Junkman
Dec 13 2004, 05:43 AM
Game: Mystery
Creator: Beamer
Genre: Mystery
Description: Kenny has been murdered in class. Help Stan find the necessary clues to find the culprit and bring him to justice.

Rating: 57%

Review: In case you've been around SP Gaming in 2000, back in the days that South Park Gamer Z was around, you probably remember that game. If not, then let me explain to you what it's about. It's a mystery-solving game in which you help Stan trying to find out who murdered Kenny out of a large list of people by trying to find clues that might reveal the culprit.

The gameplay is extremely simple and it doesn't take long to get into the game. After a short cutscene which introduces us to the subject, you make your way through the school trying to figure out clues and get items such as keys to access the school's other rooms. Like every good mystery-solving game, you always gotta pay attention to your clues since some are fake and thrown in for the sake of trying to make you accuse someone else. It also has some attention to detail at parts as you see some sight gags from the show (such as Cartman squirting milk off his nose and Pip getting beaten by other kids). A message monitor highlights the items you find, although it didn't highlight some items or devices that would have been nice to learn about.

For such a game, graphics are something that shouldn't be overlooked but unfortunately in Mystery, this part of the game falls a bit flat. The background graphics aren't bad and none of them will hurt your eyes, but they are pretty basic and even unclear at times so it might be tough to detect some of the clues properly since you aren't pretty sure of what the object is, actually. The SP-related graphics are good and they do match the show's drawings. They aren't animated but for a game like that, is animation really needed anyway? It's not like it's a high-caliber action game in which you kill everyone.

Sound-wise, this game is horrible. This is one of the few games where turning off the music will be required in order to appreciate it and I'm not kidding, unfortunately. Most of the music heard through the whole adventure comes in form of two of Beamer's earliest midis (The main song used through Mystery's game mode has been rated 1/10 by Beamer himself on his site and is aptly called Uuugh) and it's not a pretty listen at all. The other ripped songs are more bearable, but they don't play much through the game anyway. Considering that Uuugh will be the tune which shall get the most play time through Mystery, you definity should turn the music off when playing it. This game uses very few sound samples from the KNP archives up for good use, though.

In the context of this game's release (Mystery has been made for a competition organized on SPGZ and I even happened to win it smile.gif) this game does a pretty good job. This was a good idea for a competition and the game's format fits the bill in this way, but as a stand-alone project, Mystery falls a bit flat. With only one case to solve (which happens to be very short), it really offers only one interesting play. Once you'll have solved it, there's no real reason to return to this game since you aren't going to uncover anything else. Whilst it's not a bad game at all and it's an actually pretty unique concept, it could have been implemented a little bit better at parts. However, the ultimate element which dooms Mystery is its incredibly short lifespan and it's mostly why it receives a low score, despite the game's original idea and easy to access gameplay.