Review Midnight Nowhere Developer: Saturn + Publisher: Buka, Trisynergy Genre: Adventure Release Date: Original Release Date (Russian): November 2002 Release Date (US): Summer 2003 Platform: Review by Vicky Indrawan February 10, 2004

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Excerpt from the official website:

”Murders... Dozens of horrific murders. People are leaving the town in panic. The police are bending over backwards to catch the criminal; the military are putting cordons round the town... but nothing can stop the maniac. New people are found dead every day. Horror and death reign over the town...

You wake up and find yourself in a mortuary. The room, which you are in, is in a mess. Dead bodies lie scattered all around you... What am I doing here? What happened in the room? You cannot remember... The answers await you at the end of your journey...

" Midnight Nowhere" will immerse you in a world rich in atmosphere. In this suspenseful, story-driven adventure you will solve numerous puzzles and battle creatures of the dark to reveal the ultimate mystery. Prepare yourself for the most thrilling experience in a stunningly beautiful 3D world of suspense and horror!”

High Expectations Shattered

Those are the words that caught my attention about a year ago. It sounded so apocalyptic and thrilling. Though the amnesia plotline has been used numerous times, there are not many adventure games featuring an apocalyptic theme. Amber Journey Beyond and, one of the most intriguing RPG games of all time, Planescape Torment are some of the few. I was excited to hear the news that the North American release would by handled by Tri-Synergy, the distributor of the highly acclaimed adventures The Longest Journey and Runaway: A Road Adventure. It was the perfect scenario. Nothing could go wrong. With two previous ‘A’ titles on their resume, it was looking as though they were going for the trifecta. But, after playing for a few hours, all of my expectations were shattered.

What should have been one intriguing adventure game has been tarnished with vicious hotspots, tedious game concept, cheesy dialogue, and worst of all: an extraordinary amount of nudity and smut that made me sick to my stomach.

Vicious Hotspots:

Not long ago I wrote a review of a game titled Serpenthead Revisited that also incorporated numerous teeny tiny hotspots. Compared to that game, Midnight Nowhere is the hands-down winner at hiding hotspots. In one sequence I spent hours just to discover that a dead nurse’s body had two different tiny hotspots. The hotspots are so small that I never realized they existed until I found a walkthrough noting hotspots on the left pocket and the neck. I was stuck for hours because I was supposed to pick up an item from inside the left pocket.

This is not the only vicious hotspot within the game. There are tons of them scattered around. Unless you know for sure what you are looking for, you would not realize that many of these hotspots even exist. To make it worse, there are numerous items scattered about that you can examine – posters, books, etc. - that do not serve any function at all.

The game does occasionally try to help by using default icons for certain items, but this does not work most of the time since you then need to click on a different icon to manipulate the item. It would have been easier if the player could just move his cursor around the screen searching for items that can be manipulated without wondering if the game is giving a false hint.

Tedious Game Concept

Midnight Nowhere utilizes one of the most tedious concepts in adventure games: every action has to be done in sequence. For example, in most cases you will not be able to manipulate an item unless you first use the ‘Examine’ icon. Even though the ‘Use’ icon is available at the time and it is obvious why you want to use the item on the screen, the character will not do anything unless he first knows the identity of an object. You need to first ‘Examine’ an object before you activate the ‘Use’ icon.

Another example is combining inventory items. If you open your inventory while the ‘Use’ or ‘Look’ icons are highlighted, you will not be able to combine two items in your inventory. Instead, you must use ‘Pick Up’ icon on that item, click on ‘Use’ icon and then click on the second item. The same thing applies if you want to use an item on your screen. You must click on ‘Pick Up’ icon, click on the item in your inventory, click on ‘Use’ icon then use it on the hotspot on the screen. This is extremely tedious especially as most adventure games allow you to utilize the ‘Use’ icon directly. Yes, I know it makes much more sense to pick-up an item first before using it, but come on, this is only a game and the poor sequencing only leads to frustration. It should have been kept simple and focused more on the puzzles not on how to manipulate inventory items.

Some actions or items within the game are not be available until you perform certain actions first even though the objects are right there. For example, in the jail scenario, the first time the main character lands inside the cell, you can clearly see that there are beds, a table, a stall, cards on the floor, etc. But, you can not use the ‘Look’, ‘Use’, or ‘Pick Up’ icons on those items unless you first talk with the inmates. The same thing happens when you want to talk to one of the inmates a second time. You will not be able to initiate a second conversation until you have first used the ‘Look’ and ‘Use’ icons on all of the beds inside the cell. This is really frustrating since he then only says to choose any bed without any clue to ‘Use’ them first before you could talk with him again.

Anyhow, a word to the wise, if you find yourself stuck, make sure you have used both ‘Look’ and ‘Use’ on the items.

Cheesy Dialogue

Sometimes, a so-so game can be saved by brilliant dialogue. This is not in the case for Midnight Nowhere. It is filled with cheesy dialogue and foul-mouthed characters. It’s not clear whether or not the cheesiness can be attributed to a bad translation from the Russian language. Comments like “Only the Terminator could access this room,” and ‘What’s with this habit of your unscrewing everything that’s not screwed down,” are just a few of the dumb responses your character will mouth when he cannot perform a certain action. Even worse is you sometimes don’t know if he is just making another lame comment or giving you a clue for a puzzle. It was the fist time I ever wanted to just go inside the game and just beat-up the main character.

Conversations with secondary characters finds even more cheesier dialogue embellished with lots of unnecessary curse words. Often they repeat the same information over and over again when you try to talk to the character a second times and you are forced to hear the same vulgar comments.

Sexual References Galore

Call me too conservative, old fashioned, or whatever names you want, but the nudity and sexual reference images in almost 90% of the rooms or items I encountered made me real sick. They are not necessary for the game. They do not add any additional values to the puzzles and to be honest, you could mistakenly think Midnight Nowhere was a soft-porn game.

Sexual references abound. Look at a wall: it is plastered with pictures of naked woman. Look on the bookshelf. Open a book and there are sexual references or stories inside the book. Open a drawer. Guess what, there is a sexual object kept inside the drawer. Go to the bathroom. There is naked dead woman in the bathtub. Maybe if I go to the school or another educational place there will not be any nudity. Wrong again. Bottom line, no matter where you go or see inside the game, you will find at least one sexual reference. . Finally, I had had enough.

I’m not sure whether all characters inside the game is sex-maniacs or it’s just me that it too conservative. It is never even crossed my mind that a hospital would be decorated with scads of nudity and sexual objects in every corner of the rooms.

I really think that this kind of display will at least turn away some if not even most adventure gamers. I do not recommend that you play Midnight Nowhere if you have a child in the room. Unless you play by yourself in a locked room, or you are not offened by the constant sexual references, then just ignore this game. There are lots of better titles out there that handle adult subject matter in an adult way without sex or nudity. Remember, you have been warned.

The Good Parts

What left to like in Midnight Nowhere? Well, the atmospheric environment is really excellent. Combined with the graphic quality (I’m not talking about the sexual references), the background music nicely builds the game tension. The chords are simple, but suitable for a horror survival game. The creepiness of some of the images, such as a hanging dead body in the hospital hallway, will give you goose bumps.

Some of the puzzles are actually quite good and clever. Of course like any other horror-based games, you will find lots of key-based puzzle. But Midnight Nowhere makes it more complicated. The keys are well hidden and not too obvious. Sometimes you need to examine the environment before you realize that a key is hidden. Some passwords or key codes are cleverly hidden inside notes. You are even given couple of riddles to guess the correct password. Even though trial and error will sometimes lead you to choose the correct answer, the word will not appear on your answer list inside the conversations until you have checked out all the clues.

Some puzzles solutions are quite gory. At the beginning of the game you have to chop off a finger and later human heads to solve a puzzle. Due to the mature content, I highly discourage this game for anyone under 18 years of age.

The camera views are perfect for nearly every screen. Even though you are sometimes shown a limited fixed camera angle, it’s done to build the tension of the scene much like a Hitchcock movie.

Midnight Nowhere is a true point-and-click adventure game with no action sequences. There is a gun in the game, but it is used to solve puzzles not to kill people. There are also no timed sequences and it’s a very stable game - I did not encounter any crashes.

The save game system is somewhat deceiving. There are plenty of save game slots but you can only save another game by typing a new name on the save game title box. It then automatically creates a new slot.

Conclusion

In the end, the title is prophetic. Midnight Nowhere will take you nowhere. Unless you enjoy mature content, the game is not too much fun. I am not one of those persons. It is too bad that a game with some clever puzzles, a good story and creepy environments is ruined by an over reliance on unnecessary mature content. This will be the first time I given two different grades to a game. It’s up to you to decide whether this game will suitable for you or not.

Final Grade:

D- as a final grade for the game as a whole
C+ as a final grade for its puzzles and story only.

System Requirements:

• Pentium II 400
• HDD 1GB Hard disk space
• Memory 64MB RAM
• Video DirectX Compatible Video card
• Sound DirectX Compatible Video Sound card
• CD-ROM 4X CD ROM drive