Still Life 2 is the third game in the crime-investigation games series that follows the steps of FBI agent Victoria McPherson, in her attempt to unravel the murder's identity from the previous game and to catch the new copycat serial killer that horrifies the Maine state. This new villain comes to Vic's attention when he kidnaps journalist Paloma Hernandez, who has been covering the East Coast crimes from the beginning in her TV reports.

You will play again with two characters switching back and forth between both of them in order to understand the events that take place. This time each of the two characters bring a different perspective of the story with radical effects to the gameplay. Playing with Vic, the game will keep its original feeling of the series giving the player the opportunity to take part in an extensive investigation. Playing as the new character Paloma, the player will emerge in the new role of the victim harassed by a serial killer in an abandoned house. Both characters are conditioned to succeed with the help of their own interconnected deeds. Paloma's life depends on Vic's investigation, while Vic's investigation depends on the unconscious traces left by Paloma.

I was expecting to find the same mechanics and interface from previous titles, but I was taken by surprise to see a mixed inventory and an in-game integrated interface. The new inventory has a limited number of cases forcing the player to rearrange his objects carefully and get rid of those not worthy anymore. This can be done by using the deposit cases located in each important scene of the level. Not only that you can deposit the objects, but you can take them back for a further usage in the game. The only problem here is that the developers didn't take in consideration the real life measures of every object. You can have a canister that occupies only 1 case in your inventory while an empty spray bottle needs four cases. It is really frustrating to see that some of the objects tend to inflict an over usage of the inventory in detriment of others who might be worthier. Besides the inventory, both characters have additional tools. Victoria will frequently use her Smartphone for taking pictures and sending important evidence to her friend and colleague Claire Ashby back at the bureau. But the most important gadget in the whole game is the CSIA Test Kit. With this kit you can take any important evidence from the crime scene and analyze it. You can use for example the fingerprint powder to discover prints on different surfaces that can be scanned and entered into the computer through the 3D scanner. Any evidence can be checked in three different ways using the computer, chemical or database analysis.  

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While Still Life could easily inspire movies, Still Life 2 is inspired from movies exploiting some ideas from popular horror flicks such as the Saw series. Playing as Paloma, the game becomes much more difficult. You have to play a survival game in which you obey the murder's rules and obstacles in order to keep the character alive. In this second perspective the limited inventory has been kept along with the deposit cases, so normally the gameplay should be the same. But the way the puzzles must be solved is different. You have to take advantage of the surroundings improvising new ways of getting to the next room in which a new trap awaits you.

Although Still Life 2 is an adventure game with point'n'click elements, the game features a game over state. You can die either from a fatal wound or poison, if you don't find the right cure in a limited period of time. Also, while playing as Paloma, certain puzzles must be solved in a limited period of time, otherwise the killer will end your miserable life immediately. The good news is that the counter will be paused everytime you enter in the inventory. Dialogues have only an interaction meaning between the character and the NPC's. Every discussion subject remains a simple dialog line, unlike in rpg's where dialogue lines can cause decisions to be taken.

Still Life 2 brings nothing spectacular in terms of graphics. You get this time a 3D environment and full 3D characters, but who cares as long as the game runs on 1024x768 maximum resolution.  There is nowhere you can set the resolution higher, so you have to accept this fact. The whole game will be played from a third person point of view with a partial dynamic camera. Overall you will get the same static scenes, but the camera will become dynamic while moving. Unfortunately this is not a general fact, some of the scenes being divided by static frames just like in old survival-horror games.

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Conclusion

Still Life 2 is a modern adventure game delivering a vivid experience and an intuitive puzzles system. For the ones that have already played the other two games from the series (Post Mortem and Still Life), Still Life 2 is a 'must have' giving important explanations in order to clarify the controversy surrounding the end of the first Still Life game.

Gameplay: 78

The developers emphasized more on the investigation process, introducing the Smartphone and CSIA Test Kit in its favor. Therefore most of the puzzles have been created around it. Two characters have been used again, to show the player the events from two different perspectives. The story will unfold all the questions raised by the former game, but in a 'foggy' style, using the flashback method and many written evidences.

Graphics: 73

I have to admit that this one doesn't look as good as its predecessor. The environmental design is stuck into a realistic recreation of the surroundings but lacks of diversity. The maximum resolution of 1024x768 is annoying making the textures to look faded although the antialiasing filter being set to the maximum. The camera angles are good making the environment much easier to be explored, but suffer most of the time from a static stance.

Multiplayer: N/A

Sounds: 71

Overall the voice acting is poor, the only representative voice being Victoria's voice. Some tunes tend to become repetitive and appear in weird places sometimes over the spoken dialogues.

Hardware: 74

There are no notable problems besides some flickering moments while changing the scenes and some out-of-focus interactive icons.