I couldn’t believe that a man so devoted to his smartphone would return to an out-of-town hotel to retrieve a decorative lantern to use as a light source (does he not know there’s an app for that?). I couldn’t believe that a man too sensible to carry around a tube of super glue that he saw no immediate use for would solve problems so ludicrously. I couldn’t see it that way after the badge puzzle. The problem is that Moebius presents itself as a serious, grown-up drama. Those are hallmarks of the genre, and I’ve loved many a game that included those things. My issue here is not with backtracking and roundabout puzzles. Nope, he’s too busy communing with an underage ass, which has remained in tableau for the duration of however long it’s taken me to get to Lower Manhattan and back. Because surely, Phone Man won’t notice me positioning myself behind him after I stroll conspicuously across the plaza, nor will he hear the scissors snipping near the nape of his neck, nor will he feel the badge as it falls from his person. Like, say, going back to the apartment for a pair of kitchen scissors. Malachi informed me that I couldn’t pull the badge up over Phone Man’s head, as he’d be bound to notice. It genuinely didn’t occur to me that “create a distraction” meant “go bend over in front of that total stranger” until I was halfway through the conversation, but hey, what’s dignity matter when there’s a last-generation iPod up for grabs? Having successfully coerced a minor, my task was now to get the VIP badge from Phone Man, whose gaze was most definitely not on me. I head to Malachi’s apartment, get the MP3 player, then go back to the park to enlist my accomplice. The discarded MP3 player in Malachi’s bedroom! Seems like a bit of an out-of-the-way solution, and I’m not clear on what part the girl is supposed to play in all this, but we’re still within the realm of reason. Malachi notes her portable CD player, which he says indicates a lack of money. ![]() ![]() Having nothing on me that will assist, I talk to the teenager, who brushes me off. Malachi says we need a distraction in order to obtain it. Now, I’ve played enough games to know “don’t have a badge” translates as “go find a thing.” I direct my attention to two conspicuous NPCs - a man talking on a phone, and a teenage girl. I talk to the guard, who predictably tells me that I am not on the list and don’t have a badge. It’s a little aggravating when you see a tube of super glue you know you’re going to need later, but Malachi is a practical, no-nonsense man. Unlike most adventure games, which let you grab everything that isn’t nailed down, you can’t pick things up unless Malachi has an express purpose for them. Before I get into it, though, I need to explain how inventory works in Moebius. Though these quibbles started to grate at me, it was a puzzle that irrevocably broke the tone. I took one more step back from the story, constantly pausing to make hard saves. Not a big deal, but Malachi’s ambling pace made me reluctant to sit through scenes a second time, and it became clear that the crash was not an isolated incident (I encountered three game-breaking bugs along the way, too). But while the absence of auto saves wasn’t the end of the world, the lack of a quick save function did make me raise an eyebrow. I’ve become so accustomed to games saving automatically that it didn’t occur to me to consider otherwise. In a way, I feel a bit spoiled for assuming there would be. I imagined that for some players, this was going to be slashfic central. The writing was fun, the voice acting solid. It was a refreshing change, though perhaps a little goofy at times. They fell into a dynamic typically reserved for co-ed duos, complete with an air of will-they-or-won’t-they. He was eventually joined by David Walker, a chummy, punny ex-soldier with a fierce protective streak. His brand of acerbic genius will be instantly recognizable to anyone who has watched television in the last ten years, but I found his vocation enticing, and his snarkyness welcome. Malachi Rector is not a gumshoe, but an antiques expert, prone to quipping about decorating choices and bad replicas. The story intrigued me, as did the protagonist. A globe-trotting, artifact-analyzing adventure, complete with dossiers and suspect profiles - everything a kid brought up on Carmen Sandiego could love. ![]() An over-the-top metaphysical mystery, complete with shadowy government dudes and historical shenanigans (on a scale of one to Sleepy Hollow, it’s somewhere north of middle). An old school point-and-click written by Jane Jensen, one of the genre’s greats. Everything about this game was my cup of tea. ![]() I had just completed the first two chapters, and I was into it. Six hours of gameplay ago, I could not have imagined bailing out.
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