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Friday, January 11, 2013

The Shivah (2006)

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I had got this game ages ago, but troubleshooting games from Adventure Game Studio is always a pain, so I only sat to beat it now.
The main draw of the game, of course, is that you play a rabbi, Rabbi Stone, who somehow sees himself in the middle of a murdercase.
The gameplay is classic Lucas Arts style, although there's no interaction with objects. You mainly conduct your investigations through questioning (and there are a couple of instances that can cause you to get a "game over"), which almost always includes a "rabbinical response". spoiler:: Later on, in good old fashioned Monkey Island/Full Throttle style, there's even a bout of fisticuffs for the sharp tongues.

The puzzles themselves are often done through logging in a computer and searching for what you need (being that you need to figure out specific passwords, etc). The game boasts very few locations and characters so you can get stuck if suddenly you can't ask anything new or can't figure out what you need to do. On the other hand the game is very short, and can be finished in an hour (and much less with a walkthrough).
The soundtrack is quite good, with jazzy and jewish songs (israeli noir would probably be the apt description), but the voiceacting is the worst part. Thankfully the Rabbi himself, whom you'll hear the most, is the best one.
All in all, a very decent Lucas Arts-style game, with an interesting premise that emcompasses all the rabbinical honour code in its story. Being so short, the story ends up a little disappointing, but it presents some very interesting and certainly unique issues.
A demo is avaiable here: http://www.wadjeteyegames.com/the-shivah.html

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