The Initiate 2: The First Interviews

Pretty fun game if you like puzzlers. Some puzzles are pretty tough.

I remember thinking that the original The Initiate was such a sleeper game ... well done, good puzzles, and not a lot of fanfare. I was absolutely delighted to see that Deceptive Games had a second title out (although it took me almost 2 years to find it!). What a delightful 'escape the room' puzzler with the added twist of working with 3 characters in 3 different environments and trading objects and clues to reach a final solution. I started playing and became so engrossed that the 10 hours I spent went by quickly. I did stop to sleep and eat but the rest of real life went on hold until I 'figured out the next puzzle.' The puzzles are a mix of logic, hidden objects, math, patterns, etc. Very few clues were just handed to the player and you need to be observant and explore every object and every corner. There are many objects that can be picked up... some have clues and some are just for decoration. The voice acting was professionally done and the sound track is engaging and made me want to keep my headphones on. I experienced no bugs and the game ran flawlessly. I did miss the instruction on how to put on the glasses (for my keyboard, it was the 'R' which I discovered through trial and error). A list of keys/mouse buttons used in the game would have been a nice addition. In the end, you have to make a choice which has an impact on the outcome. As in real life, I did 'the right thing' but will circle back to view the other endings (the game has an explicit save feature that can be used to create a check point whenever you are so inclined). Note that if you have not saved your game prior to the final puzzle, you could have to do some replay to see other endings. I highly recommend this (and the original The Initiate) to those who enjoy a well designed escape game with a story, characters, and interesting/diverse puzzles. (as a footnote - take time to read the various messages left for the candidates. They contain more than game fluff and were 'enlightening' to discover).

a good horror game. can recommend it. some good puzzles. the price of this game is in offer for -75% good.

The Initiate 2: The First Interviews is a first person adventure/puzzle game where you're stuck in a room and must solve various puzzles to progress through a somewhat nefarious plot... which isn't the problem, really. In fact if the technical implementation was of a higher quality, this could have been a AAA hit. The problems, however, are not small. We have a lot of what looks like stock assets thrown around (although this doesn't have the same low quality of a pure asset flip, exactly). The game seriously lacks polish, some of which might be caused by the use of the Unity UFPS engine and how it was adapted. It's also got more than a share of bugs, too. The developers didn't design the game for modern gaming PCs, as such the display resolution caps out at 1080p, a very low resolution that became mainstream back in 2006 and became obsolete when 4K entered the mainstream in 2014. The game simply won't look right on modern gaming displays due to this failure on the part of the developers, and this is bizarre considering the game came out in 2018. The poor quality of this game is reflected by how many people spent time with it. At the time of this review, SteamDB shows the all-time peak player number was only 10 players. This is a remarkably low number, and now, the only player activity occurs once or twice a month, presumably someone loading it up to see what it is then quickly uninstalling it. Considering there's over 120 million gamers on Steam and well over 50,000 games for gamers to choose from (over 9,000 completely free titles), the overwhelming lack of interest in this low quality game is to be expected. The Initiate 2: The First Interviews has the almost unethical price of $15 USD, for which you could easily get one of any number of older AAA games. This is also competing with over 9,000 free games available on Steam, many of them far better than this paid product. Given the defects and quality issues with the game, coupled with the unrealistic price, this is impossible to recommend.

I missed the original Initiate, so what better to do than come rolling in here like a poser and review the second game instead! I'm not sure if you have to play the first game or not to truly understand the plot here but I felt like I knew what was going on upon reaching the end of the story. You play as a woman named Sam who wakes up in a dingy, squalid confinement as a voice on the intercom starts bossing you around about what to do alongside delving into cryptic diatribes. Soon you find out that you are not the only person on lockdown and thus begins an engaging barrage of puzzle-solving to solve your way out of this mess and discover why you are here in the first place. Thematically, The Initiate 2 has much in common with the first Saw movie with some serious shades of Cube happening. You'll uncover bits of the story as you open up more rooms, read notes and meet the other characters trapped in this underground drunk tank. I was pleasantly surprised to hear some voice-acting in this one and though it's a bit on the sparse side, it does add a touch of character to the story rather than simply "read the notes" and call it a day molded storytelling. The graphics (done on Unity) aren't fantastic but they do a good job of depicting a rank, fetid prison which is where you are stuck at. It's not supposed to look like Buckingham Palace and it doesn't. Presentation-wise, everything is perfectly acceptable for the setting and gets the job done. Where the meat of the Initiate 2 lies is in the puzzle-solving. It's the crux of the entire game and though it's not overly difficult, it gets increasingly satisfying every time that you figure one of the problems out and more of the game opens up. You'll be doing everything from being a human paperweight on pressure stones, solving switchboards, finding codes, figuring out how to crack into computers, deducing which character needs which item (and then sending it to them via a simple elevator-sort of system) and many other point n' click-esque riddles. You can switch characters with a press of a # key and this whole mechanic leads to some really intricate creative thinking that's outside of the usual box. While not a total reinvention of the wheel, it feels rather unique in these fast-paced, modern gaming times as The Initiate 2 is a game that forces you to completely weigh all of the situations possible that each character is faced with in their own area and then carefully and thoughtfully piecing your way through each mystery. It also helps that the interface isn't overly clunky and the control is tight enough for an indie. The only thing that gets a bit redundant is placing and passing items between characters. You'll be doing it quite a bit and it gets a little ho-hum after awhile. I'm not design savvy on any level, so I'm not sure how this could have been implemented differently but by the 4th hour, the fact that you have to pass each item to the first character, then the second and so forth, does sort of slow down the pacing way more than it should. The good thing is that each time one of your ideas pays-off, it's onto the next puzzle and story beat. Things get freshened up frequently and that keeps the game moving along at a nice clip for its chosen genre. I had a lot of fun with the Initiate 2, so much so that before long I will go back in time and play the first one. There's a dark story that's fun to unravel and the entire experience feels like some Twilight Zone episode gone wrong and distilled into an old school point n' click adventure that just so happens to play out in real-time FPS. It's not perfect but I think most puzzle solvers will get an entertaining couple of hours out of this game.

These Initiate indie games are starting to grow on to me in the absence of 'proper' horror games that are not splatter or running around fast until monsters give up. No these are more traditional 'psycho has imprisoned you and you need to play their sick puzzle games' -kind of gameplay minus blood and gore. None of that here or jump scares. The first game 'The Initiate' was a ambitious puzzle solving game but it was also very demanding on stamina. It got weary looking at every item, rotating them around hoping you are able to spot the right cue item. Also notes, you had to had very impeccable notes and be systematic to get somewhere. Could never quite get through end game without guides but the second game scores right of the bat and lowers the stamina requirement by having a more compact play area. Play area is much smaller, more compact and even though you have 3 characters you switch between/pass items between it still manages to keep things streamlined. Good notes are still key but you really need them in the late game to remind you of things you saw early game. Puzzle difficulty is easy to medium with only a few ones making me stuck as i went overboard with the thinking but things worked out in the end. I see no issues with the game. 10/10 for an indie game that i definitely hope they make the final third part to as the ending ends like an episode does.

Temelde bulmaca çözümü ve odadan çıkma oyunlarına benzeyen mekanikleri ile oldukça sarıyor. Bir de bunu hikaye ve 3 karakterin ortaklaşa çalışmasıyla süslemişler. Bence oldukça başarılı olmuş. Farklı oyun tavsiyeleri için [url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/28623082/] kuratör [/url] sayfama beklerim. Türk oyuncu topluluğunun oyuna daha çok ilgi göstermesi için Türkçe dili eklemenizi tavsiye ederim. I recommend adding the Turkish language so that the Turkish player community will show more interest in the game.

I really liked the first game, The Initiate, and I think I liked this one just as much if not a little better. You have 3 characters to play in different areas that can swap items to solve the puzzles. I enjoyed that aspect a lot and made it different than the typical escape room game. The puzzles varied in difficulty and were all doable. Riddle No. 5 is flawed, but that was the only problem I had with the game and there is a lot of information on that in the forums. I had a lot of fun solving the puzzles and when I got on a roll it was hard to stop and take a break. I would love to see a third game from these developers.

Sigh. Unfortunately my review of this sequel is pretty much identical to that of the first game. You would think that the devs learned from their mistakes, but they haven't. I guess this is the quality we can continue to expect from them. In short, it's a diamond in the rough. The puzzles are mostly great (except for the "riddles") and there is a welcome new twist to the gameplay, but all the quality issues of the first game continue: clunky user interface, clicks not registering, bugs, broken English text, etc. If anything this sequel seems even less polished than the first game. It's also less diverse. Though the first game took place in a single location, it was lovingly crafted and a pleasure to explore. Here we experience a classic escape-the-room formula in an uninteresting enclosed space. Play the first game first. If you enjoy it enough and want more then this sequel will scratch that itch. Just don't expect the problems to have gone away.

Great follow-up to the first game. Definitely scratched the itch - not many of these games require as much ongoing observation and I think it's a beefier game for it - one of my top 10 escape room style games!