Cognition: An Erica Reed Thriller was financed through Kickstarter in 2011, and then came out for Windows and Mac in four separate episodes over the next two years. Each episode has protagonist Erica Reed proving her skills as an FBI agent against various criminals: “The Hangman”, “The Wise Monkey”, “The Oracle”, and “The Cain Killer”. The episodes can be downloaded individually or altogether in a Game of the Year Edition.
I see dead people
Cognition: An Erica Reed Thriller tells the story of – who’d have guessed – Erica Reed, an FBI agent in Boston. However, she’s the kind of agent who just wakes up in the morning, drives to work, and then solves one case after another. She’s a very special kind of investigator, one with paranormal skills. Specifically, she has the power of postcognition, which allows her to see into the past of any object she touches. It goes without saying that this is a very useful skill if you’re solving murder cases or find yourself stuck in a trap.
Each episode in Cognition covers a different story. One thing that no doubt added to the quality of the storytelling is that Jane Jensen, creator of the Gabriel Knight series, was used as a consultant for all four episodes. While you follow a murderer who hangs his victims in Episode 1, in Episode 2 it’s a killer who viciously mutilates his victims. Episode 3 is all about discovering the identity of the Oracle, and in the finale Erica has to stop the Cain Killer once and for all. Each episode features an exciting storyline with excellent pacing and various surprises that really manage to spice things up and keep you motivated throughout. On top of that, jokes and little digs here and there help to lighten up the rather dark and grim storyline just enough to allow you to relax.
One of the nice things about the game is that you really start to feel a bond with the characters, and it even makes you feel bad to see characters you’ve gotten to know over the course of a few episodes get hurt or otherwise fall into danger. This emotional connection helps you get over the fact that the episodes are filled with cliché-laden figures like the portly tech guy with glasses and a Hawaiian shirt, or Erica’s trenchcoat-wearing colleague John who loves doughnuts and always has something nice to say, but who can also play the “bad cop” when he needs to.
Wait, haven’t I been here before?
Another good thing about the story is that the game offers several alternative paths to take. There are lots of different times where you get the chance to make a decision that will have an influence on how the game proceeds. In one part, for example, you meet an NPC who you can either help or blackmail. Whichever one you decide will have an effect on how the rest of the game plays out. Of course the decisions aren’t all that major like in Telltale Games’ The Walking Dead, where you practically have to make a pro and con list before making each decision, but the options do help to increase the game’s replay value.
It is unfortunate, however, that in contrast to other games in the genre, there are only a few areas you can explore, and many of them are visited several different times during the course of the episodes. It’s really stupid when you have to go back to a place because of a certain object that stood out beforehand but you weren’t able to click on it or find out any information about it yet. For instance, you have to keep going back to the scene of the crime from the first episode each time you learn how to use a new ability. Now there’s a little puzzle to be solved, and surprise, Erica discovers a hidden niche containing the next clue. It’s really a shame that the script puts the discovery process on such a linear track like this and then puts the skids on your curiosity when you try to depart from it. You also kind of get the feeling that they’re just using all this repetition to artificially stretch out the time it takes to play through the game. No wonder each episode comes out to about five hours.
Cutting edge meets run-of-the-mill
The puzzles you have to solve in the various episodes are actually quite diverse, and Erica’s paranormal abilities really give the puzzles a whole new flair. For example, when you start out, Erica can only look into the past of objects, but later she gets the ability to reconstruct entire series of events, or help witnesses remember the past more accurately with the help of certain psychic impulses. Another new experience is having to use the police computer to help you with your investigations. You can access case files, search for individuals, or receive e-mails containing additional clues.
These innovative features are always presented in some kind of puzzle, which shows a will on the part of the creators to not drag players through the typical run-of-the-mill riddles the genre is infamous for. Of course, they haven’t done away with these kinds of puzzles altogether, and so once again you can look forward to examining objects, combining objects, and talking to NPCs about objects. However, it can be pretty annoying that you can only use one object at a time, and in order to equip an item you have to go through a laborious process of selecting it in the menu and placing it in the special slot before you can actually use it in the game world. It would have been nicer if, say, you could click on an object and then just select an item from your inventory to use on it. The system really takes a lot of getting used to at the beginning, but after playing for a little while, the intricate control scheme becomes second nature.
Daddy… please help me
If you find yourself stuck at a particular point in the game, there’s a help system that will always get you back on the right track. The cool thing is that it’s not like you just choose it from a menu and it pops up, interrupting the immersive aspect of the game. The help system is integrated into Erica’s cell phone, and it’s designed so that Erica sends her father a text message and he responds with tips to help her out of her situation.
And since we’re poking around in Erica’s cell phone anyway, the notes feature is also a great addition. You can use the keyboard to type notes, which add up over the course of the adventure, and can use Erica’s phone to call them up at any time to help you with puzzles. Another helpful feature is the hotspot display that shows all the items in an area that Erica can interact with, though there’s nothing to indicate which are more important than the others. This means that, worst-case scenario, you’ll have to click through everything item object in the area. But then again, that’s just the kind of thing you should expect from a point-and-click adventure game.
Graphics
The graphics in Cognition: an Erica Reed Thriller are no doubt something you might just have to get used to at first. While the 2D backgrounds are drawn by hand and look kind of like something out of a graphic novel, the 3D characters are portrayed in a somewhat cartoony fashion. It’s definitely an odd sort of contrast, but it actually comes off really cool somehow. It’s also fitting that important parts of the story are related in comic strips, which can really leave you curious about what’s going to happen in the next adventure.
Of course, it’s not like the graphics are perfect – unfortunately it’s pretty common for characters to just go right through objects in the game rather than walk around them. And another thing that’s mostly missing are the kinds of background animation that really could have brought the various areas in the game to life. There aren’t any flickering candles or leaves that blow in the wind. The only thing that flickers are the edges in the game. Character design is another place where the graphics aren’t always that impressive – the way some characters move is way too robotic, and their faces can look really unnatural up close. Whether these issues are going to be a deal breaker or not is something you’re going to have to decide for yourself.
At this point, the game is available only in English, with subtitles for other languages including German and Italian. I can say I never really had anything bad to say about the voice acting or the background music. I mean, yeah, if you spend a lot of time trying to solve the same puzzle and keep failing, only to hear the same little jingle each time, that can get pretty annoying. But usually, since the puzzles are pretty logical, and some of them are relatively easy, so it shouldn’t get on your nerves all that much.
Official Trailer
