Keepsake is honestly one of the longest games I have ever played. This adventure title by Wicked Studios has quite a lot of potential but suffers mainly from failing to keep the player entertained at all times throughout the drawn-out journey.
It all begins in the
There’s a problem, though, which is that nobody seems to be around. When
The storyline is presented along the way with strange flashbacks that aren’t really flashbacks; they’re memories that
|
"I’m usually quite a patient person but this game just broke my limits on several occasions." |
Keepsake is presented in the third-person perspective and is a point-and-click game. It felt pretty standard but not everything flowed smoothly when it came to moving about. Some of the camera angles were just plain awkward and I found it difficult to move along the set paths at times because the cursor position had to be so precise. I’m more used to games where it’s possible to click in a general area to make the character move to it. An example of this can be seen in the very beginning of the game. Once the gates open, you’ll be presented with a huge statue of a shiny dragon. If you attempt to go behind it, the camera switches to a bird’s eye viewpoint and because the dragon’s width takes up such a large portion of the screen in-between two symmetrical stairways, it’s troublesome to move around without accidentally clicking on it, which starts up another irritating piece of dialog.
Without parting from the gamplay let me explain that there are two main parts to the game. Half of it takes place in the lower part of the castle and once
Fortunately you’ll never really find yourself getting stuck. Wicked included a help system where one just clicks a round question mark button in the GUI. Some of the puzzles in the game were easy while others were more challenging. They definitely included enough of them, as I found myself cheating right to the solution once in a while. Many of the puzzles reminded me of board games for some reason, which took a long time to complete, adding to an already long game. That might be considered a good thing, but some puzzles were just simply irritating due to the mechanics of the controls. Take the puzzle which requires
|
"...some puzzles were just simply irritating due to the mechanics of the controls." |
Graphics in Keepsake are a mixed bag. There are many things that are visually appealing at a distance but when the camera zooms in you’ll notice that this ain’t no Half-Life 2 (Myst 5 if you want an in-genre comparison). Characters look jagged and, oh, before I forget, you can’t change the screen resolution which I always find distasteful. Character models could have been better, the implanted video sequences of movement were a bit pixelated and suffered from a small black outline at times, but it’s not altogether bad – maybe just outdated, as I would guess that this game has been in development for several years. I particularly liked the way water flowed in the game with the fish swimming in the pond next to the garden, and the observatory was a nice surprise.
One thing Wicked desperately needs is a new animator. All of the movement animations, especially Zak’s walking in wolf and cat form – which seemed more like floating – could use a lot of improvement.
The “flashbacks”/cut-scenes, which are really just a sequence of images with dialog, seemed pretty good but there were a couple that showed
The in-game music seemed good but its slow pace combined with the length of the game had the tendency of heightening my level of boredom and tiredness. The background noises, particularly in the forest, seemed extremely realistic and added to the immersion factor. The voice acting, however, suffered from average to poor quality and this is where the game takes another big hit.
The voices of
There are many games that are just plain bad but I don’t want people to think that it’s the same way with this game when they see the scores below. I think Keepsake can be appreciated by a small percentage of adventure genre lovers if players pace themselves; and by that I mean playing for a while every couple of days when time and patience are on one’s hands. Keepsake seemed almost epic in size because of the in-depth storyline and overall length. What adventure gamer wouldn’t appreciate a puzzle where she is sent to the deck of a ship in a bottle that is sitting on someone’s office desk? I was tempted to just stop playing mid-game and write this review but I absolutely had to see what happened at the end, so intrigue isn’t necessarily absent. It’s an adventure game that has potential but it’s primarily the boring and irritating portions that give Keepsake a limp in a crowded race.
|
"I think Keepsake can be appreciated by a small percentage of adventure genre lovers if players pace themselves..." |

This is a Battlefield 2 Mod
The award winning Project Reality Studios and Black Sand Studio teams are proud to announce the official release of Project Reality v0.9.
After countless hours of develop...
A total conversion for the Medieval II Total War - Kingdoms expansion
Main Features
1. The Middle-earth Map
Play on an extensive historically accurate map of Middle-earth as it was in the Third Ag...
flamenco...
Forgotten Hope 2 is a World War II modification for Battlefield 2â„¢ and is based on the original Forgotten Hope, a modification for Battlefield 1942â„¢, one of the most popular multiplayer games eve...
This patch will update your game from 1.8.25.003002 to version 1.9.22.
(c) Electronic Arts and respective copyright owners. This is not meant to infringe any copyrights, it is simply a re-upload of t...
This patch will update your game from 1.8.25.003001 to version 1.9.22.
(c) Electronic Arts and respective copyright owners. This is not meant to infringe any copyrights, it is simply a re-upload of t...
What is it?
UDK is Unreal Engine 3 – the complete professional development framework. All the tools you need to create great games, advanced visualizations and detailed 3D simulations. The best ...
Call of Warhammer: Champions of the vile Chaos gods have stepped forward uniting into a northern tidal wave sweeping south. Orcs are growing restless in the cramped space of the Badlands. A WAAGGGHH!!...
[i]"Will you be a living legend or a forgotten casualty?"[/i]
By the 31st century, humanity has spread to thousands of worlds, while a handful of powerful empires wage continual war for the right to...
changes in version 1.2.1
# Multiplayer connectivity has been improved; users should no longer be required to forward ports to host or join multiplayer games
# Players who experienced distorted shadow...