I've never been a huge fan of the original Black Mirror (2003). While it is an atmospheric game with solid graphics and an intriguing story, if not for the final moments, it is, as a whole, a poorly designed point and click adventure game that succumbs to many sins that can make the genre bothersome. So when KING Art, a developer responsible for some pretty solid adventures, announced their reboot for the series I was intrigued. Then the game came out to receive a heavily mixed reception. In general, the game was praised for its story. puzzles and atmosphere but lambasted because of technical issues, which still do seem to plague it. The game is also short.
In this re-imagining of the series, the story is set in 1926. David Gordon is travelling for the first time in his life to his ancestral home of Black Mirror castle, where his estranged father has just killed himself. He arrives at the ancient castle at night and is promptly herded to his bedroom by Lady Margaret, whose welcome to the house was less than warm. In fact, the atmosphere at the castle seems more than brooding from the getgo. It's like everything there has a veiled threat about it.
Not to be one to be tied down, David soon begins to wander around the ancient castle, looking for clues and hints on what happened to his father there. John, his father seems to have left David clues about the goings-on in the castle and of the dark, ancient secrets of the cursed family. The evil that maddens Gordon blood has been around since the Romans tried to conquer Scotland.
It doesn't take long for the closeness of the evil history to take hold of David. He begins to see ghosts of the past, his father and grandfather, an evil man who had no qualms of hurting people, but whose memory Lady Margaret reveres like he had been a saint sent from above.
As this is a Black Mirror game, there are murders as well. And again, like in the original game, it's a bit muddled who actually is the real culprit. I might spoil things, but the story doesn't take the same route as the original game did. And that is a good thing.
In the end, David aided by Dr Farber who was his father's psychiatrist, manages to thwart the evils of the Black Mirror, at least for the time being. Farber, a scientist, is forced to admit that there are things in the world that science can't explain. She now dreads the afterlife, especially knowing there is evil there as well.
Let's tackle the good things first. The story is pretty solid as is the voice acting. Just like in the original game, the characters are hardly likeable and David comes out as the kind of an asshole, just like the other members of the Gordon family. They are not people you are meant to like. The interiors of the castle look pretty good as well, though the exterior locations, the little there are, are somewhat lacking. The music is good and the puzzles are well made as well.
So, it's really a shame Black Mirror isn't a technically well-made game. First off, the controls are rather terrible. You'd think that a game made in 2017 would have solid controls, but no. They are finicky and hitting the right hotspots in order to do stuff is at times a frustrating experience. David can also get stuck on things at times.
The game suffers from random crashes as well. The kind of which make the game hang unresponsively and you are forced to quit. This happened three times for me, but luckily the autosave system had made a save on close proximity each time, so nothing of import was lost. Still, it is likely this game will never be fixed.
Then there are some bad design choices throughout the game. Most of the game takes place at night, so there's a need for a light source. It's all fine when it's David holding the light, but after Farber comes to the picture, it's her tacking along with David, holding the light. But David moves much faster, leaving her behind, so you are usually just stumbling in the dark and waiting for her pathfinding routine to catch up. At times it doesn't and it's just easier to blindly push through.
On a couple of occasions, you can die. This happens during the scenes where David sees the ghosts which can kill him. This mechanics is not really explained and I died a couple of times before I realised what the hell was going on and what I the game was actually expecting me to do. After that, it's just a fight against the controls to do what you need to do. Trial and error shouldn't be the base mechanic for something like this though.
There are also quick-time events. I won't mention anything else about them besides they are not the kind that are well implemented nor are they particularly interesting as a game mechanic. They seem to exist only because no one could think of anything else to implement.
Most of the game takes place in the castle itself. If you are familiar with the original series, this is especially disappointing, as they had a much larger environment, including a town near the castle. There were more people to talk with and in general, a lot more content. In contrast to the originals, the 5 or so hours Black Mirror takes to finish feels almost rushed, especially when you visit the rather limited and boring outside location that is a deserted ruin where John Gordon killed himself.
Despite I'm not the biggest fan of the original, Black Mirror is a disappointing reboot. For the things it does right it does too many things wrong, which is s shame, as there is a decent game there. I don't know what went wrong during the development of the game, but it's obvious something did.
For those wanting to give it a spin, you can get it for Windows, Linux, PS4 and Xbox One.
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