Dave Gilbert Keeps Going Strong
Dave Gilbert, creator of The Shivah and The Blackwell Legacy returns with another graphic adventure every bit as charming as the first two.
Blackwell Unbound is a prequel to The Blackwell Legacy, following the career of Lauren Blackwell, the aunt of Rosangela, who was the protagonist of Legacy. We met Lauren only as an urn of ashes in that game, but learned that she'd been kept sedated in an insane asylum for decades before she died. We also learned that Joey, the family ghost, had haunted the Blackwell women for at least three generations.
Unsurprisingly, therefore, Joey is around in this game to help Lauren, as he helped Rosangela in the previous game. The year is 1973, and Lauren has two ghosts to lay to rest--one haunting a construction site, and the other playing a ghostly saxophone on the Roosevelt Island Esplanade.
(People who, like me, actually lived in New York 1973 will find a number of anachronisms, like, say, the existence of an Esplanade on a Welfare [not yet Roosevelt] Island that at the time held nothing but a cluster of hospitals and municipal service buildings. Those who didn't probably won't notice anything--and in any event, just set it aside; the game is enjoyable enough in its own right to overlook such minor flaws.)
Unlike the previous game, you can control both Lauren and Joey, switching back and forth between them--which is helpful since ghosts can do things (like walk through walls) that the living cannot, and vice versa of course. (Hard to pick up physical objects with ghostly fingers.)
As you might expect with Dave's games, the writing is first-notch, as is the voice acting. There's an article in the Times today in which Seth Schiesel goes on about how game stories suck and you never actually care about the characters, which, you know, kind of demonstrates that the man has never played a decent adventure game. I hate it when people make sweeping but demonstrably false generalizations like that; to demonstrate the falsity, play this game.
Blackwell Unbound is a bit longer than The Shivah, but a bit shorter than The Blackwell Legacy; not surprisingly, the price is between the two as well.
The Developer Says
The year is 1973. The sound of a lone, ethereal saxophone drifts over the Roosevelt Island promenade, while a series of accidents plague a midtown construction site. The citizens of Manhattan take no notice of these events, let alone think they are connected.
Embittered medium Lauren Blackwell and her spirit guide Joey Mallone are the only ones who believe that there is anything strange going on, and they are the only ones who can stop an enigmatic killer from striking again…
Reviews
"Playing Blackwell Unbound is a wonderful way to spend an evening."
-- Yesterday's Salad
"There's a real charm to the world; understated, yet bursting with character, and helped along by some excellent dialogue and snappy set-pieces."
-- Richard Cobbett
"A masterfully woven story, pretty graphics and a soundtrack which could have been composed by Angelo Badalamenti make it a must have for all fans of the adventure genre. One can only eagerly anticipate what [Wadjet Eye] is going to do next."
-- AGS Ezine