Confused? Don’t be. Just another case of The Adventure Company doing the ole’ name switch they are becoming famous for. For the rest of the world, this is a Reprobates review, but for the U.S. - and I assume Canada - this is a Next Life review. Now that that is out of the way, onward we go…

Anyone a fan of the TV series Lost? If so, this game might be just what you have been looking for. The opening cutscenes show you driving and having what appears to be a fatal accident. You suddenly wake up in a small metal housing unit, which is around 10x10 feet with a bed, side table, toilet and shower. Sitting on the side table is a bottle of water and some crackers.

When you walk out of your ‘house’ you quickly realize you are on an island along with 9 additional housing units - each labeled appropriately with numbers from 1-10 - and a mysterious bell tower atop a cliff. After chatting with a few of the other inhabitants, you quickly realize that they too last remember something tragic happening to them before waking up in their units. To add even more to the mystery, they come from different time periods.

I don’t want to spoil things for anyone but just so you don’t think the game takes place in one location which might seem a bit boring after awhile, you can rest assured that you do visit some radically different locations.

At this point any adventure gamer will have their curiosity peaked and any fan of Lost will feel a sense of Deja Vu.

Next Life is a 3rd person adventure game and a pretty good one at that. For someone as impatient such as myself, double-clicking on an exit will quickly move your character from one screen to the other without having to wait for him to walk across the screen. Pressing E will show all of the exits on a screen, although it does not reveal all of the potential hotspots. Your inventory is at the bottom of the screen where you can select and use them or combine them with other items to create new ones.

While there is quite a bit of dialog in Next Life, they all seem to be kept short and to the point. Don’t expect someone to go chatting away for minutes at a time, or expect to see a long list of questions in a dialog tree either.

Graphically, the visuals are top-notch through out the entire game. The characters are stunningly realistic which ‘might’ seem a bit creepy to some folks and the level of detail with the character animations are amazing at times. While the lip-syncing might leave a bit to be desired, the character motions and personalities all shine through.

Killing Redundancy

This will be a love it or hate aspect of the game.

I do think most people will love the idea of the characters always being different in that you never really see them doing the same thing twice. To be a bit clearer, ever play a game where through the entire game, no matter when you go visit someone they are standing in the same place in the same pose? Well, in Next Life they never seemed to repeat themselves. Sometime the character you need to speak with might be sitting in their housing unit, other times tiptoeing across the hot sand with their shoes in their hand before finding a place to sit down, etc. While this probably seems minor to most, I couldn’t help but notice the level of details and care the developers put into trying to enhance the gamer’s experience.

Now for the hate it part. Personally, I really liked it, but those that are directionally challenged might have an issue with this. To put it bluntly, a significant portion of the game takes place on the island and involves walking around and talking with other characters. While I found the navigation to be pretty fast, it could easily get a bit stale after awhile.

So what did the developers do? Each time you advance to a new day, they changed the camera angles. So while on the first day a click on the left side of screen A might have taken you to screen B, on another day it might require a click on the upper center of screen A to go to screen B. Confusing? Not really if you have a good sense of direction. Even then the number of screens you need to navigate are rather small in that location, so getting around should be pretty easy even though the view has changed.

Again, I thought this just showed an extreme amount of attention with understanding the gamers experience on the part of the developers. For me, I thought it was pretty effective since I wasn’t looking at the same screens for a large portion of the game.

Playing The Sex Card

Well, someone has to bring it up and since this is Just Adventure I feel it’s my duty to do so. Sex sells. Just like on Lost and shows like Survivor where the attractive females seem to end up scantily clad, this game seems to have taken several pages from their playbook... and pushed it several steps beyond.

For example, while those shows might have been a bit subtle, Next Life is pretty blatant with it. With one of the female characters, as she is talking with you, she is shifting her leg around while wearing a black mini-skirt revealing her lacey red panties. In another scene where you are below the edge of a cliff, 3 of the women are kneeling down looking at you. For reasons only known to the developers, one of them keeps standing up giving the player a clear up skirt view of her panties as well.

Last but not least, of the 3 most attractive of the females, at one point or another you walk in on them while they are showering. So expect to see some partial nudity in this game.

Big deal. Computer generated characters right? Well, remember I mentioned the incredibly life-like characters in the game? These aren’t your play dough looking characters from games like Nancy Drew. These are real people photographed and mapped on to a 3d mesh character. Eerily realistic at times.

Is this a complaint? Heck no. I rather liked playing a more mature themed game instead of the usual Disney-like politically correct ones for a change. Does the sex make it mature? No, not really but I do have to applaud The Adventure Company for taking a potential risk by letting this slide through without editing those scenes out.

So How Was The Game Itself?!?

Honestly, I really enjoyed it… a lot. I found the puzzles to be pretty straightforward and the mystery kept evolving as you tried to figure out how everything fit together. From exploring the island to several other unique locations like a morgue, high-rise construction site and rural crash scene, don’t expect to get burned out with some small location and things becoming stale. There is enough variety in here to keep things going for the player and the developers seemed to have gone through great lengths to keep the game fresh through out.

I found myself intrigued by the mystery and could not help but draw parallels to Lost. Obviously that show had a huge influence on this game. As far as the playing experience, this game really has a lot going for it.

Breaking The Mold…Sort Of…

Arcade action sequences. Make that TIMED arcade action sequences. Those with nimble fingers might not have any problems here while others will be begging for a saved game from someone who has just completed that part. I found several of these to be quite frustrating until I got the hang of them. One in particular I thought for sure would bring my game to a sudden end because I just could not get past it. I began to seriously question my love of the game up until that point.

I have no idea how I managed to get through it either. After numerous attempts, I was starting to consider giving up on the game entirely. However, since I was reviewing it that really wasn’t an option. I checked with the manual hoping that there might be some option to bypass the puzzle but none was listed. (NOTE: Go ahead and laugh Aya, I actually read a game manual!)

Another thing that they did was to give your character a health meter while on the island. This gets used up as the character exhausts himself with either running or heavy lifting. You can replenish this by drinking that water you grabbed in your house or eating those crackers. I’m not really sure why the developers added this as it really didn’t seem to come into play other than in a few spots. I imagine that it was to give the player something to manage and add another element to the game.

Summary

I have to give this game high marks. It ran flawlessly on my system, kept me hooked to the very end, was visually stunning at times, and contained enough variety to keep the gameplay from getting stale. The developers put a lot of effort into the player experience and took a few risks trying to break the mold along the way. While the ending might not have been jaw dropping and after seeing some fantastic cutscenes in the game, I was a little disappointed in the final cut scene as I was expecting something a bit more dramatic. Despite some ridiculously difficult arcade portion, I can easily recommend this game.

Tips For Getting Through Next Life

Not so much as part of the review, but more as a service to those who despise having to use a walkthrough.

- Left click AND right-click on all hotspots including your inventory.
- After using an inventory item, check to see if you can take it again. (Some items can be used in multiple locations)
- Try to keep your health meter up.
- If you seem stuck, go to each screen and press the E key on your keyboard to see if you might have missed an exit.
- Combine your inventory items to create new ones.
- When all else fails, go through and revisit locations and people to see if new dialog options have come up.
- After picking up an item, see if you can grab another one. In some instances you can carry several of the same objects.

System Requirements:

• Operating System: Windows® 2000/XP/Vista™
• CPU Speed: 1.5 GHz Pentium® 4 Processor
• Memory: 768 MB RAM
• Disk Space: 4.0 GB
• CD/DVD-ROM: 16x
• Video Card: 64 MB DirectX® 9 Compatible Video Card
• Sound: 16 bit DirectX® 9 Compatible
• Input: Mouse, Keyboard and Speakers