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    Dark Tales 8: Edgar Allan Poe's The Tell-Tale Heart

    genkicoll
    genkicoll


    Posts : 8426
    Join date : 2011-12-28
    Age : 50
    Location : Pacific Northwest

    Dark Tales 8: Edgar Allan Poe's The Tell-Tale Heart Empty Dark Tales 8: Edgar Allan Poe's The Tell-Tale Heart

    Post by genkicoll Sun Jul 23, 2017 1:10 pm

    Dark Tales: Edgar Allan Poe's The Tell-Tale Heart
    by ERS Game Studios - November, 2015

    Series links: Dark Tales 1: Edgar Allan Poe's Murders in the Rue Morgue, Dark Tales 2: Edgar Allan Poe's The Black Cat, Dark Tales 3: Edgar Allan Poe's The Premature Burial, Dark Tales 4: Edgar Allan Poe's The Gold Bug, Dark Tales 5: Edgar Allan Poe's The Masque of the Red Death, Dark Tales 6: Edgar Allan Poe's The Fall of the House of Usher, Dark Tales 7: Edgar Allan Poe's The Mystery of Marie Roget, Dark Tales 8: Edgar Allan Poe's The Tell-Tale Heart, Dark Tales 8: Edgar Allan Poe's The Tell-Tale Heart, Dark Tales 9: Edgar Allan Poe's Metzengerstein, Dark Tales 10: Edgar Allan Poe's The Raven, Dark Tales 11: Edgar Allan Poe's Lenore

    Available at:
    Big Fish as Collector's Edition / Standard Edition
    Steam as Collector's Edition

    Dark Tales 8: Edgar Allan Poe's The Tell-Tale Heart Dark-tales-ea-poes-the-telltale-heart-ce_feature

    ERS Game Studios presents another thrilling installment of the best-selling Dark Tales series!

    A scream in the night... a brutal crime... a mysterious figure with eyes red as blood... You and your partner, Dupin, have been called in to solve the murder of a young woman in a seaside town. She was found hanging from a tree, killed by a wound delivered straight to her heart. The details of the killing are strange, and suggest a very personal motivation for the killer. But who would perpetrate such a horrible and unusual crime... and why? Get to the heart of the mystery in this thrilling Hidden-Object Puzzle Adventure game!

    • Help the police chief solve two gruesome murders
    • Prove a man's innocence - or guilt - in the thrilling bonus game
    • Collect cards hidden throughout the game and unlock a bonus puzzle
    • Earn achievements and replay your favorite mini-games and HOPs
    • Extras including: art, music, wallpapers, and screensavers
    • Big Fish Blog Walkthrough

    Dark Tales 8: Edgar Allan Poe's The Tell-Tale Heart Screen1
    Dark Tales 8: Edgar Allan Poe's The Tell-Tale Heart Screen2
    Dark Tales 8: Edgar Allan Poe's The Tell-Tale Heart Screen3


    Last edited by genkicoll on Sat Aug 03, 2019 3:01 pm; edited 1 time in total
    genkicoll
    genkicoll


    Posts : 8426
    Join date : 2011-12-28
    Age : 50
    Location : Pacific Northwest

    Dark Tales 8: Edgar Allan Poe's The Tell-Tale Heart Empty Re: Dark Tales 8: Edgar Allan Poe's The Tell-Tale Heart

    Post by genkicoll Sat Aug 03, 2019 2:54 pm

    Dark Tales 8: Edgar Allan Poe's The Tell-Tale Heart(IHOG)

    Only barely recommended.

    Options include separate sliders for Music, Sound and Voices, Full-screen and Custom Cursor. Choice of three preset difficulties, or you can go with Custom Mode.

    Contains violence and disturbing imagery.

    Story:

    I've only played one Dark Tales game previously, and I am not well-versed in Poe's work, but Tell-Tale Heart is an exception.  (It's short so take a gander at the link!)  I re-read it to prepare for the journey into this game, whose story is very unlike the original.

    In Dark Tales 8 we help our partner, Inspector Dupin, investigate the murder of a young woman who was attacked in the night, then strung up in a tree with a carving of an apple and a small bag of flour.
    Dark Tales 8: Edgar Allan Poe's The Tell-Tale Heart 957EA25E375F70F6168EB11669A62A373D44FC8E

    The Office button in your toolbar is your Journal, tracking all of the pertinent pieces of evidence and story that we find.  The story progresses through a mixture of notes and cutscenes.

    Gameplay:

    Be on the lookout for collectible cards as you play.  You will find one at each location, although there can also be cards on zoom-ins.

    The MAP can be interactive, and has insta-transport available.  Directional HINTS are also available.

    I thought that the gameplay was really different.  There are some standard, interactive Hidden Object Scenes, but a lot of them cater to the investigation that we're doing.  For instance, as we are told of the evidence that was gathered, we have to look through and find the things that are being mentioned:
    Dark Tales 8: Edgar Allan Poe's The Tell-Tale Heart 48D1649640F1F2B362877A0FFCA9A7E3A6F9BD2E

    As we are interviewing witnesses, we become that person, and play through their memories as part of the game.  I think this is the part that I found so interesting.

    Inventory items are interactive (as indicated by a magnifying glass), and often need to be combined.  I like this better than having to backtrack to where you originally found an item, but it's a bit irritating in this game because you have to click-click-click to move to the other side of the inventory bar.

    The Mini-games are pretty easy for the most part, although some of them take a long time to complete due to the way the puzzle is laid out.  Again, most are very detective-centric, such as selecting matching blood spatters.  There are a couple of "fights", which entail clicking on things in the right order, and there's also a mini where you have to click when an item moves into a green circle.  This one could be a problem for those with dexterity issues, but it is skippable.

    Sights and Sounds:

    I really enjoyed the ambiance of the graphics.  They seemed very appropriate for the theme and time-frame where the story takes place.  The voice-overs were fairly good, although not the voices that I expected to hear.
    Dark Tales 8: Edgar Allan Poe's The Tell-Tale Heart A2A36AA23603C6FD9D9A2184125A3009CFD78BBA

    CE Content:

    • Integrated Strategy Guide
    • Bonus Chapter
    • In-game Achievements
    • 36 Collectible Cards - Collect all of them to unlock the Crystal Skull (a match-3 game)
    • 7 Wallpapers
    • 11 Concept Art
    • 5 Screen Savers
    • 4 Music Tracks
    • 13 Replayable Mini-games
    • 10 Replayable HOS

    Bonus Chapter:

    The ending of the main game is VERY abrupt, and tells us exactly nothing about why this woman was murdered. 

    The extra chapter takes us 15 years in the past, to Dupin's very first case, which - it turns out - involves a character from the main story.  Here we find out what the apple and flour is about, but get absolutely no other answers.  You get to decide whether the accused was guilty or not guilty, but I can't go into any other details without spoilers.

    The gamplay is similar to the main game's, but introduces silhouette HOS.  I enjoyed this story more than the first part of the game, but again we are left with no resolution!

    Verdict:

    I was really enjoying the interesting gameplay and story, but then the ending completely ruined it for me.  There is only the briefest reference to Poe's original story, and it was beyond confusing when they finally got there.  The bonus chapter was great, but again we are left in a state of confusion.  I give this a passing grade ONLY for the gameplay and graphics.  If you are a story-lover - and especially if you're a Poe-lover - give this one a pass.  I hear that the first 7 games in the series were great, so you'd be better off playing those.

      Current date/time is Tue Mar 19, 2024 12:17 am