2 player games unblocked reviews - Shadows of Doubt
It cannot be said that the detective genre is deprived of the attention of developers. Take any large-scale RPG - and among the many tasks that the main character performs, there will surely be at least one investigation with a classic detective entourage: examining a crime scene, searching for evidence, interrogating suspects and detaining villains. There are entire 2 player games unblocked dedicated to the hard work of detectives, from the endless series about Nancy Drew to the adventures of Sherlock Holmes from Friv5Online.
But are there many investigations in such detective stories? Are they often wrong? Go your own way? As a rule, we have a linear story, at best with several endings. Going on the wrong track, arresting an innocent person or filing a case in the archive as a “hanging man”, calculating the criminal in a way that the screenwriter didn’t want – virtual detectives usually don’t know how to do this.
Shadows of Doubt, released at the end of April in the early access format, changes these rules - so famously that it is unlikely that other detective projects will be taken seriously after that.
One of the most suitable settings for a detective is noir. It is not surprising that the developers chose it. 1979, an alternate universe that is only slightly similar to ours: in addition to the dense atmosphere of gloomy hopelessness, one can feel the influence of science fiction, including cyberpunk in the spirit of Blade Runner.
A rigid post-industrial society, where inequality does not surprise anyone, corporations hold power, protest moods are accumulating among the poor, and the severity of laws does not help to contain the highest level of crime - such is the world of Shadows of Doubt . The tone is set by the overall visual style and the little things woven into the environment: an assortment of vending machines, newspaper articles and other texts, even purely official ones, like a lease agreement.
It is enough to turn off the lights in the protagonist's apartment, turn on the TV, which shows a black and white series non-stop, seat the character in a chair and hand him a bottle of whiskey - and here is the finished scene from the classic noir: the detective suffers from insomnia, not knowing how get down to the tricky business. Flickering neon lights against the background of rain, loud advertisements muffled through tightly closed windows, and skillfully chosen contrast of light and shadow complete the picture.
And the same is everywhere here - the authors have tried, working to ensure that the effect does not collapse for a second. What is most impressive is the technical methods with which they achieved this. The game uses voxel graphics, which, frankly, is not ideal for creating visual beauties: you have to be a real artist to make something beautiful with the help of unsightly blocks - everyone who tried to build something prettier than a wooden hut in Minecraft knows this . It is all the more surprising to understand that everything here is created using procedural generation, which preserves the artistic value of the content obtained using the algorithm.
In each new passage we have a separate world open for exploration. This is a full-fledged city, which, despite its modest size, looks and feels many times more realistic than the larger worlds from other 2 player games unblocked.
Firstly, there are no houses or even rooms in the form of “stubs”: you can enter any building, and any room, whether it be an apartment, an office or a roadside cafe, is plausibly modeled. Skyscrapers are perceived as skyscrapers: there are dozens of apartments in them, and it is better to get to the right one with the help of an elevator, which remains a means of transportation, and does not hide the loading screen or the emptiness of the location. The fact that there are only a few such high-rise buildings, and the whole city can be bypassed in a couple of minutes, does not interfere at all: it’s better than hundreds of forever locked houses.
The districts are different from each other: there are sparkling mansions of the rich, the featureless decoration of the middle class and the dirty alleys immersed in darkness and cold, which have become the last refuge for the dregs of society.
Separately, I emphasize attention to detail: the interior of any room is full of memorable details that work on the atmosphere. If the price for this should be unsightly voxels at first glance - well, such a deal suits me. In my opinion, Shadows of Doubt in terms of style will give odds to many other projects where the graphics were created "manually".
The second aspect that works for realism and immersion is the simulation of the life of all the inhabitants of the city. Not a single person stands still - everyone goes to work, sleeps at home at night, and in his free time he can relax in a restaurant or visit a store. The life of NPCs is interesting just to watch - at first, of course; then such “stalkerism” gets boring, but it gives an understanding that the simulation here is honest.
By the way, our character also needs to “live”: you need to keep your clothes neat, eat regularly, find time to sleep and rest; You can even buy apartments and furnish your home with furniture. Of course, you need to earn money for a beautiful life. But an intelligent detective will not remain idle: sooner or later a killer will appear in the city.
If the theater begins with a hanger, then the detective begins with a crime scene. Moreover, no one will indicate this place to you on the map - information about the murder is limited to indicating the address where it happened, and everything else will have to be figured out on your own.
It should be understood that our character is not a representative of the official forces of law and order. There are security forces in the city (the same, by the way, citizens with their own daily routine). But the main character, although he works for the city hall - it is there that you need to take the form of the case and hand over the conclusion on the investigation - but for the police and automatic security systems, he is no different from ordinary residents. No one will allow you to study the crime scene just like that, look for clues and clues, especially if the murder took place in a closed area, such as an apartment or office.
You will have to circumvent the law: turn off the alarm, break the doors, enter the rooms through the ventilation system, hide from cameras and patrolmen - a slightly clumsy and unpretentious stealth turns on, which, however, does not allow you to feel relaxed while searching for information. However, you do not pay attention to primitiveness - the very process of investigation is so captivating.
The murder is an event that actually happens in the city, and not a stage prepared in advance. The perpetrator committed it at a particular moment, used a certain weapon, and probably left evidence by which it can be calculated. Look for fingerprints and boots, weapons or shell casings, read notes and documents, view surveillance footage, interview eyewitnesses - but remember that even after you find the key evidence, there will be no pop-up alerts indicating a specific character. The main thing in Shadows of Doubt is the ability to work with information.
To help this difficult, but most interesting lesson, there is a convenient interface that allows you to place anything you want on the investigation board in a visual form. On it, you can indicate a reference to any item - from a complete dossier on a suspect to garbage found at a crime scene. In the course of the investigation, the number of notes on the board increases, which helps to build a picture of the crime. You feel like a real detective - this is your investigation, and it depends only on you, and not on the imagination of the screenwriter, how to conduct it and how it will end.
Let me give you one example as an example. A call comes in - a corpse was found in the apartment, it is necessary to identify the killer, provide evidence of his presence at the crime scene, find a weapon and, if possible, arrest the suspect. I arrive at the indicated address, but I can’t get into the apartment - the police have already sealed the premises, and a patrolman is on duty at the landing. I decide to use the ventilation on the floor above - after a couple of minutes of wandering through the intricate system of air ducts, I finally get into the closet in the victim's apartment.
I begin to search the crime scene. First of all, I check the corpse, which allows me to find out the cause and approximate time of death, and the documents found in my pocket give me information about the identity of the victim, her place of work and marital status.
Bloody footprints in the hallway and bathroom are immediately attracted to my attention - I scan them and file them into a file cabinet. There don't seem to be any other clues. Just in case, I collect all the sharp objects found in the apartment - perhaps the unfortunate woman was stabbed to death with one of them. I continue to collect evidence, turning the apartment inside out - rummaging through the trash, pulling everything out of closets, reading e-mail. Leads are still sparse: only two people remain among the suspects - the victim's roommate and the landlord.
The first disappears immediately - the size of the shoes is different, judging by the shoes found by the bed. I go in search of the landlord, having previously studied the address book and found out where he lives. Failure again - after knocking on the door I meet a girl who does not look like the owner of shoes of the 11th size.
Is the investigation deadlocked? After a little thought and returning to the victim’s apartment, I suddenly realize that I forgot to do the most important thing - I didn’t remove fingerprints from the surfaces. In addition to the "fingers" of the victim itself, we get two more unique prints. With one, everything is clear - this is a cohabitant, but where are the other ones from? This is not the landlord - she kindly agreed to give me her prints, apparently realizing that she had nothing to hide. I remember that among the spam and other records in the victim's email box were letters about a promotion at work, and one of the notes mentioned a conflict with a colleague.
I wait for the night and get into the office where the murdered woman worked. Here you have to use the skills of a burglar - open the door with a master key and move around in a crouch, hiding from security cameras. In the file of personal files, I study all the documents of employees until I find out that one of the employees has fingerprints similar to those found at the crime scene. And even if the shoe size is wrong again, it seems we have a prime suspect.
I decide to take a risk and act for sure - that very night I break into his apartment, arrange a search, during which I find a knife that turned out to be a murder weapon. Arresting a sleeping criminal was not difficult. A couple of minutes later, an investigation form with a list of evidence was sent for consideration to the mayor's office, where they confirmed the correctness of my reasoning - the case was solved!
As for the bloody shoe prints that almost sent me down the wrong path, it was most likely that the policeman who discovered the body had inherited it - no one else.
I hope I was able to demonstrate how deeply events are modeled. You can both make a mistake and choose your own version of the investigation - for example, I could get to the suspect through watching cameras in the entrance or interviewing eyewitnesses.
Of course, over time, you begin to click even the most complicated cases like nuts - it is not so difficult to obtain information, and the killer will almost always be from among the victims' acquaintances. There are big problems with the gaming economy: money is easy to earn, but there is nowhere to spend if you do not buy real estate and arrange your apartment. There are also bugs in huge numbers, which is not surprising, given the complex simulation of hundreds of inhabitants.
The realism of the game only emphasizes the fact that much is missing: for example, communication with NPCs is very poorly represented and there are no interrogations at all, which should be key mechanics in a detective story. But let me remind you that Shadows of Doubt was recently released in early access and the developer is just starting to fill the project with content.
However, the city already has something to do besides investigating murders: flyers are posted on notice boards in cafes and bars about the search for perpetrators of dark deeds, be it beating a resident, stealing valuables, or hidden photography. These missions recreate the spy theme from the respective films and books and make it much more interesting than purely "spy" 2 player games unblocked like Alpha Protocol. What is worth at least is how the customer issues the task: for example, in order to get information, you have to wait for a payphone to ring at the other end of the city at the right time or look for a case with documents, guided by a small photo received from the bartender.
There is even a pumping here, also closely related to the setting. Special devices - synchrodisks, which can be bought, stolen or received as a reward, improve the characteristics of the main character: for example, they increase the capacity of the inventory. There was also some kind of humor: for example, one of the improvements gives an impressive amount of money, but in return our character gets addicted to Starch Cola, a drink popular in this world. The power of corporations is obvious - we have cyberpunk here, remember?
Despite the fact that the game is full of bugs, and after a dozen successfully completed investigation tasks seem too simple, Shadows of Doubt deserves the most flattering words. The first few cases gave me really unusual emotions that I had never experienced before. We have a great story generator and just an atmospheric adventure that is worth your attention - no matter if you like noir and whether you like the detective genre. For me, Shadows of Doubt is a claim for the game of the year, even without discounts for early access and the fact that there are many more big premieres ahead.