Another anti-European game from RSK. They begin with some newspaper articles about how Britain interfered in their "democratic elections" because Iran nationalized their oil. Our hero chuckled that the West will no longer get their "oil benefits" from Iran. Considering all the oil equipment and the oil itself was purchased by the British for millions of pounds, I wouldn't exactly call that charity. The last game forced a connection to the murders with Britain and America to trash those countries. This game does it again by having a British boarding house owner held responsible for things found in his tenants' rooms. RSK claims the game is based on historical events. Are we to believe that the British staged a bunch of murders to try to distract Iranians from the overthrow of their government? If that's true, Persians must really have short attention spans.
As usual with these games, there is also an extremely heavy-handed isolationist, xenophobic slant. Our hero compliments a copy of a famous Vermeer painting done by some "great Iranian artist" that would rival the best painters. Later, he sees a painting of a European village and says it's very poor taste to depict any scenes outside Iran. Wasn't this guy just complimenting an Iranian artist for copying a Dutch master? Make up your mind buddy! Later, our hero is crowing over how great his Russian-made camera is and says it's the best camera ever made. I laughed out loud at that. Stalinist Russia was not exactly known for its well-made, consumer goods. But the most ridiculous thing in the game was when our hero insults Europe for being proud of their WWII victory when Iran is sad because of the 2 million people who died of famine during the war. Yep, because Iran suffered more than Europe during WWII, right? These developers need a history lesson.
RSK apparently have no idea how to just make a game with Iranians doing bad things all on their own. Instead, they make the real enemy anyone outside Iran. Just as in the first game, the killer (though Persian), was somehow coerced into murdering all those people so brutally. And even if he wasn't coerced, the villains are STILL Europe and the US because they took advantage of the unrest. Right? Plenty of games show corruption in foreign governments as a plot point, but this game seems to want to show this at the expense of all else.
Translations are better than the first game, but still pretty awkward. Errors continue to appear in the script. The time period is 1953, but we look at newspapers and books referencing events in the 1960s. The cars don't look 50s either. Our hero keeps saying he wants to take revenge for the murders. Not sure if that's an error in translation or if Iranian police view justice as revenge. The cut scenes show our hero in an outfit and with a demeanor that looks like Clint Eastwood from a 70s western. At least they got rid of the grey haired man with the mustache who looked like nobody in the game.
The game doesn't seem to understand the point of adventure games. They don't seem to want to relinquish control to our hero. Instead, they just have him running around talking to people and describing things HE'S doing, but we have no part in them. At one point he has to rewire a telephone box. We finally get access to the thing and our guy pulls out one wire and the problem is fixed. At crime scenes, he claims to take photographs but we never really use the camera. We get a chance to develop the film, but he doesn't allow us to do that either. Instead, we put the developer in and he claims to be done. At one point, there is a puzzle (an adventure game staple) and once you have two or three pieces left, the game decides you're done and pulls you out of it. I guess the game decided it was time for our hero to run around thanking everyone twice for doing their jobs. (Thank you for doing that. You're welcome. Thank YOU. No problem, and thanks again). I'm not even exaggerating. That is actual dialogue from the game.
Most of the game is spent listening to Hero narrate all the things he's doing while we sit on the sidelines. In fact there is far too much unnecessary dialogue in this game. Everyone is complimenting everyone else every time they speak and it slows things down. We have to wait for everyone to salute and kiss our hero's ass for being such a "famous detective." Yet somehow nobody knows what he looks like despite his "great fame" so we repeatedly go through the long process of having him prove himself to everyone. He rarely introduces himself as a detective and when someone doesn't bow down to his greatness, he reminds them to be polite and goes away without telling them he's a cop. The whole thing is a complete waste of time.
Most infuriating is the game won't allow us to explore anything. There are hotspots everywhere, but the game decides when you can actually click on them and interact with them. To say this game is linear is a gross understatement. We go to a police station with all kinds of rooms that are clickable, but he comments that he doesn't want to "bother" whoever is in the room. He won't even go into the bathroom for fear of bothering someone who might be in there. The whole thing is ridiculous. At one point, we need a glass of water and instead of going to the restroom which is right there, we go wandering around looking for a guard to ask him to get the water. The great detective would never dirty his hands on a faucet! This is more than just adventure game logic. It's completely stupid and just another excuse for our hero to order more people around because of his "fame" and rank. He refuses to look in rooms and says it's because it's "rude" to look around without knowing where you're going. Huh? This is an adventure game, not a manners class. It would be difficult to figure some of the tasks out without our trusty diary telling us what to do every step of the way. Instead of showing off Persian superiority, the game actually paints a picture of a nation with an inefficient bureaucracy run by a bunch of scared order takers. I doubt that was the intention. When someone doesn't want to let our hero inside in the middle of the night, he doesn't introduce himself as a cop. That would be way too easy and make too much sense. Instead he cuts the electricity, steals from a local bar, and destroys property so he can break into the place. He claims he does this because he doesn't want to destroy his dignity. Yeah this makes perfect sense.
More twisted logic is on full display here. Our hero tells us a hotel is a "famous five star hotel." Yet the gardener also works inside the hotel lighting fires and cleaning rooms. Persian Mayberry! We hear lots of little comments about how great Tehran is for nightlife and how great the north is for bucolic beauty. It is just more text to read that has no bearing on the game other than to remind you that the developers have an agenda. I have no idea why they even sold this game outside Iran. It doesn't exactly translate to the rest of the world. We can only listen to so many bits of dialogue about all the great Persian food and drink and all the tourist attractions in Iran. If someone said this was a game designed to promote Iranian tourism, I would not be surprised. I'm very happy I paid less than a dollar for this game.
