Mervyn Graham reports:
''House of Tales has created a sure winner with the release of its adventure game Overclocked (also known as Overclocked: A History of Violence). This interactive psychological thriller combines a masterful plot, superb graphics, challenging puzzles, and a score of creepy, suspenseful, and haunting music. The game explores the abstract concept of justifiable violence through the minds of 5 mentally disturbed patients in an asylum and the eyes of their treating psychologist who analyzes their memories and illusions through flashbacks, dreams, and hypnosis. Overclocked is a retelling of these 2 stories that run parallel to each other but ultimately converge to meet at their final conclusion.
Overclocked is also a story about grand conspiracies, brainwashing, secret projects, and government cover-ups. All the characters in the game are believable, and together they weave a complex tale of mistrust, secrecy, and behind the scenes shady deals. Until you get deeply into the game, you (or your character) will not know who to trust-whether it be your attorney and best friend, your wife, the NYPD specialist detective, or the doctor and nurse with whom you work at the asylum.''
The Armchair Empire writes: "As a gamer, I'm such a suck for adventure games, particularly good ones, and though there are some technical issues surrounding the overall execution and the pacing is frustratingly slow, Overclocked actually feels satisfying at its conclusion but you'll need to be a dyed-in-the-wool fan of adventure games to reach that point.
You play as "former forensic psychiatrist for the U.S. Army" David McNamara investigating a case which involves five nut bars found wandering New York City, all of them suffering from, what else, amnesia. These are all shattered people and it's up to McNamara to delve into their psyches (via flashbacks as you play through their eyes), as bloody and twisted as they are, and piece together what brought them to their current mental state, which actually made me think of LOST."
While far from the popularity of its heyday, the point and click genre is still very much alive for those who know where to look. Or perhaps, more accurately, for those with PCs. The welcome return of Sam & Max with their bite-size episodic adventures might have something to do with granting the ailing genre a new lease on life, although at the same time, there are those out there looking to do something a little different than the usual blend of witty one-liners and obscure inventory puzzles.
Enter Overclocked, a game you probably haven't heard of from a developer about whom you likely know equally as little. The best way to describe it is probably as a point and click version of the excellent Fahrenheit, which in itself owed more than a little to the classic adventure genre. From the sombre mood to the focus on characters and interaction, this is a far cry from the Monkey Islands and Broken Swords of this world and the puzzles reflect this...
Diehard GameFan writes: Overclocked: A History of Violence is a hard game to appreciate or recommend, as the good and the bad end up canceling themselves out, leaving an experience that's often inconsistent and not particularly satisfying. The gameplay is refreshing and well done, many of the concepts in the game are quite inventive and novel when taken on their own, and parts of the visual and aural presentation are solid and of quality. The story, unfortunately, drops the ball on more than a few occasions, leaves interesting elements unresolved and characters underdeveloped, and doesn't come to any sort of reasonable or finite conclusion… and, unfortunately, in a genre where plot is king, that's something of a killer. Even with that aside, there's no reason to play the game more than once, it has a couple of game-crashing bugs, and there are points where the game doesn't feel as intuitive as other sections, leaving you scratching your head because the only solution is to exhaust all available options to progress. With a tighter and more cohesive storyline Overclocked would be easy to recommend, but as it is, it's at best "okay" and at worst unsatisfying.
Yeah, I played this game a bit so far and i've enjoyed it.
It's nice to see this style of gameplay made again. Reminds me of years and years ago when these types of games were quite prevalent.