I`ve always had a soft spot for adventure games that do more than rattle your brains with difficult, meaningless quests, but I find it more and more difficult for a game to impress me to the point where I actually remember it for more than a couple of days. Overclocked: A History of Violence successfully falls into this category, with an excellent story, dark atmosphere and fantastic music. Trust me, it`s definitely worth your time.

Expecting hardly anything more than graphics from a quest game on 2 dvd`s I've installed it without too much hope. Since this spring seems to be an adventure season, I initially overlooked "Overclocked" for other, better known, titles - making a big mistake. Unfortunately, it`s going to be very difficult writing a review without spoiling the excellent story for you, but I`ll try to go into detail as little as possible.

As you can tell from the title, "Overclocked: A History of Violence", the story revolves around the motive that causes violence in 5 teenagers, and is a pretty violent game itself. Disturbing images and scenes will become more and more common as you go further into the game so I wouldn`t recommend this game to young impressionable children, but to a more mature audience.

You play the role of ex army psychiatrist David McNamara, called from his home in L.A. to New York, to help with an ongoing investigation. Apparently, five teenagers have been found wandering the streets of New York, suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder and amnesia. They all exhibit an increased tendency towards violence and have been committed to the local mental hospital. It`s going to be your job to treat them and see if you can discover exactly what happened to them.

At first, trying to chat with any of the teenagers will be almost impossible; one of them is still very violent and his cell is no place you want to stay in and chat. Step by step, you will help them remember their past, and while you delve deeper and deeper into their minds, you must make sense of their recollections.

The story evolves on two fronts, the hospital being one of them, and the other being David`s personal problems. He is having problems sleeping, the other guests of the hotel have been complaining of screams coming from his room at nights and of course there is that traumatizing letter received shortly after arriving, announcing an imminent divorce.

As any good psychiatrist, David will try to solve his problems in a peaceful and rational way and.... actually no, he will just go and get drunk almost every evening. While playing you will get to know David very well, and his problems will even get to you. Add to that the dark atmosphere of the game, and the fact that it never stops raining from the moment you get there, and you will have one dark, depressing game. The backgrounds seriously contribute to this, as all the locations visited in the game, especially the military base and the hospital, have a certain old and dark feeling surrounding them.

Weird as it may sound, the game actually made me feel better. I felt a great deal of relief when exiting the game, as I was leaving all of David`s problems behind and realizing that life could be a lot worse (ignore the fact that I`m comparing myself to a character from a PC game...). David`s character "evolves" during the course of the game from a rational, renowned psychiatrist to a more violent and severely disturbed character. At no point in the game did I see David take a turn for the better, not even in the end, so the final cinematic left me a little puzzled.

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Like any adventure game, the interface is very important and I`m pleased to say that "Overclocked" has one of the most easy to use and functional interfaces I`ve seen so far. Every object that you can interact with has a circular menu with all the actions available and a press of the space bar will display all interact able items on screen. A double click will cause David to run, and when changing areas you won`t have to watch him traverse the screen since the scene changes immediately. While I`m on the subject of scene changing, extremely long loading times when going from one scene to another have been mentioned, as much as 45 seconds, but in my experience these transitions were almost instant.

I mentioned that the game comes on 2 dvd`s but I honestly don`t know why it`s so large and even the demo comes in at a hefty 1gb. The game isn`t very long, the cinematics aren`t breathtaking, but certainly look good and the characters are kind of blocky. The lip sync is also awful, but the facial animations are great, allowing you to see exactly what each character is thinking; also the music is fantastic. I was really impressed by the sound track and how the music changes every time you enter the mind of one of your young patients. It picks up tempo and gets darker as their memories emerge, only to be dead silent once the memory is over. Other than this, it stays in the background, not really noticeable, but definitely there if you pay attention, contributing very much to the overall rainy atmosphere of the game.

All your sessions with your patients are recorded on your PDA so you can listen to them at any time and also play them to others. Once you progress a little and other stimuli are no longer required to make the teenagers remember, this is the only way to make progress. You must play each patient the correct recording and see if he reacts to it. If he does, you can help him remember more and more, until all the events of the previous week are clear. The PDA is also your means of contacting other people as it serves as a phone as well.

I enjoyed the fact that, while easy, all of the puzzles in the game are very logical and don`t have you running around 20 areas, collecting items. Also, every item that you find will usually be used in the next 10 minutes and you won`t have an enormous inventory, carrying items from the first minutes of the game, to the last. This helps the continuity of the game and I thoroughly enjoyed every minute. The fact that you get to play with each of the 5 teenagers also provides you with 5 different perspectives on the story. Each character recollects certain things that may not make sense on their own, but when pieced together will fill all the gaps.

All of the characters are believable, very well portrayed and for most of the game David won`t know in whom to place his trust. The diversity is also welcome, each of the teenagers having his or her own personality and encountering characters such as the always-suspicious detective, your best friend, the local drunk and the obviously hostile doctor and nurse that run the hospital.

You`ll hardly ever notice when a cinematic stars or ends, as the engine and camera are both great. Even when examining certain objects the view will zoom in and out creating a nice feeling. There are also moments, such as when you`re making a phone call, when the view is split in 2, allowing you to see 2 areas at once. There are some things that I didn`t quite understand or see a reason for, such as the park that is only accessible once during the game and then only so you can see a cutscene, the local paper shop that you`re never allowed to enter, or the stairs that David never uses.

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Conclusion:

The story picks up pace quickly and doesn`t slow down until the end, when you finally discover what the dark connection is between Dave and his patients. The controversial subject and the mature feel of the game certainly deserve praise and you can successfully compare it to watching a good psychological thriller.With touching subjects such as violence in teenagers, conspiracy theories, brainwashing and "secret weapons", Overclocked manages to remain realistic and brutal. Like any other adventure game, it`s replayability is close to 0, but this shouldn`t stop you from buying and enjoying it. I`ve really tried hard not to spoil anything for you, since the story is truly worth it, with only the ending being probably a little predictable. I would have liked a darker ending (a suicide perhaps?) but hey, that`s just me :)

Gameplay: 91

With an outstanding interface, easy navigation from one scene to the other and logical quests, "Overclocked" should be taken as an example for future adventure games. You will spend a lot of time in the PDA screen, playing different recordings to your patients and calling your future ex-wife, but everything just comes naturally. With a great storyline and a thin line between David`s personal life and his job, "Overclocked" does a great job of creating a believable world with real characters.

Graphics: 81

While the number of locations that you can visit isn`t very high, they are certainly very detailed. The ever present rain does add atmosphere to the game, but it can get visually annoying at times. Unfortunately the characters in the game don`t look very good, I`d even say disappointing at times, but when the camera moves in closer the facial animations will make you forget this little detail. During the cinematics everything looks a lot better though, the characters having a lot more detail.

Sound: 88

I must admit I missed some of the sound effects other "scary" adventure games have gotten me used to, like doors opening, patients screaming and barely heard whispers, but the silence of the hospital was equally disturbing. The music also makes its presence felt only at the right time and the voices are masterfully chosen. I especially liked the detective`s voice.

Multiplayer: n/a

Hardware: 80

The game runes smoothly on any computer, but long loading times have been reported when going from one scene to another. This can be quickly solved by creating a copy of your dvd`s and playing from the hard drive, thus effectively removing most of the waiting time.