One Year On – Chronicles of Crime

A little late, but hey…

Chronicles of Crime is undoubtedly a good game, I know that even though I personally haven’t taken to, not as much as I thought I would anyway. Wife and daughter, however, love it.

I got frustrated with the game. I had a suspect, I had a motive, and I think I had the evidence, but I couldn’t get to ask the question I wanted to ask, which would have wrapped it all up. Instead I had to wander round until I had something else, which then triggered the line of questioning I wanted to pursue, but even then, it didn’t feel very convincing.

Games like Sherlock Holmes: Consulting detective have a strong narrative build up. The way it is written covers all bases concerning how you would go about actually solving the crime, and the only frustration you feel is due to your own lack of deductive powers. Chronicles, however, is more about finding a way to ask the right questions to progress the story. All too often I found that I knew who was responsible and how they committed the crime, but couldn’t find the right way to pin it on them – I just wanted to arrest them and give them a good… well, talking to!

The rest of the household really enjoy the game and have completed all of the scenarios that come with the core box, much, if not all, of the downloadable content, and all of the Noir expansion. Many hours of fun, I know, I’ve had to listen to their adventures in crime!

They much preferred the original cases. They found them to be at the right level in terms of difficulty and really enjoyed the stories. The downloadable content they though a bit hit or miss, with some of them not being worth the money, uninteresting, and often too easy.

Playing Noir was a challenge, and it took them a while to get the hang of using the new actions and mechanisms – intimidation, break in, shadowing, and corruption – but in the end they enjoyed the game, though not as much as the original, as they preferred the modern setting.

They are currently dropping lots of hints for me to buy the Welcome to Redview expansion, and I’m sure I’ll give in at some point… soon!

Which brings me to my final thought, and that’s replayability. I didn’t want to play a scenario again, whether I won or lost, at least not for some time anyway, as with many games of this type, knowing the storyline takes away from the excitement one feels of investigating something new. The main scenarios were gone through in short order and the downloadable content just wasn’t up to the same standard, spoiling the enjoyment somewhat. On the other hand, though, it isn’t particularly expensive, and I do feel we got our money’s worth in the end.

Knowing what I know now, would I still have bought it? Yes. The rest of the family love it and play it quite regularly. That in itself is enough for me.

Will it still remain in my collection? When the family stop playing then it will go. The game doesn’t have the same appeal for me and replayability is an issue. Much of the downloadable content is below par, but the expansions themselves are quite good, though once you’ve played a scenario it’s never as good going back.

One Year On – Whilst it hasn’t really made an impact on me, it has on the rest of the family and is certainly a worthy who-dunnit game. I prefer games of this ilk to have more narrative and lean towards working out who, what, when, as I follow a logical path to its conclusion. Whereas here, it’s more about the manipulation of objects, locations, and people to get you to into a position where the right questions can be asked to make progress. It’s just a different take on things really and if you like that kind of thing you’ll probably enjoy Chronicles of Crime.

Read The Review HERE