Noir - meaning black in French, has morphed into a culture or genre meaning dark novels, motion pictures, and now….PC games. Cyberdreams has created a drop dead gorgeous game (done entirely in black and white) which succinctly captures the feel of 1940s Los Angeles. The artwork is beautifully rendered and the music scoring and occasional FMVs add to the feel of days gone by.

You begin the game portraying a friend of ace private detective, Jack Slayton. Your friend has recently disappeared. You begin searching his office for clues, inventory items, and the files of the six cases he has pending. Further clues? How 'bout those names and numbers on Jack's rolodex?

Navigation throughout the game is accomplished in the traditional point and click mode; however there is a city map in Jack's office which you may click on to summon conveyance to that location. When you need to return to the office, a ride is always available.

The game's plot was reasonably believable and it was fun trying to track down the afforded clues. I'm sorry to say that I was disappointed in this game in a number of areas. First of all, the game is very linear - sometimes I'd walk the beautiful and steamy streets of Los Angeles for hours with no interactivity - seems I hadn't had a required conversation with a NPC. GRRRRRRRR. It took a lot of stumbling around in order to set up the required "ingredients" in order advance the plot. Okay, I'm impatient, I admit it, but sheese!!

If you're an experienced gamer, you enjoy the challenge of experimenting with inventory objects. In Noir, when you pick up an inventory object it will automatically "work" with an item you click on (when you click on a locked door, it opens since you've found the key). This could be beneficial for adventure newbies, however. We DO want neophytes joining the adventure genre, right? Building the adventure market? Okay, editorial over, sorry.

I also had an occasional problem with character orientation. I sometimes had trouble determining which streets I had covered and which I hadn't. Additionally there was no back and forth dialog with NPCs. What you get is videos of NPCs who provide you with clues and needed information. Noir is pressed on two CDs and depending on your chosen navigation, you may have to do a LOT of disc swapping.

Overall, Cyberdreams has produced a home run in terms of creating a very immersive and believable 1940s Los Angeles. The photo-realistic graphics, great period music and SFX really create the illusion of "being there". But in my opinion, the game play was a strikeout. Darn it!

System requirements:

PC:
WIN 3.1 and higher
486/66 MHz DX
8 MB RAM
10MB hard drive space
2X CD-ROM drive
SVGA video
Windows compatible sound card

Mac:
System 7.0
68030
8 MB
2X CDROM