14 DAY TRIAL // 
In the last time, the adventure genre has been ignored, and that's because is not easy to develop a game which harmoniously combines plot elements with action, in a captivating adventure which maintains some realism.
Microids seems to master the genre and their new game, Still Life, which has all the chances of becoming more successful than Syberia.
The main character is Victoria McPherson, a FBI agent sent to Chicago to investigate a series of crimes. Unlike other adventures, where the first part accommodates you with the game, Still Life begins directly with an investigation at a crime scene.
The killer, a 2004-2005 version of Jack The Ripper, has just committed the fifth crime and Victoria has to take fingerprints and photographs of the crime scene. The photographs will have a crucial role in Victoria's investigations and they will often provide important details.
Victoria leaves to spend the Christmas holydays with her father, and she finds out that her grandfather, detective Gus McPherson had to solve in Prague a series of similar crime in 1929.
During the game you will alternate between Victoria's 2004 investigations and Gus McPherson's 1929 investigations.
Investigate, investigate, investigate
An adventure game doesn't have to rely only on an interesting story, the gameplay, the scenery, the freedom of movement, the puzzles are equally important elements to the success of such a game. And StillLife manages to perfectly combine all these elements. First of all, playing two characters in different times, each in its own color, offers an interesting perspective.
The backgrounds from 1920 Prague will have colors close to the sepia tones, a very good trick to induce the idea of past. Besides that, 2D backgrounds are mixed with 3D elements, making Still Life a visually stimulating game.
The third person perspective allows the easy control of characters and considering that the mouse is the only device employed, you will quickly get used to the game's interface.
Another novelty is related to dialogues. Unlike other games of this type, in StillLife you don't choose the question from a list and by pressing different buttons of the mouse you'll have access to personal or official questions.
The few puzzles from the demo are logic and strongly related to the investigations. Some of them are quite easy, especially the ones at the beginning of the game, where the clues are always close by and all you'll have to do is use them properly.
As you advance in the game, the puzzles will get more and more complex, and it's easy to guess that the complete version will contain some very complex ones.
Similarly to Syberia, you can choose between hearing the dialogues and reading the subtitles. To help you focus on the important facts, the producers have kept the dialogues simple and without unnecessary information.
The atmosphere from StillLife is pretty gloomy and this sensation is not achieved only by the graphics, but also by the cinematics (for example in the opening movie, you see the killer dragging one of the victims through the sewers of Chicago), so it's easy to understand why the game has been rated Mature by ESRB.
Waiting for the final version
From what we have seen from the demo, it is clear StillLife will be a collectors item for the adventure enthusiasts especially for those who appreciate gloomier and more brutal elements, the game being full of coarse language and violent scenes. After all, this is a serial killer we are talking about, so it would have been a little bit strange for characters to censor their dialogues.
The combination of graphics, music, and voices is very successful and playing two characters investigating similar crimes, in two different time periods, makes this game even more interesting.
