Gray Matter

Before I gets balls deep into this one, I want to give a brief opinion on point and click adventure games as I seem to be playing a lot of them at the moment (if you count the CSI games). They are obviously very tricky in their own right as many of the classic games, such as The Secret of Monkey Island, have really convoluted ways of getting from start to finish. I can see the unique challenge in this, however I think that point and click adventure games should have a strong storyline as their main selling point.

I don’t think I’m clever by any stretch which is why I had to use a guide for Monkey Island and I’m not ashamed of that at all. I wondered around the dock for about three hours before giving in and being forced to look up the solution. This brings me to my next point for these games – the music has to be good because if you are stupid (like me) and playing properly (not like me) then you are going to be listening to a lot of background music –more on this later.

Anyway, on the matter at hand. Gray Matter, that is!

Gray Matter is a classic style point and click adventure game designed for easy use on a PC. The story follows Sam Everett, an American orphan trying to make her way to London to become a full on magician and member of an exclusive club. Her bike breaks down in Oxford and she wakes up in a strange house with her rabbit Houdini. Seriously.

She later entwines herself with reclusive neurobiologist David Styles with hilarious consequen... I can’t even lie about that, there is nothing hilarious about the game. Like I’ve said above, the main selling point of a point and click adventure game is the story so I won’t go into detail. But I will say this – it’s horribly depressing.

Along those lines, the music is also dreary and depressing. I was playing at around ten o’clock at night, not to subject any other members of my household to having to watch me play it, and I fell asleep twice. The storyline – coupled with the music – is enough to drive anyone to the verge of suicide. If you are going to play this, make sure you put aside an hour of gentle comedy to cheer yourself up after you’re done with a session.

As intricately put together as Gray Matter is, it was mildly disappointing when I discovered that the characters have generic responses similar to the witnesses from CSI: Hard Evidence. You play as David and Sam and at one point, as David, I had just witnessed a traumatic incident. But when I returned to my house afterwards, the housekeeper asked David how he was which he responded to with a quite cheery, ‘Fine thanks!’

He does have a moment of pure quality towards the end of the game. He makes a phone call to get some information and gets given loads of confidential information... so fully lays into the person on the other end of the phone and reduces them to tears!

In other positives, the Oxford depictions are really close to those of real life. They do look a bit dated though and the whole game feels very Americanised. The English speaking characters are clearly Americans and the lack of any kind of vehicles and cobbled paths seems to indicate that America thinks England is stuck in the nineteen-fifties.

In terms of the gameplay, point and click adventure games are best played with a mouse but in a world where we have an analogue stick... sorry, make that two analogue sticks, I don’t understand why I have to hold down the right trigger to be able to click on stuff. Basically, the point and click interface registers a -9 out of 150 in terms of user friendliness and this is the main reason that playing the game was a fucking ball ache.

Achievements – 1,000 Points – 41 Achievements

As far as the achievements go, most of them are simply story driven with a few missable ones sprinkled in. It gets it completely right it terms of secret achievements though – all the missable ones are non-secret.

I do have one massive issue with one particular achievement called Fast Play. You get this achievement for completing the game in less than five hours. Now, a game of this type is not designed to be played in less than 5 hours. I’m pretty sure that it can only be done by skipping all the dialogue and by knowing exactly what to do before you do it. This makes playing the game properly completely redundant.

I used to be the kind of person who would aim to get all the achievements in a single playthrough and this can be done with a guide but what’s the point? I took the extra hit and played the game properly once before getting Fast Play but I don’t think a game’s objectives should make the game redundant.

Downloadable Content – N/A

To sum up, it’s not the most straight forward 1,000 points I’ve ever earned and the puzzles are a massive let down in terms of what they offer. It’s a gettable 1,000 points, but not necessarily the most enjoyable. Unless you’re a masochist of course.