the famed Resident Evil series with the implementation of slow, creaking doors. It’s a creative way of doing it and I’ll gladly take it over a standard “load screen.” In fact, it helps maintain the game’s pacing at a nice consistent speed.

The pacing might be there, but the animation is not. There’s no animation in the game besides the CG opening and the door opening. This shouldn’t detour anyone because fans of PC adventure games are used to little or no animation. In fact, we get most of our satisfaction out of the heavily detailed environments which Scratches has.

The rooms have been well thought out and item placement done perfectly. Each one you enter maintains the same general feel to it as the rest of the house. Overall it has a very eerie look and feel and is presented in 2D.

There is some narrative voice acting that’s done by Jonathan Boakes (creator of Dark Fall, and Dark Fall II) and John Bell (Sherlock Holmes in The Mystery of the Mummy). It’s not the best voice acting I’ve heard, but it definitely is well done and I’d give it their performances an A-.

You won’t ever play or look at this game again unless you loan it to a friend simply because there are no alternate endings, branching story lines, or bonuses of any kind. This is a budget ($20) adventure game that features a memorable story and lacks the frustrating gameplay of a lot of other similar games.