Misdirection, manipulation, and an inventory filled with objects are the tools of the stage magician, but they're also the basics of the adventure-game genre. Why it's taken so long for the two to be combined is anyone's guess, but in Gray Matter, the fit is so natural that it seems like it's the way adventure games always should have been.
This game would have been an oasis in the desert had it been released four or five years ago, but it still achieved to stand out in a genre with many other great adventures, thanks to its great story and puzzles.
An excellent adventure game from one of the genre's most celebrated creators. Jane Jensen delivers what is possibly the swan song of the old school point and click adventure games before the Kickstarter era. The 3D graphics might show their age but the hand drawn cutscenes are as engaging as ever and so is the story itself. If you long for the good old days of Lucasarts vs Sierra then you shouldn't miss out on this.
Great art design & soundtrack. Voice acting is OK though 1 or 2 more additional voice actors would have been welcome. Original well written and immersive plot (keep 'em coming Jane Jensen). The puzzles for the most part made sense and the "magic interface" was original and very well done. Cutscene GFX aren't the best though it doesn't detract from the gamplay and the game does have a good atmospheric feel. Definitely worth a playthrough overall.
Gray Matter presents an exciting, intriguing and well researched mystery, which coupled with memorable characters and enjoyable puzzles makes this game a "must have" for every point & click adventure game fan out there.
Gray Matter entails thanks to a very good story from Jane Jansen, with good characters and rich situations. But the gameplay will be a disappointment for point & click fans. Too easy, it also suffers from some real flaws in design, shortcomings that have a knack for killing an atmosphere that the production values already have trouble to maintain... If the story is all that matters to you, then it's well worth playing.
It took seven years to create this remarkable game. The story and characters are written so well it would have been better if Gray Matter was made into a novel or movie rather than a videogame. [Dec 2010]
This is old-fashioned adventure gaming with a 21st century veneer. For the adventure gaming veterans, this is heaven. Gabriel Knight writer/designer Jane Jensen returns to create another paranormal mystery game with challenging puzzles and an intriguing plot.
A very good game with an interesting story. It has its flaws (the magic system), but I wish so much see the second game... the plot was very interesting!
While Gray Matter is far from perfect, I'd still give it a 7 for I haven't enjoyed like this from a classic adventure type of game for a very long time.
Gray Matter presents us classic point and click like at old times, and it manages to bring back the long-gone magic of these old gems, unfortunately it's mostly done as if we're actually still at those old times, and that gives place to some sad problems and disappointments.
The game was mostly if not completely crowd-funded by a kickstarter, as far as I know, which got lots of attention as the lead writer of the project is no other than Jane Jensen, the same lady of the famous Gabriel Knight series. While I'm not sure how much money the devs actually obtained by the kickstarter, and not sure whether the lady Jensen actually kept in mind that with the great support of the community come great expectations.
Gray Matter felt quite cheap, at the end of the day. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but it felt like a low-budget game. The overall experience was good as I said, but you just couldn't ignore the clunkiness of the entire business.
Gameplay, first and foremost, is your regular point n' click as I said. It doesn't try to impress or revolutionize anything. Too bad the interface was uncomfortable and felt rather awkward. But I got that with love and acceptance, and blessed the 'magic tricks' system which I found pretty cool although heavily linear and pre-scripted.
The puzzles were pretty good and are the strong point of the game, in my opinion. Not too easy, not too difficult, and most importantly, does not necessarily require pixel-hunting if you use the hotspots function. That's good, I hate pixel-hunting. Cool puzzles? Yay. The difficulty was just right, I managed to finish the entire game on my own, without feeling that it mocks my intelligence and also without getting stuck on the same section of the game for hours.
Story was good, albeit it didn't completely delivered its promises. Besides the rather weak introduction, the story felt intriguing and absorbing, and I enjoyed it a lot. Playing through the story was pure fun for me. Except the very end of the game, the last two chapters to be precise, which were good gameplay-wise, but not storywise.
The game has 8 chapters total, it took me about 1-2 hours to finish each, and yet the story feels short. Why's that, you may ask? Because 10+ hours is more than enough for a decent point and click.
The answer is, that the first 6 chapters felt a lot like a warm-up for what's coming next. And then the rest just finished the story in a way that felt somewhat bland and abrupt.
Yes, you do get the answers to the "big" questions of the plot, but you're left with many little plot holes scattered around, feeling a little cheated.
The ending of the game felt rather stuffed just to fit in 8 chapters, and the story felt like it goes a few levels down.
That's a shame, and being the writer of Gabriel Knight is not completely a reason to get away with that.
Rest of the game is filled with mediocrity, with the cast of characters being intriguing enough, but not too complex, and poorly dubbed. The writing and script being very so-so, the graphics being alright but nothing too marvelous (although they do portray real locations of england nicely!), and the soundtrack being alright but getting sort of recycled throughout the entire game.
So, yeah, it's still fun, you just may want to lower your hopes a little tiny bit. The mediocrity I could forgive but the ending of the story was what really made me disappointed of Gray Matter, and I won't judge the entire game based one that, because: 1)The story was told pretty well up until the last two chapters, and 2)The puzzles in the game's ending were very fun and almost covered up for the plot, so...
Eventually, I feel we're left with an alright game.
I'm don't regret playing it, or buying it. Wouldn't recommend it for full price, though.
Starts off with a bang but ends in a muddle. Jane Jensen has recently been accused of sexism towards women in her latest video games and this is a perfect example. She takes an intriguing story about a young woman (Sam) who gets in over her head with no easy exit and turns it into a **** and trite romance about a professor obsessed with his dead wife and the college co-ed obsessed with taking her place in his affection (not Sam). The actual game mechanics are often broken, too, and one will need a walk through--this has nothing to do with solving puzzles but simply a necessity to avoid hours of searching for the one object in the environment one forgot to inspect.. This game has faded into the obscurity of history and my advice to anyone reading this review is to not disturb it's well earned rest.
Jeu d'aventure à l'ancienne... quoique le genre est ancien en soi et le voir adapté sur console est assez rare. Une adaptation plutôt perfectible dans l'ensemble d'ailleurs même s'il reste graphiquement réussi.
La musique neuneu qui tourne en boucle prend bien la tête et les voix (en anglais) ne sont clairement pas convaincantes. L'ambiance estudiantine et ses "tours de magie" (sic) tout aussi neuneus ne donne pas trop envie non plus. Quand on vient à être bloqué dans l'histoire la faute à un bug ou une défaillance du système de jeu (ce qui revient au même) on se dit qu'on a perdu son temps et que le genre est décidément voué à disparaître, définitivement sclérosé par ses mécaniques d'un autre temps.
SummaryGray Matter is the first adventure game by renowned author Jane Jensen since the release of Gabriel Knight 3: the story mixes eerie goings-on with supernatural events in best Jensen-style. Neurobiologist Dr. David Styles is one of the game's central characters: since losing his wife in a horrible accident some several years ago, he has b...