Gray Matter (2010) Online

While reading several reviews of Gray Matter which were less than flattering, I decided I simply have to add my 0.02$ and review the game.

The story of magic, lost love and mystery is up there with the best works that Jane Jensen wrote so far. It would be a crime to reveal too much, but let's say that the unlikely duo of a young, somewhat naive, street magician, and a famous but deeply scarred neurologist works, both in terms of the story and the game play as well. During the course of the game we thus get to play as both Sam - a magician who by chance becomes the personal assistant of a once famed, but now reclusive Oxford professor - and as the prof - Dr. Styles - himself. Sam is at first mostly focused on getting membership at the Daedalus Club, an elite London magician's club, but strange things start happening in Oxford... are they the work of a fellow magician pulling a "Great Game" to impress the Daedalus Club, or are these strange events somehow connected to an ongoing experiment by Dr. Styles (which is, by the way, being conducted in order to connect with the spirit of his deceased wife, who died in a car accident some years before)? The stage is set for a fantastic adventure.

The story itself flows beautifully, the music is excellent and haunting, and the writing is top notch throughout. The atmosphere is enhanced by real-life Oxford locations being used in the game. Despite this, Gray Matter likely won't reach the legendary status of the Gabriel Knight trilogy - admittedly, the game is rough around the edges (choppy animation, cheap-looking cut scenes) which might frustrate some players. I think it all boils down to your personal preference - can you forgive some purely technical flaws and let yourself be immersed by a beautiful story, or not? I could, and trust me, once you start to connect with the characters on screen, you won't even notice any of the minor flaws.

The one complaint that I personally have with the story (SPOILERS ahead!) as such is the somewhat abrupt ending, which fails to completely tie up all the loose ends. Yes, we get to find out that Angela was really posing as Dr. Style's dead wife, but that's it. Will he continue trying to bring her back? One would assume so, but it's never stated clearly. Considering the fact that her spirit does manage to send a message through to him in one of the last cut scenes, it would be safe to assume the search isn't over. But we don't know. The role of Angela's father isn't really explained either, and in chapter 8 the game assumes the player is informed about him, but that's not really the case (not counting the few lines of dialogue about him when Sam notices his photo in Angela's room). The ending does imply that there might be a Gray Matter 2 in the works, and I for one can't wait to see where Jensen will take the story next.

A heart touching story, puzzles just right. A brilliant game, a true masterpiece. Terrific characters, beautiful sound track. A very heart warming and interesting game! Fascinating subject, plot. This is every bit of GK . I recently played GK for the first time. It's a good game, but I was completely blown away by this game. It's going to stay with me much longer than GK did. What a fantastic game! WOW! This is a fantastic adventure game. I thought GK was easy, this game isn't much more difficult or any less difficult. Some of the more difficult puzzles might win over GK's difficult puzzles. This game does not deserve to be seen as anything less than a CLASSIC. This game was fantastic. I'm a late 80s, early nineties guy and I've played Lucas arts, Sierra games, growing up. And this game was just truly a masterpiece. Any one who rates this down , really needs to stop putting the past on a pedestal ,this game is a masterpiece!

WOW! I am still touched by this game. GK was a great game, this can't compare, but I think it's stupid to compare the two. I have to say GK didn't leave me with a touched feeling, really. It had a dramatic ending , but I really didn't care about the supporting characters. This game is a master piece and is deeply touching up until the climax. What a beautiful game. I was blown away. A brilliant , pseudo science plot (Things I study in spare time, quantum theory) , intriguing, original characters , fantastic sound track. This game is truly unique, truly a gem. There will never be another one like it. When playing it you'll see how unique , original it's presentation is, and how relatable, organic these characters are, even the supporting characters were so dynamic, life like, and it didn't have a bunch of clichés in the story, plot, it was very moving. It's a very life like game, I'm really impressed.

Where as GK was a good game , compared to this, I will compare for this reason, the characters in that game are flat compared to this game. This game has dynamic, round characters and in the end it brings certain characters together in a beautiful , organic tapestry. This game is surreal...

FANTASTIC!

Jane Jensen is one of those names that revolutionized the industry of graphic adventures in the good ol' days of Sierra On-Line. When she decided to fly solo and came up with Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers, inadvertently, she set the bar really high for gaming developers across the board, but also for herself. The sequel, Gabriel Knight: The Beast Within, also became a breakthrough in that it was one of the first games that used full motion capture. The GK franchise was that stupidly good.

It's inevitable to compare Gray Matter to the GK series, not only because they share the same author, but also because many elements are similar. The genre is the same, gameplay is similar, some general aspects of the storyline will seem familiar, the game is broken down into chapters (or days), there's a male and female protagonist and so forth.

The story is not great, and considering Jensen's curriculum vitae, this is a huge flaw. The narrative is downright linear, you can see the plot twists from a mile away and the character development is not really deep enough to relate and care about the little pixel-breathing guys. That being said, it has that appealing, mysterious and somber thing going on, which is yet another thing that shares with the GK universe. There was a clear effort to add content to the story by creating secondary objectives and bonuses that you can strive to clear before progressing with the main plot-line. For example, you can find out more about the supporting characters. Sadly, it doesn't really add anything substantial enough to be worthwhile.

The gameplay is basically point-and-click. You hover the mouse over something and it changes to the appropriate cursor. It feels comfortable enough to become organic and natural, but, like many adventure games, that's basically all you do: you click stuff until something happens, which can become a bit dull. Jensen's latest title also implements the "hotspot" system, popular in many adventure games to date, which is a not so subtle way to get hints as to what you should interact with next by placing a label on objects. If you still need more help getting through the game, each location in the map has a certain coloring if there's something that you still have to do there or it turns gray if the opposite is true.

Puzzles, for the most part, are easy and unchallenging, especially the ones that involve "magic tricks". Sam, the female lead in Gray Matter, is a street magician by trade, so you will reach certain points where you have to execute a trick from your magic book to get an item from someone, or persuade them into doing something. This was a feature that promised a whole lot more than what it actually delivers, which is basically just reproducing something that is already written in said magic book, being corrected if you got it wrong and repeating the process until you can pull the trick off successfully.

The voice acting and general style of the game is probably its strong suit. The actors do a good job delivering their lines and sound like high quality professionals. Stylistically, the cutscenes follow a sort of graphic novel, alla Max Payne, that becomes really enjoyable to look at. Sadly, they are not abundant.

Graphically, the game looks pretty good for an adventure game. It's 3D models over 2D backgrounds, which might seem like an ancient way of doing things with today's technology, but it's really well accomplished and some of the scenery is just plain beautiful to look at, especially towards the end of the game.

In the sound department, Jensen's husband and the man behind the memorable music in the GK series, Robert Holmes, graces us yet again with his talented ear and compositional talents. The music is just plain good. Unsurprisingly, it seems to share the same general direction of the entire project: it falls just a tad short of being as awesome as Gabriel Knight's soundtracks.

Summing up, Gray Matter is a decent adventure game. It doesn't really bring anything new to the table, and it's unavoidable to keep comparing it to its spiritual predecessor, partly because the New Orleans-based writer was a landmark in graphic adventure, but also because it feels like Jensen's stuck to a known formula for success and played it safe, most likely not meeting the expectations of a long-awaited title for a considerably-sized fanbase.

All in all, an okay game.