Interrogation Files: Port Landsend

First of all, please ignore the curators who say you can get 100% of achievements in 23 or 30 minutes (according to two curators for this game). That's a joke. To suggest that anyone could complete this game with 100% achievements in under an hour is completely misleading. No, no, no. If you're after all the achievements in this game, you're going to be spending HOURS. First off, there are four hours of videos (plus a bunch of evidence to look at). You should actually watch a bunch of the videos, if not most of them, at least once, on your first run, to even know what's going on, especially if you want to input the correct search terms that will reveal more videos, evidence, and clues. Of course, it's not completely necessary to use search terms to unlock videos; you could just click on the “Messages” option (then the videotape icon). Using this method, your boss will unlock ONE video at a time, but even that’s a bit time-consuming, opening and closing each screen and so forth. You also don't have to watch the videos; you only need to start them (and then you can close them). The videos still count toward your progression when you do that, but what's the point? You're not actually playing the game for the experience or figuring anything out if you do that. I mean, that's fine for the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th runs (it's what I did after the first run and went for the other 3 ending achievements), but I wouldn't suggest doing that on your first playthrough. I suggest you familiarize yourself with the characters and what's going on in the first playthrough. It helps with knowing what to do to get through later runs a bit quicker. Trying for the other endings is no walk in the park either, as for trying to get through it quickly. I’ll elaborate more on that in a little bit. As for guides, I saw that one curator mentioned that the game was “fully guided.” The one who said the game could be completed 100% in 30 minutes (LOL). Fully guided usually means there’s a walkthrough or achievement guide on Steam (or YouTube). I also take issue with that. There is a total of ONE guide on Steam, and “fully guided” is a bit of a stretch. It’s helpful for a few of the achievements (not all), and almost no help at all as far as useful search terms to get through the game a little easier. Mostly, you’re on your own. I just had to figure out most of it for myself. Not that it’s not doable. The game is fairly user-friendly and can be figured out on one's own, but there is no complete guide. You will need to think a bit for yourself. For achievement hunters, there is one caveat, which I’ll explain further on. There are 4 endings, and each has its own achievement. For each ending, you must select the suspects you believe were involved in the crime when the Accused option finally pops up (requiring a bunch of unlocked videos); however, after selecting your suspects and going through the ending videos, you must COMPLETELY DELETE that session before you can replay the game and before you can choose other suspects and endings. Yes, you will have to go through unlocking all the videos all over again, until you are given the Accuse option and a chance to choose different suspects and a different ending, and there are a buttload of videos to unlock before you get the chance to do that. Even if you go to Messages to unlock one video at a time, it still takes time. Since I watched all the videos (100% for each character) on the first run, I had a good idea of the search terms I needed to unlock multiple videos at once, which made checking them off a little faster than having the Messages guy unlock one video at a time, but it was still time-consuming, however you will still have to use the Messages system to unlock some of the videos. It's all time-consuming, so going for multiple endings will take a few hours. Another note to achievement hunters and completionists, like myself... you may not get the “Not Quite Done Yet” achievement. I didn’t, and I believe that achievement is broken. I played 4 complete runs and chose the “no suspects” ending first, on all 4 runs. The "no suspects" ending is supposed to unlock that achievement when the Accuse option comes up. I actually chose that option on every playthrough. I did that first, closed the Accuse screen before I decided on which suspects I was going to choose, and the achievement never popped, so I chose some suspects. I got three of the four endings, and tried one more time, going through the whole rigamarole of starting a new session with a blank slate, patiently unlocking enough videos until I got the Accuse option. Closed the Accuse screen without choosing anyone (which is supposed to unlock the achievement), and nothing. I also made sure I had unlocked 100% of all videos for all suspects. I tried it multiple times. Nothing. The achievement never popped, and I know I did everything right, so it seems to be broken. It ticked me off a bit, having gone through this game so many times, only to not get that one achievement. So, that screwed up my Steam Completionist rating, after spending hours on this game. I would suggest to the Devs, either fix that achievement or remove it, because it’s quite frustrating for completionists like myself. I feel cheated. Another suggestion would be to allow the player to have ready access to the videos they’ve already unlocked in previous run(s) when they start a new session, then allow the player to choose different suspects without having to go through the hassle of searching for and unlocking each video 3 or 4 times for the different endings. For all developers: repeating tasks over and over again is tedious and tiresome, especially for experienced players aiming for alternate endings or achievements. It’s not fun, and it feels like a waste of time. I think most players would agree. All that said, it was a good FMV game. I enjoyed the game, but I was left quite frustrated with having to keep unlocking videos I’d already unlocked, trying for all the endings. And I was really annoyed that one achievement was broken. If you just want to play a decent FMV detective game and don’t care about achievements or upping your completionist rating, and you’re good with just one or two endings, I’d say go for it. As far as good FMV detective games go, Interrogation Files: Port Landsend is up there with some of the best. So, aside from my stated frustrations, I can still recommend this game.

Sledujete výslechy podezřelých, sbíráte důkazy, analyzujete a pomocí klíčových slov hledáte další záznamy v databázi. Doporučuji dělat si poznámky, některé informace se vám budou hodit i později. Většina herců to zvládla na jedničku a vyšetřování jsem si užil od začátku do konce. Vlastně mě to bavilo víc než Her Story.

I for sure would recommend this game to you if: [list] [*] You have already played Her Story, liked it, and would enjoy playing a similar game [*] You wouldn't be put off by lower production values (the acting, in particular, can be distracting) [*] You can look past and put up with some minor but irritating design flaws [/list] If the above describes you then I feel pretty confident that you would enjoy Interrogation Files: Port Landsend. It is clearly a small indie game, but it has an interesting story and I was definitely invested in the investigation to figure out what had happened. For me the good very much outweighed the bad, and I personally wouldn't hesitate to play future games from the same developer. If you didn't enjoy Her Story (or Telling Lies) then you probably won't enjoy this game. If you haven't played Her Story yet I would recommend trying that out first, as I think that it is a better game and probably a better introduction to the genre. The reason I am comparing this game to Her Story so much is because the influence is obvious (it even gets a special thank you mention in the credits). There are a few interesting differences, however. [list] [*]The theme of this game is a little more spooky; I don't want to spoil any of the story, but if you enjoy occult themes then I would recommend this to you even more. [*]There are multiple suspects that you discover along the way, and it is up to you to decide who is guilty. (The game ends when you decide to accuse someone and then you get to see the consequences of your choice.) [*]There is an evidence screen that shows pieces of evidence that are unlocked during your investigation. You can look at the evidence for clues. [*]The search terms don't correspond to the exact script (as they do in Her Story or Telling Lies), but rather to concepts. Ultimately this ended up being a bit frustrating in practice because some clips were overly picky about keywords (it felt a little bit like the old Sierra games where you had to get the word exactly right), but I think it was an interesting conceptual design idea that changed how I approached trying to uncover new things. I still ended up spamming everything I could think of (especially at the end of the game), but rather than trying specific words that had been used I would try to be more descriptive about things I wanted to know more about. [/list]

First of all, this is my absolute favorite game genre. There aren't many police interrogation/keyword search FMV games out there (thank god for Sam Barlow,) and as such, my standards for what I'll play are low. However, this is the first time ever I've felt compelled to write a review for a game because I have to express/warn how much this game frustrated me, making me give up and quit at about halfway through (I'm slow!) The Good: - The writing/story/world building was super intriguing. I still want to know how it ends so I'm sure I'll finish it when I have more patience. - I'll be honest and say I thoroughly enjoyed the first few hours, because most of my cons weren't at all apparent until hours in. I feel like the first 3 suspects you discover do a pretty good job being somewhat believable, all things considered. Originally Ruth annoyed me and felt overly dramatic, but honestly she stole the show. The Really Bad: - Ok. So, it is clear all the subjects are reading off of cue cards or something off-screen to their right. I didn't even notice it for hours because it plays into the evasive/thinking look and a lot of the actors are good at maintaining some eye contact with the cops they're talking to. And then there's Natalie. This is by far the worst acting I have seen in basically any form of media, ever. Natalie almost never looks at the detectives, she just stares to her right, reading her lines like she's doing a spot-on Tommy Wiseau impression. Her performance was so jarring and unrealistic that after a few of her clips I just shut the game off. - The keyword weirdness other reviewers have mentioned also kinda sucks but doesn't even come close to Natalie. Overall, the game is only 7 bucks, so if you really enjoy these games and have exhausted the current options I'd still recommend it. Just be prepared.

Super jeu à la "Her story". Dommage que l'histoire soit moins palpitante qu'elle n'y paraît. Moins effrayante aussi.

I got this game on a whim... I am so glad I did that! The game is quite nice. The whole detective, investigation, cold case aspect of the game is really well executed. The live action video recordings really bring you into the mystery. The actors are pretty good, for the most part. Only one broke the immersion for me. She kept looking off to the side so much, that you could tell she was reading a script held off camera. She also read it like one reads a book, out loud in a class, that they've seen for the first time. Her cadence didn't match the words she spoke. It came off unnatural. It really took me out of the experience when she came up. Otherwise all the other actors were great!!! I give it an 8 out of 10. it's actually really good and interesting.

Okay. This is one of the better "Her Story"-like database scrubbing experiences. Finding 100% of the videos is pretty much impossible without a guide for a normal person and some achievements are annoying, but overall, the mystery is pretty cool and keeps you invested until at least one of the possible endings. + story was really nice + relatively good database tools + believable "old" tech effects, like scan lines and visual artefacts + Unlimited help functionality so you don't get stuck unless you are proud and stubborn - some of the "acting" is laughable... [spoiler] be it "Natalie the robot" or "Ruth the skin-walker" [/spoiler] - Not sure how the recording of the scenes was set up. (composite of several videos + green screen? idk) Sometimes it was quite uncanny how the interviewing cops seemed smaller on screen than the suspect... almost like the cops had the person on a big screen in front of them instead of being in the same room. - Relating to the previous point: A couple of the interviewees constantly look hard right during interrogation, almost never looking to the direction of the interviewers. Something weird was going on with the camera work in this game, and it made some of the people look guilty or crazy by default. All in all, a nice FMV mystery experience, even for the full price of 5.99.

It is ok game. Not too good, but enjoyed it.

It's alright. Quite a long game as well, too long I felt. Also the ending just didn't really land for me. And the searching mechanic was more than a little awkward at times, it seemed quite arbitrary whether a video would turn up when you searched for a word. I think a bit more story editing, a bit more accomplished actors, and a bit more refinement to the search mechanic, and this could have been very good.

Similar gameplay to Her Story but with more characters. Pros: - interesting story - Progressing is fun at first - Some excellent acting - Great atmosphere Cons: - Story's ending is a bit vague - Progression stops making sense after a while, keyword search is simply not working like it should, so you end up using the hint button to progress (to which there is no usage limit or negative impact, so eh) - Some awful acting as well I really did enjoy the game but as it progresses, feels less like a game and more like watching videos... the accusation process is super simple, and if you want to change your choices later... you have to start over (which is of little interest, but necessary for all achievements). Like I said the main mechanic is more and more broken as you progress, so you simply stop caring, which is too bad. The extras unlocked at the end are laughable. Still, for the price, if you like FMV games like Simulacra and Her Story, go for it!