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 10×10 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