Moment of Silence (DVD/ROM)

When I first started to play, I was not disappointed. I was impressed by the presentation and the DVD version installed with no problems. The game itself is intensely atmospheric, most of the time, with stunning backgrounds and a great soundtrack. However, despite the wonderfully drawn backgrounds, the characters themselves are rather poorly drawn and the animation at times can only be described as amateurish. And despite the effectively atmospheric music, the other sound effects are sadly lacking - while waiting for a microwave meal to cook (sounds dull but has important role in the plot), I was left standing in complete silence for 2 minutes - no hum of the cooker, no ping, nothing. And no way to skip it either. Indeed patience is very important when playing this game. There is no way to quickly move around the games's locales. If you want to pass through an area already thoroughly explored, you still have to wait while the character plods his way across the screen. At one point I was standing on the stairs at JFK Airport and clicked to make him move to the bottom. Instead he walked all the way to the top before walking down again, very frustrating to say the least.

Despite all the criticism so far, I do enjoy this game. The main reason for that is the storyline. A meandering conspiratorial masterpiece which would put Hollywood blockbusters to shame. The voice acting for the most part is good, with a few exceptions, but it is the depth of the main plot which will keep gamers gkued to their screens despite all the frustrations. The puzzles are generally quite logical, but MoS does fall into the old point-and-click trap of objects being difficult to locate against the detailed background. At one point near the start I thought I was stuck until I found a tiny drawer in my apartment which my pointer had simply passed over previously without me realising it was there. Thankfully Digital Jesters have tried to remedy this problem by adding a help feature - by holding down the 'H' key, all interesting items, people and exits are automatically highlighted. This is very useful, and doesn't feel like cheating. I have heard of a few bugs and translations problems (the game was originally in German and some security codes, etc were apparantly not translated properly) but these seem to have been sorted out by the official patch. There are also forums on the Digital Jesters website where you can share hints and tips for the game.

For seasoned point-and-click gamers, there is nothing particularly new here, although the story is captivating if you can be bothered putting up with all the minor gameplay irritations. If you are new to the genre, you could do a lot worse than this, but be warned - you will have to put in a lot of effort to reap rewards.

I am a fan of adventure games, so I am biased, but I found that the story of the game was excellent and I was completely drawn into the game.

There is a lot of dialogue to get through, and the game does take a certain amount of patience, but if you are a fan of adventure games, and enjoy a good conspiracy story, then this will be right up your street.

If you do not enjoy point and click adventures, then this game probably won't convert you (it is a bit slow), but I haven't enjoyed a game as much for ages.

Highly recommended for adventure game fans.

However, it's quite a dark game, with some quite sinister goings-on and a plot which is a uncomfortably close to believable. The game is very stable, easily saved and the DVD means no disc-swapping.

As another reviewer mentioned, the dialogue can get tedious in places, but at least it's well acted and integral to the plot.

If you liked the Longest Journey or the Syberia series, you should enjoy this.