It’s been a while since the first episode of Blues and Bullets – way back in late July in fact – so there was a little trepidation when trying to get back into the adventures of detective Elliot Ness. Previously we had begun our investigation and search for the kidnapped granddaughter of Ness’s lifelong nemesis Al Capone, which ultimately saw us examining a grisly murder scene and uncovering some key information on where to go next. The episode ended with us discovering a submarine housing all sorts of dodgy types, which would hopefully lead us to a man involved in all of these peculiar shenanigans.
In all honesty, it took me a bit of effort to really remember a lot about the first episode, in terms of important details, which made jumping back in a bit of a trial. The episode starts with a slow paced ‘flashback’ or ‘memory’ sequence where you explore a pier one winter day and meet up with a friend, offering a bit of a glance at Elliot’s personal life when he was in the force. However, as soon as this ends, we switch straight back to where we left off in episode one, and you really are expected to hit the ground running. But I’ll talk a bit more about this later.
As for what this episode has to offer – another investigation, some light sleuthing, the odd decision to make and plenty of shoot-outs. Episode two’s investigation continues the rather mature brand of subject matter that episode one so brazenly introduced us to. Without spoiling much, we get to investigate a disturbing environment which relates to where all these kidnapped children have been taken. The descriptions of interact-able objects and clues are vivid and delivered brilliantly by Douge Cockle, his grizzled tones remaining a great fit for the sombre/macabre setting.
Piecing the clues together during investigations to form a bigger picture is great, as with the first episode, and it’s only a shame that there isn’t more of it to do (there’s only one investigation section). They’re the best parts of the game, and I feel really add a little bit extra to what is essentially quite a simplistic puzzle. Even in comparison with other similar titles (similar in genre at least) such as The Walking Dead, Blues and Bullet’s investigation sections stand out for the better. It could be a patch of blood, a discarded piece of paper – seemingly innocuous or meaningless things on their own, but string them together with a description by Ness and you come to a really satisfying, if grisly conclusion.
Aside from the one investigation, episode two is much more of an action packed ride than the first. And yes, that means more on rails/cover shooting. My opinion of this feature remains much the same as with episode one, it’s an average action based distraction – pretty simplistic and rugged. It’s not challenging in any way, and actually pretty dull in some cases. There’s a part towards the end of the episode that is literally just a turret section, which sees enemies walk slowly out of doors in a line ready for you to pepper with bullets. In fact, it’s worse in this episode than it was in the first. In episode one it was simply a flashback scene of Elliot storming the Capone mansion – a quirky but not too ridiculous action sequence – but it’s much more of an integral part of episode two’s story and gameplay, and it takes away from the macabre/serious vibe of the rest of the game.
I’m in a similar position with regards to how the game generally plays too. The devs haven’t really stepped anything up, certainly not in terms of quality – animations are still awkward and dialogue is a bit tortured at times – and the various choices you can make are just as flawed. As I mentioned briefly earlier, the game expects you to be fresh up to date with the first episode, and does present dialogue choices about the details of things that happened in episode one. Safe to say I didn’t have much of a clue how I should respond to them. Some options can be rather vague as well which adds to the confusion.
One thing I will give credit for, however, is that your choices seem more important this time – not like the ‘have a drink or answer the telephone’ conundrum we faced in the first episode – moral choices which may actually shape your character. This fits particularly well with the flashback scenes you play as Ness in the past. Not only do they offer you some interesting background, but allow you to shape it a little bit with your choices.
The flashback scenes are really a nice touch. The story generally progresses quite far in this episode (a criticism of the first was that it was a tad slow), and the pace is steadied just enough by returning to these past scenarios, and they are genuinely intriguing – I want to find out about what led to Ness getting Capone, and I want to see how he fell from grace, so to speak.
So it’s a bit of a mixed bag for me, really. I found the tone was dropped a touch due to the shooting sections, and some of the more frustrating dialogue and choices created a rather chaotic experience. It’s also a damn shame that the game holds back on the investigations. I’ve said this once already, but it bears repeating: they are the best thing about the game.
Hopefully episode three will be a little less silly and start playing to its own strengths. There’s a really interesting and engaging mystery here, and it’s being diminished somewhat. That needs to change.