In the early ‘00s French studio Microids of Syberia fame released an ambitious point-and-click murder mystery thriller that kicks off with undeniable potential. Set in 1920s Paris, Post Mortem evokes the grim mystique of film noir, blends it with a rich texture of pre-war Europe and adds a small dose of the supernatural. Sadly, as much as it tries to juggle cinematic storytelling, flexible gameplay mechanics, and immersive world building, a couple of big issues make it a very tough recommendation to anyone but the most die-hard of adventure fans, or at least those who want to experience the “prequel” to the also problematic but vastly better fine-tuned Still Life.
The protagonist, Gus MacPherson, is approached by the femme fatale of this tale before he reluctantly lends her his detective skills in a dialogue sequence that rivals the one between Robert De Niro and Al Pacino in Michael Mann’s Heat. Yes, that’s an ironic remark meant to poke fun at how bad conversations are, but more on that later. MacPherson’s mission will be to uncover the truth behind the homicide of said femme fatale’s sister, who is briefly shown in the short, noir-as-heck introductory cutscene where a man is seen entering the hotel room where a lady is having fun with a man while they both wear their birthday suits. Moments later and their decapitated bodies are holding their own severed heads in what seems to be a ritualistic murder.
Post Mortem’s brutal, grim opener sets the tone for something special. Sadly, this never delivers. The story is, for the most part, a somewhat entertaining sleuthing ride with a dark atmosphere that fits like a glove with the setting, but it sort of loses its footing the deeper one goes, being a bit too predictable for its own sake while also putting aside the much more preferable realistic approach it begun with in order to add a bit of unnecessary mysticism and Knights Templar-esque conspiracies into the mix. Is it bad? No, but it doesn’t really manage to be something more than okay. It doesn’t help that the dialogue sequences that will have to be endured are unbelievably boring, and feature some of the most one-dimensional characters imaginable.
As a rule, when your game has plenty of dialogue it needs to be really good. Unfortunately, staying awake while listening to people talk will be the biggest challenge here, not puzzle solving. The voice acting is soulless, especially when it comes to the protagonist, whose motivations are poorly fleshed out, with him having the emotional range of moss growing on a rock – a boring one. The writing goes back and forth between good and passable (and between serious and silly), but it doesn’t help that sometimes the main character will reference people, locations, or events before he has discovered them – and as the cherry on top, dialogue can’t be skipped, making the search for info quite the tedious endeavour. It’s a shame really, as this is one of the few adventures that involves a bit of roleplaying by offering a selection of different responses for each occasion.
It’s hard to get immersed in Post Mortem’s world despite its pretty good atmosphere. Apart from its poor narrative, the visuals are dated, even for 2002. Note that this comes from a passionate retro afficionado who loves how many games used to look back in the day, so it’s not a matter of not having a super advanced graphics engine. This has some similarities with another Microids creation, the aforementioned classic adventure Syberia, which was a low-budget kind of deal as well, but Post Mortem sort of lacks the latter’s much better artistic direction and thus hasn’t stood the test of time that gracefully, with its 360° first-person pre-rendered – and occasionally way too dark – scenes paling by comparison to older titles such as 1997’s Riven. Yes, a somewhat unfair comparison, but still…
When it comes to the actual game, for the most part this is a typical representation of the genre. The hero goes around searching for clues and items, talking with people to unlock locations to push the story forward, and of course solve puzzles. The good thing about puzzles is that there are multiple alternative solutions for each one. Opening a locked door, for example, can be done with a set of lockpicks, by convincing a character to simply give the key, or by…cleverly using a newspaper. Nice as all that might sound, the puzzles themselves belong in a category that can be described as one of the most mixed of mixed bags, with none being bad, and none being more than just fine.
Like with pretty much everything, the user interface is slow and rough around the edges, the controls are somewhat clunky, and the whole process of moving around, looking at the surroundings and generally doing PI work is not that enjoyable. The flawed dialogue system makes a return, this time ruining the gameplay itself instead of just the story. As mentioned earlier the conversations are out of sync, with MacPherson frequently speaking about things he shouldn’t have knowledge of. Well, it turns out that this untested mess of a dialogue system many times makes it hard to gather the necessary info to solve a problem or even complete the game by having a sequence stuck in a loop. Long story short for those who didn’t bother to read this masterpiece of a review: avoid.
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