After playing the Blackwell Legacy, I was totally amazed with its storytelling regardless of its somewhat simple graphics. The game certainly took me by surprised and when I saw the next game in this saga, Blackwell Unbound, I didn’t want to play it as I thought it couldn’t live up to its standards. Well I simply caved in and installed the game. Once completed, this one moved me more than the first (Blackwell Legacy) with even better character development. There were also slightly more technical improvements however the puzzle elements were the same; that is wasn’t challenging enough and lack thereof.
Blackwell Unbound takes place in 1973, meaning it served as a prequel to Legacy. The game assumes the player’s knowledge of the main character Joey and introduces a new one, Lauren. Lauren is the aunt for Rosa from Legacy and her demeanour is considerably different as Lauren is more confident in her abilities as a medium. Then again, it didn’t explain at all of how Lauren was introduced to Joey in the first place. Nevertheless it’s a refreshing outlook of Lauren’s more assertive personality considering she is a chain smoker from hell. I guess that’s the 70s for ya.
The gameplay is in the style of a point and click variety – that is you literally just do that, point at a hotspot like an item or person and it will interact. Right click the mouse for the character to analyse and left click to interact. There is some inventory management where only Lauren can access (as after all, Joey is a ghost) and the neat notebook feature is here again. What this feature does, once it gets an update prompt, you can join sentences together to form another. Yet to those who’d played Legacy, there’s a new feature where you get to control both Joey and Lauren individually. This is pretty neat considering some puzzles requires swapping between characters.
Speaking of which, there are only a handful of puzzles to solve yet thankfully, they are all logical so they are no mind-bending at all. For some, this maybe a put-off however the plotline and game’s pacing hits the spot as there’s momentum instead of having a difficult puzzle to bottleneck the tempo. Also the storyline is so well written with realistic problems that’s very welcoming. The general mood is sombre yet well fitted for the plotline.
Thankfully to enhance the sombre mood, the musical scores by Thomas Regin is nothing short but exceptional. All the scores are well suited for this game and has that jazz feel. Not overdone however very welcoming and professionally composed. It’s that good I purchased the soundtrack in iTunes for USD $10. Graphically it is powered by the Adventure Game Studio (AGS), graphic artist Erin Robinson made some alterations, mainly with the characters and done a wonderful job at it. They are all dressed up as if it was the 70s and there’s little to be said about pixel hunting. Yet the opening screen where is shows the Statue of Liberty overlooking the Manhattan skyline at night is lovely to see.
It’s pretty rare that an adventure game sucks me in as well as Unbound did. The game’s length, depending upon your detective skills I guess, could take around the five hours mark. However I really cannot let go of this game until completion as mentioned before, the game’s pacing and storytelling is simply fantastic. Granted there’s a couple of bugs where the written text and spoken words differ and at one occasion, the text is there however the voice is muted however, and thankfully so, didn’t ruin the game. There’s obvious love and care poured into this game and the game’s ending, as much as I did actually panic, fills like I need to perform a standing ovation! A definite must play.