The Cross of Fire

Author:  Matthew Carey, 2003.
Review by Jess.

Game Info:  An entry into the 2003 Spring Thing.  Inform. 

I like the way this one begins, and I like the idea of playing Sherlock Holmes as he solves a mystery. I haven't played many mystery games myself, and I love watching Colombo, but I am always surprised by the endings of movies (unless I am watching it with my husband, who is very good at this sort of thing, and sometimes clues me in also). Let me make at least one very clear statement in this review: "The Cross of Fire" would benefit greatly from some thorough hints. Not a walkthrough; it's got that. It could use a whole slew of hints.

I like to write reviews in the order that I played games, but CoF was actually the second game from the Spring Thing 2003 Comp I tried to play. After finding out I wouldn't be able to play "Max Blaster..." without a new interpreter, I moved on to the second on the list in the order of "most interesting names." I was quite pleased to see that the game was in Inform, and so I wouldn't have any trouble getting it to load. What I did have trouble with were some of the commands. The game is solid enough, and I didn't crash it or anything, but I'm one of those players who appreciates the extra time some authors take to make sure lots of different versions of the same command can all be used. "Inject," for example, seems to be a verb that has been made a synonym of Put On, or possibly Transfer, when it makes perfect sense to use for, well, injecting oneself. "Inject me," "inject myself," "inject syringe," "inject syringe into me," and other variations could have been available, but are not.

I would say that sort of thing pervades the entire game, but I can't. I didn't get very far before the exact opposite problem hit me. A very specific, specialized verb was needed, but the action was so non-intuitive that it wouldn't have occurred to me to try the action, even if I thought for some reason that the verb was implemented. This occurs fairly early in the game, but it could be considered a spoiler, so I'll warn you now. The verb is "hire," and for some reason you are supposed to use it just before getting into a cab. Why I would want to do that, I wasn't sure, but even if I had wanted to, I would not have expected "hire" to be implemented. It should have been, sure, but it still sticks out in the walkthrough like Darrin Stevens at a Washington Redskins linebackers practice.

Yes, I turned to the walkthrough in no short order, and it was a bit problematic. Not technically speaking, since the commands it lists will indeed take you to the end of the game, but rather from an aesthetic point of view. This is a mystery. There are deductions to be made, and clues to pick up on. Some of it is obvious once you do it, and you understand why you ask certain questions once they are answered. However, some of it doesn't work at all. I consider this bit non-spoilerish since I still don't understand, and it's a perfect example. After some perfectly reasonable (and clever) looking around and scheming, the walkthrough suddenly directs you to go to the police station and "tell Lestrade about gunshot." What's that? What gunshot? I've been reading all the text as I went along following the walkthrough, but I have no idea what the PC is talking about or how he knew about this gunshot. This makes the game a good deal less enjoyable, and it could have been headed off by some hint-writing.

"Cross of Fire" uses a slightly unorthodox version of the traditional conversation system. What I like about it is it's very clear about when to use which style of talking: "ask about" and "tell about" are specific for use in official investigations. And when you "tell person about thing," you should use a topic ("thing") that shows that you have made a deduction about something. You don't tell people about clues you find; you tell people about things you've figured out. This introduces the walkthrough problem: by using the walkthrough, I can "tell Lestrade about gunshot" as if I have figured something out, when really, I know nothing. But what else can you do? (Answer: good hints, and a nice, wordy walkthrough that explains each step as you go through.) Additionally, there were a few places where I thought I should use a more specific way of telling people things, but "talk to" was what was needed. For example, the game instructions say to use "tell person to [do something]" is the proper way to ask an NPC to do something. So, when I have a guest in my office, and chairs for guests, I say "tell Openshaw to sit." But the parser chides me for telling him what to do. On the other hand, a simple "talk to Openshaw" spits out some text, including Holmes saying "Please, have a seat."

Overall, I like the conversation system. In fact, there's a lot to like about this game. Despite a few technical errors and some syntax troubles, it's a very ambitious work that could be quite enjoyable. I confess to a bit of rushing through, because of the competition voting deadline, and I might have been able to do more if there was no deadline. Of course, it's also quite possible I would never have finished it without a deadline.

Writing: 4 out of 5. At times a bit stilted, but also at times artful. Overall it was easy and enjoyable to read.

Appeal: 3 out of 5. Playing Sherlock Holmes is fun.

Bugginess: 3 out of 5. Missing lines between paragraphs, being able to open doors while seated, the aforementioned trouble with talking to folks. And where was I supposed to come up with "ask sailor about painting mast"?!

Entertainment: 2 out of 5. In the end... enh. I didn't have that much fun with it, because I felt like I was missing out on so many parts of the story. Plus, I'm not familiar with a lot of the backstory of Sherlock Holmes, and was a little surprised by some of the things that happened. Some nice puzzles, though.

Overall: 6.0 out of 10. A nice game that could benefit from extended playing time, and possible a more polished version.

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