Customer Reviews

Jack The Ripper

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(8)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

I'm vacillating between two or three stars on this game so maybe it should be two and a half. The story is pretty obvious - Jack the Ripper or a copycat is in New York in 1901 killing off prostitutes in what the game calls the "Lowside District" of New York. Why in the world the developers decided to call lower Manhattan the Lowside District is beyond me. Or why the Pinkerton detective agency is called the "Pinterten" Detective agency. Or why a deranged raven shows up at the crime scene of a couple of the murders and then disappears until the very end of the game when you hear the words, "Nevermore, nevermore." What's Poe got to do with this game? They even have a story line about the World Series which didn't even exist in 1901.

OK, but all that aside what drove me the most crazy about this game was that it was very linear. You have to keep going back over the same locations over and over because something wasn't done in the correct order. In the final chapter I ended up visiting every location three times. The only positive note is that navigation is easy. It you want to leave a location, just right-click and the map comes up so that you can visit another spot - again and again.

The graphics are pretty good. There's really isn't an abundance of dialogue but the acting is fine. The music is something I rarely pay attention to - in fact if there is an option to turn it down I usually do because it interferes with the speaking voices and I find it annoying. This game did not have that option and there was only one time that the music was a problem. There really aren't any puzzles - just when to use inventory items in the right place at the right time. They were pretty straight forward. There was one timed sequence in the morgue that I actually thought was kind of a bit of sick humor - I had to use a walkthough for it. I never would have figured it out myself.

After all that - the ending. It was terrible. Absolutely awful. All that detective work (reporter work actually)for nothing. I expected some big confrontation between the reporter and the villain or the heroine to be in actual danger and saved by the reporter - nope. Nothing, except a stupid, "Nevermore, nevermore."

Not a bad little game overall, though I emphasize the little (a day or two should see you through, and that's without a walkthrough). Graphics, acting, and interface are all unimpeachable. Game play is *extremely* linear, to the extent that you sometimes can't end a day without revisiting every scene and clicking on every dead end to see which one you missed. They've mixed in a fair amount of historical detail from the actual Jack the Ripper case, such as letters and so on, with fantasy and speculation. The most impressive part of the game is the authentic feel of fin de siecle New York City -- and that should tell you something.

Still, it's an enjoyable enough way to spend a weekend. Parents, don't worry; there's no on-screen violence and very little gore (except for written descriptions in autopsy reports). The creepiness is all in the ambience.

Be aware: There are a large number of bugs in the game, some of which will stop you in your tracks. Save early and often!

This is one of the worst games I have ever played. First of all, I like games that make you think. This game is completely predictable. If you don't figure out something right away--you won't have to worry. Your cursor will figure it out for you. There are only a few logic puzzles, and even those are too easy. And if you like visiting the same locations over and over in a game, then this one's for you. I give it a 1 out of 10.

The game has an interesting story, and the setup as a writer who is on the ripper's trail is pretty good.

However, the game's technology is outdated, and its implementation overly buggy. Also, the gameplay itself is extremely dull. But I played through it all because the whole "Jack the Ripper" story kinda intrigues me anyway. Now I do not want to spoil the game for you by telling you the ending, but really, there simply isn't much to spoil. It was not worth it at all.

This is one of those games with a real story. It makes you wish that there were more games with a story like this. But then you realize how bad this is actually implemented and you kinda lose hope for the whole genre...

If I were you, I'd steer clear.

Since other reviews touched on gameplay and it's graphics, I just want to say this...

1. Sure, your surroundings are a pretty picture.. but I like games that are interactive. I want to go through drawers, look closer at pictures.. do something besides run around busy rooms that you can do nothing but run through.

2. The plot is weak. I won't spoil the story-line, but each in game day you pretty much go to the same places, talking to the same people. You have to meet certain requirements to make the game progress, and non of it is interesting.

The one thing I did like about the game, there are a couple real nice songs you can listen to while you play, or just wait in one of the bars and listen.

Unfortunately, I got this as a present for my mom, thinking it would be a puzzle game and be creepy. Buzz, wrong!

Goodness, I never had a game that gave me so much trouble (on a new system, too), and my time and effort was not even worth it.

First of all, the system requirements are much more than what is put on the box. It's kind of bad when you have tech support state system requirements that are higher than the "recommended" requirements on the box! For those that have problems, you either have to update your graphics card, shut down all your start up programs, or update your DirectX. This will not solve ALL your problems (because there are bugs in the game), but it's a good start.

Okay, quick summary: You play a reporter, trying to get a story for your irritating editor about some mysterious deaths that echo the Jack The Ripper cases back in London years ago. But as you do your own investigation, you have to decide if your life (as well as others) is worth the story of a lifetime. This game is a mystery, so there is lots of interviews, snooping, and collecting objects. The game box states "challenging puzzles", but there were only about 3-4 puzzles (and most of the time you can just click everything to get it right). The cursor was annoying and sometimes did not work for me many times.

The ending was a big disappointment. It was somewhat clever but irritating with no resolution whatsoever. The songs that the "Irish Nightingale" sing in the game I did enjoy to an extent.

This game is 20 bucks, but I would wait until it reaches ten dollars-or less. Too many bugs (major to minor) and nothing new nor stellar about the plot and game play. It's not like I had high hopes for this game, but I would think that it would be less buggy and more interesting than what I have encountered. Wait for a sale for this one.

Okay, so I admit that I am not the most PC game savvy and for this reason, I enjoyed this game. It is very similar to Post Mortem and Still Life (not surprising, as they are made by the same company). Yes, it is tedious and repetitive, but it is simple, puzzles are easy, the story is linear, you can't really screw up, and I appreciate this in a game! The graphics are pretty cool, as is the music.

I play adventure games to pretend I am really there, in the game, trying to figure out the mystery. I don't need shoot-em-ups or puzzles that take me all day to figure out. If you're like me, you'll probably enjoy this game. You just need to go into it knowing that you are not looking at an Oscar-caliber experience. Take it for what it's worth and you may just have some fun! :)

At the beginning of this game you feel like you're really going to solve a mystery but in places it gets really tedious and leaves a cliff hanger at the end. I don't recommend this game, save your money for something like Syberia or Tomb Raider.

The music was good. That is all I can find good to say about this game. The ending was very disappointing to me. What a let down. The game play itself was boring and dragged on .

The Adventure Company has a knack for taking high concepts and making them into terrible games. Take for example "The Mystery of the Mummy", a Sherlock Holmes mystery game that made the world's most famous detective seem insipid. As lousy as some of their attempts have been in the past, high concepts keep players coming back to The Adventure Company. "Jack the Ripper" has a concept so ideal it seems impossible to ruin, and yet the game is phenomenally atrocious.

The game is set in New York City in 1901. A couple of poverty-stricken showgirls have been murdered in a fashion similar to the Jack the Ripper killings of 1888. Jimmy Palmer, a na've young reporter, is assigned by his editor to write a series of newspaper articles on the killings. As Jimmy looks into the murders, he discovers that the same serial killer might be responsible for both the 1888 and 1901 murders. There's the high concept. The game play is from the first-person perspective of Jimmy from beginning to end. It consists of returning to the same locations and talking to the same people repeatedly, using dialogue options that aren't really all that optional. Occasionally, Jimmy can collect items such as keys and money to appease stubborn suspects. There are only one or two actual puzzles in the entire game.

The game parades many characters based loosely on actual suspects in the real-life Jack the Ripper murders, but Jimmy never seems to come any closer to solving the mystery. A game called "Jack the Ripper" should at least guarantee a creepy ambience, and the game seems to succeed in that area initially, but it soon becomes apparent that ambience isn't enough. Menacing footsteps when no one is following you, whispered dialogue that is unintelligible and unimportant to the storyline, and shady characters that can't be interacted with and don't contribute anything to the plot become annoying after a short while. In one room, a hushed, secretive whisper resembling "I can sell you the most beautiful radishes" can be heard repeatedly. Dark, blood-stained alleys lose their creepiness after a while. The score is beautiful and unnerving, but it only adds to the misleading feeling that something frightening is going to happen, and it hardly ever does. There are also several moments in the game where Jimmy appears to have a psychic connection with a raven, leading to trippy graphic sequence with no pay-off.

Many critics have noted the series of Irish folk tunes performed by one of the game's characters as a bright spot. The songs themselves are beautiful and haunting, like the game's score, but the animated performances that accompany them are less varied and more mechanical than a floorshow at Chuck E. Cheese's. Also, be warned that there isn't a twist ending, just an anticlimactic one. Maybe someday still The Adventure Company will redeem itself. In the meantime, avoid this game.