Overclocked: A History of Violence

Overclocked is a game with a good premise. You play an ex-army psychologist, David McNamara who is tasked with investigating the case of 5 teenagers who all mysteriously appear with amnesia and are apprehended after violent outbursts. Interestingly the gameplay is "point and click", which is fast becoming a forgotten genre.

Now, I personally am a fan of story driven gaming and there aren't many titles around which focus intensely on creating atmosphere and complexity. However, here Overclocked isn't entirely successful.

You begin the game in your hotel room having just arrived in New York, which is a nice touch. Instead of spending the first 10 minutes explaining the story, you pick it up in a fairly realistic way as you set about your job investigating the case.

The interface is easy to pick up and very straightforward. Clicking an object places it into your inventory which is easy to navigate thanks to a simple system to scroll through. The traditional "combine item" puzzles are found, although not in the ridiculous abundance sometimes encountered in the genre. Thankfully most are logical and plausible which helps to add to a sense of realism.

A key item is your PDA, which has a multitude of uses. You can receive messages, make phone calls and most importantly record the conversations you have with your patients. Talking to your patients is essential to understand the events leading up to their arrest and by playing audio recordings from your PDA, you can jog their memory. This forms a key component to the game and thankfully the PDA is easy to use and the audio clips can be played at any time to help you piece together what is going on.

However, aside from playing David, you also play the 5 teenagers. In various flashback sequences which are triggered when you make a breakthrough, you enter the mind of the patient and relive their experiences. Bizarrely, the closest comparison is with platform game Psychonauts which had a similar premise implemented very differently.

These flashbacks sequences are interesting and many link together nicely, which allows you some of those "Ah" moments of puzzle solving. Often the events in one flashback will relate to or influence others that you will play back, so remembering them is pretty important for some of the later puzzles.

However, despite being a pretty solid point and click adventure, there are times when Overclocked falls a little short.

The graphics are reasonable, with some nice looking areas with good lighting effects. However, the sound aspect of the game is fairly weak. The background music is generally average, with a fair amount of repetition which can get a little tedious after some time. The voice acting is also fairly mixed. Most of the time it is fine and helps the story on, but occasionally the dialogue can be stilted and robotic sounding. There is also a lack of real emotion or feeling in some of the more important scenes, which is a real shame as it would have helped to give the story far more weight.

The game's puzzles are usually interesting but sometimes there are strange inconsistencies in the logic. For example an early puzzle involves moving a barrel to climb over a fence, yet later in the game it is impossible to use a barrel to climb over the gate blocking your way and instead you have to find an alternative solution. There are a few examples of this during the game which is a pity, as there are some good ideas elsewhere.

The passage of time represented in the game also feels strange. The game is set over the course of a few days, as events unfold. However, on some days you can have several flashbacks and cut-scenes and on others very little takes place. The limited number of areas in the game can also feel a little restrictive and there is a good deal of repetition in visiting them, especially towards the climax of the story.

The story itself though is generally strong. It starts off a little slowly, though soon picks up and becomes interesting and layered with lot of clues sown as you progress. As I played on I wanted to understand what was happening and started to develop theories as to what was coming next. The only real drawback comes with the characterization of David, the protagonist. He isn't a particularly likeable character and at times is very hard to relate to, though this does change a little. Another key problem comes in a subplot, which is very obvious from the start of the game, yet as a fully qualified psychologist, David fails to notice it until the final chapter.

Other smaller issues include the occasional camera angle where a crotch fills the entire screen, some strange sound effect choices and a descent into fairly clichéd territory in the final act. I was also playing this on a PC which easily has double the recommended specs and suffered long loading times, especially before pre-rendered FMV sequences.

If Overclocked had been released at a lower price than £20, then I would probably have recommended it more readily. Whilst it does have some good ideas and provides some new perspectives on storytelling, it is fundamentally a basic point and click adventure which suffers from problems which hold it back. Yet, if you are truly desperate for a nostalgic point and click game then you will find at least something to interest you here.

Just remember to combine the disc with the disc drive before clicking.