Sunday 11 November 2007, New York City.
According to local newspapers, 2007 sees a dramatic 30% increase in violent crime, with most offenders being minors and young adults. The liberals blame the easy access to firearms and the lack of parental guidance, while the conservatives blame the inadequate public surveillance and the glorification of violence on television and computer games. This is the state of affairs in New York when ex-US army combat psychiatrist David McNamara arrives, under heavy rain without his coat. McNamara has been assigned to attend to five unidentified young men and women, all of them aged between 18-20, who were found roaming the city suffering with amnesia, post-traumatic stress disorder and disorientation. Your role as McNamara is not only to understand the circumstances under which these five young people were admitted to the Staten Island Forensic Hospital, but also to understand your own unstable reactions, remember events from your past that you would rather forget and try to improve your relationship with your wife, Kim.
Even though David wants to help his patients he is disliked by almost everyone, either for his methods (hypnosis without any drug use) or for his personality (occasionally bad-tempered). His colleague at State Island Hospital, Dr. Young, is hardly ever friendly, while the nurse, Tamara, does not put enough effort in her work. In addition to all this, there is there is Detective Moretti who tries to gain David’s trust; with good or bad intentions, that is up to you to find out.
Five patients and a doctor.
Everything in Overclocked is done with the left mouse button, except the skipping of dialogues (Esc key) and the few instances of item-dropping (right mouse button). Left clicking on an object or character gives you options such as ‘look at’, ‘investigate’, ‘take’, ‘use’ and ‘talk’. Double clicking on a spot makes your character run, while double clicking on the arrow that marks the next available area instantly takes you there.
Maybe psychiatrist McNamara is the main character but that does not mean that he is the only character you will control. As McNamara’s treatment of his patients progresses he unlocks step by step the moments that led these patients to be admitted in the form of flashbacks. As each patient recollects his/her memories you go back in time and control the patient that McNamara has the session with. This gives us six characters overall with McNamara, obviously, being the one you will control the most.
Looking good in 16/9.
Overclock’s default screen resolution is set to 1024x768, but this can be easily changed into anything from 1152x864 to 1280x1024. You can also set the anti-alising and add/remove per-pixel lighting, post effects, shadows and shadow filtering. These options can only be changed in the pre-game menu that pops up every time you start the game, so as soon as you find your desired settings you never have to go through them again. In the simple, but yet effective, in-game menu you can also change the brightness and the sound volume of each sound effect.
When it comes to background graphics, every 2D location was made with extra care. From the old and nearly abandoned hospital to the quiet Nighthawk Bar down the corner, the indoor and outdoor graphics are two of the game’s strongest points. On the other hand, 3D character animation could have been improved. For example, when you zoom in to certain characters during conversations they look detailed (i.e. both their clothes and their face look very well-made) but nine out of ten times they are expressionless and their eyes seem to be out of focus. What is worth mentioning, though, is that every character in Overclocked has his/her own unique characteristics, from hairstyle to clothing, and every once in a while you notice pedestrians at places you haven’t noticed them before.
Moreover, the pouring rain you experience throughout most of the game does not become annoying, even though you do not see it falling on water or small puddles. And speaking of water, there are a couple of moments where a character pours a drink into a glass right in front of you but yet you don’t see the actual drink flowing into the glass; you only see the bottle, the glass and hear the sound of pouring liquid. Of course, these are not dramatic errors compared to the overall excellent graphics, yet they are hard to miss.
One of the few “disappointments” one can think of is that the areas you visit are rather limited. Even though you explore different locations with each of the five young patients to the ones you visit with McNamara, you still cannot help but feel that your destinations are limited.
Solving the mystery.
The objects you have to pick up and their hotspots are easily found and won’t cause you any problems. As Overclocked is not based on item-combining puzzles, House of Tales made the wise decision to keep the players pixel-hunting-free, so what you should be more worried about is the plot’s progress and each character’s lines than whether you will find the X object that needs to be combined with the Y object which is hidden under the carpet of a dark room (that was a made up example).
The puzzles vary from opening locked doors to using objects but the most frequent form of puzzle is helping the patients recollect their memories. Since memory recollection is an essential feature of Overclocked it is better to leave the details aside…
Since the game runs in 16/9 screen setting, the inventory is constantly visible at the bottom of the screen whereas the upper part remains 99% black, except moments when you receive a message on your PDA or add a new voice recording to it. Perhaps a full screen setting would have added more to the atmosphere, as constantly seeing your rarely-used inventory items is not exactly an atmospheric situation, but still, even in 16/9 you won’t be disappointed.
What does add a lot to the atmosphere is the music theme. It is absolutely what it is supposed to be and is the reason why your speakers should be set at a respectable volume. During cut scenes and instances where characters are panicked the music changes accordingly and even though there is no significant variety in the tracks the sound effects (e.g. footsteps & echo) and the voices cover for that. More specifically, the sound of falling rain that remains after the end of the end of the theme is so clear and realistic that you may want to leave the game running just to listen to the rain. As for the actors, the majority of them have done a very good job, especially the one behind McNamara. When somebody is scared, angry or calm you can usually tell by his/her tone of voice.
Conclusion
Overclocked is a game we have had a first look at in Leipzig’s Games Convention in 2007 and we must say that the final result is impressive. The story is decent, not extremely far from reality and thus easier to relate to, and the graphics, even though noticeably static, they manage along with the excellent sound to build up the necessary suspense. With approximately 10-15 hours of gameplay and no pixel hunting you won’t be disappointed if you like classic adventure games.
elchrys
Overclocked 
