| Review
The
Moment of Silence
Review by Bob Freese
April 8, 2005 |
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 The
place: Brooklyn. The year: 2044. An ominous looking space station
targets New York City. You witness the brutal abduction of your next
door neighbor from his wife and child by a gang of goon space cops.
Okay, what’s going on here? The House of Tales of Germany has
produced a wonderful high quality adventure entitled THE
MOMENT OF SILENCE. It’s the best thing I’ve
seen in a long while. The game is an investigative thriller fashioned
in the classic third person point-and-click mode. More than thirty
five interactive characters, over eight hours of dialog (much optional),
seventy five locations to explore, over thirty minutes of heart pounding
full-screen video, all published on four CDs. The full install ate
up almost 3.5 gigs, but there is no in-game disc swapping.
You play the role of Peter
Wright, the government’s “freedom of speech” guru.
During the course of the game, you ride taxis, fly a zeppelin, rocket
off to an orbiting space station, fly to an Alaskan outpost, and even
do some deep sea diving. Cool guy. He’d better be because as
the game progresses, he learns more and more until HE becomes the
hunted. The endgame sequence has missiles launching. Two possible
endings. Yipes.
 THE
MOMENT OF SILENCE is essentially a dialog driven adventure.
The more you learn, the more there is to learn and the more locations
become accessible. The way the game is designed, the trip is loads
of fun. The plot transitions using full screen vids are exceptionally
well done. The game uses third person characters on beautiful pre-rendered
backgrounds. The character motion and shadowing are fluid and realistic.
The lip synch and English voice acting is excellent. The ambient graphics
and sounds are really fabulous, and the music is well scored to the
plot. I think House of Tales is an emerging “big boy on the
block”. They sure have done their homework for this game. They
take you to the giant SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence)
antenna in Arecibo, Puerto Rico. Hey, I used to live there. And, yes,
the locale was produced perfectly – beautifully rendered realistic
scenery. The futuristic “taxis” Peter uses takes him to
Manhattan (his work), Greenwich Village (a shop where you glean a
lot of info and items), Lower East Side where you mix with some pretty
seedy characters, Brooklyn where you have an apartment, and JFK Airport.
 But,
alas, the game is not without its faults. Two stuck in my craw. First
was the dialog. You are provided “trees” of dialog and
sometimes – in order to perform a quick task – you must
bid the character farewell. So you say “I have to go now, bye”
or other assorted exit lines. You do your thing standing right there,
and then you must startup a new conversation – as in “hello”,
or similar greetings in order to continue talking with the bloke.
It’s just kind of awkward. No big prob, just awkward and unrealistic.
The second flaw - and this was the biggie for me – character
movement. You’ll occasionally find yourself clicking all over
the screen in order to get Peter to go to the location you want. Sometimes
he walks in the wrong direction in order to walk in the correct direction.
It’s really a shame. For me, it turned an otherwise blockbuster
game into an excellent one. Don’t get me wrong – in most
scenes he does fine, the problem just pops up in a few.
 I
particularly enjoyed the visit aboard the space station. Actually,
I went on a freebie trip. As I entered the visitor area, my heart
almost stopped when I was met by a hostess named Linda. WOW! Wait,
I’ve lost my train of thought …(alright, already, I’m
a MCP! My apologies, ladies) ;-)… oh yes she offered me a cocktail.
Hmm ….. the cocktail did a number on me. In conversations with
the passengers and crew, it turned out the drinks were mandatory.
Psychotropic substance, maybe? Everyone aboard seems a little whacked.
Peter has to find a way to get back to Earth. An obstacle course of
puzzles gets him there.
 In
summary, House of Tales really surprised me with this epic adventure.
With the exception of my two gripes; this offering is, in this reviewer’s
humble opinion, on a par with the big games produced by Lucas Arts,
Access, the “old” Sierra, and more recently, Microids.
I really hope to see another House of Tales adventure released in
North America, and soon.
If you’re an adventure
nut, this is a must have!
   
Final Grade: A-
(find
out more about our grading system)
System Requirements:
- OS: Windows 98SE/ME/2000/XP
- CPU: 800 MHz Pentium
3 or equivalent
- RAM: 256 MB
- CD-ROM: 24X
- Hard Drive Space: 3.4
GB
- Vid Card: 64 MB DirectX
8.1 compatible 3D vid card
- Sound: DirectX compatible
card, speakers
- Input: keyboard and
mouse
- Other: DirectX 8.1
or higher
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