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!

Final Grade: C-

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