In Memoriam review

It may look confusing, but it's one of the more immediately comprehensible puzzles.

With all the conformity, rigidity and franchise familiarity that's beginning to crowd the modern games market, a touch of originality, of real inspiration, is more than welcome. In Memoriam isn't a perfect game, it's isn't even a great game, but it feels so damn different and so smart that it will surely be remembered long after the latest FIFA iteration or Sims expansion pack has left the shelves. There hasn't been a title this inspired since Uplink.

And like that aforementioned bedroom project, In Memoriam is very easy to understand but very difficult to master, requiring a certain amount of lateral thinking, a surprising amount of research and a hefty dose of patience.

Hunting the hunted

Contained on the CD are extracts from one of the missing journalist’s video diaries.

At its most base level In Memoriam is a puzzle game but, certainly in my opinion, it feels far more like a full-bodied adventure. However, this time, your adventure takes place solely in front of your PC. There's no avatar to control, no distant lands to visit and no utilitarian inventory items to hoard. There is only you, your CD-ROM, The Phoenix and his puzzles.

And then the emails begin to arrive.

Let me explain myself. In Memoriam knows it’s only a piece of software on a CD. It knows you're a puzzle solver sat in the dark in front of your monitor, bloodshot eyes searching for hidden clues. It makes itself real in ways very different to the traditional methods. The CD you place in your drive is a coded message from an individual known only as The Pheonix, who purports to know the location of two missing journalists. Should you manage to solve his riddles and develop and understanding of his mindset, the missing pair might yet return home alive. As you pit your wits against this homicidal egomaniac, tracing his steps and thoughts, you realise it's all a little like a PC-based version of the film Manhunter. The quality of the writing certainly isn't lacking.

Esotericism rulez OK?

The developers have put an immense amount of effort into creating a believable world around you. This is a blog belonging to one of the missing journalists.

It doesn't stop there, however. An Internet connection is mandatory, as you'll need to do a lot of research to get anywhere, on subjects both false and real. The developers have created a plethora of websites that relate solely to in-game content - there are blogs, galleries and entire websites devoted to the game’s fictional characters and organisations. As well as having to use the net to research some extremely esoteric and wildly far-out subjects you'll also receive realistic e-mail correspondence from other investigators like yourself who have been hired to crack The Phoenix's mysterious CD and have their own theories and knowledge on the materials contained within. It becomes ever more disturbing and engrossing as you uncover more and more sobering information, your insubstantial Internet allies emailing you autopsy reports or the history of some long-dead religions.

This all adds up to create a very impressive, very realistic framework to build around - the network of fictional websites, your artificial Internet contacts emailing tips and the very real material upon which the case is based and which you must also research to make progress, but what of the puzzles themselves? Their nature stretches from the bizarre to the baffling, their solutions varying from research-based, to hand-eye co-ordination and memory skills.

Give us a clue

This simple puzzle must surely involve putting the torn pictures back together... right?

And The Phoenix is a very messed up person, it seems. Each puzzle has its own theme which, although not immediately apparent, itself forms part of a larger puzzle through which you are constantly moving. These eerie challenges involve such tasks as placing images from a video in the correct order, guiding a spider across a shifting path by giving it the correct movement instructions or simply finding a password that The Phoenix has hidden on a webpage somewhere. All this is supplemented by distant mutterings and twisted, almost gurgled sound effects, while insults or compliments from The Phoenix crop up should it amuse him to do so. He rewards your progress with further clues, usually hidden within video footage taken by one of the missing journalists.

The early puzzles are very simple and the plot of the adventure doesn't become terribly interesting until you are well past the introduction but, once you're moving along, In Memoriam does a fine job of convincing you that you're sharing the thoughts of a very dangerous person. Most of the problems arrive with the research-based puzzles, as they are as often about guessing quite what question you need to ask as well as finding the right answer in the information ocean of the Internet. That's not to say there aren't occasional frustrations with many of the other challenges The Phoenix sets, but In Memoriam is all about being investigative and your clues are based in the real world.

Mystic

Try as you might, this one can't be washed down the plughole.

Ultimately, it's this Private Eye dynamic that makes it work so well - it's like watching a film noir but solving the mystery yourself. There's only one route through the game, although you can frequently switch to another puzzle should your present one confound you, meaning you're only likely to play the game once, but the experience you have, though flawed and occasionally infuriating, is one that no other game can give you. This is the game that Myst wanted to desperately to be and the millions that bought from that awful, awful adventure series should turn their attention to this little gem instead. Go on; reward a little originality for a change.