Cognition Review
Cognition is a four episode detective thriller that puts you into the shoes of Erica Reed, an FBI agent from Boston, who is trying to solve the Cain Killer case, while trying to keep her mind on the cases given to her. You see the Cain killer to many victims and one of them was her brother. The unique thing about Erica is that she can see into the past and sense memory imprints on objects. As the episodes continue her power becomes more sophisticated and you can do so much more with them. There is something strange though about the cases she's been working and the Cain Killer case, but you'll have to figure that one out on your own.
Graphically this game looks pretty good. It runs on the Unity engine. There was something strange going on when it came to the scripted actions in the game though. When at the FBI office and wanting to sit in your chair at your desk you would see that Erica would never sit in the chair, and then the animation for the chair coming back out when you were done at your desk was beyond broken. The worst glitch though had to be in the third episode where some how I got all of Erica's apendages to start doing circles while she talked to an NPC, and then from that time on she was either being dragged by her ankles to the next screen, or she was doing the crab man walk that you see in the movie Prometheus.
The voice acting I really enjoyed, I was actually pleasantly suprised by the fact that everyone that you needed to talk to in the game had a real voice. There was a small difference between the sub titles and the voice acting a couple of times, but it wasn't enough to change the story.
The controls were really straight forward, we are talking a point and click adventure thriller, so you are going to be clicking a lot and trying to find the missing pieces to the puzzle of each of your investigations. To help out with trying to find the important things in a specific scene know that the Space Bar is your friend.
So you are Erica Reed, a good FBI agent who has a bit of a vendetta going on, but who knows that the only way to stay close to her brother's case is to play along. Sure you're going to skirt around the rules from time to time, but at least you get the cases closed. As you progress through the episodes you'll definitely see some momentum building for what is happening in the background, but will you move fast enough to save people's lives, or will more die because of you. I have to say that episode 2 and 3 were the best in the series, the first one I felt like I was just learning the ropes and it took a bit of time to figure out what all I needed to do. The climax, the closing chapter was BY FAR the weakest of the four I felt like I was reading and watching more than I was actually doing anything in the game. I know that the designers wanted to get all the details out about what was going on, but I felt that I was completely taken out of the role and was forced to take a backseat to the game.
So lets talk grading here, it would probably be a bit difficult to grade each one as all four make a whole, so I'm just going to give you an overall grade. So with that I have to say if you're looking for a good FBI thriller story, with quite a few twists and turns, that will require you to do the investigating, you're going to like this game, just don't get too frustrated with the odd graphic glitches from time to time. So with that I have to give this series an overall 8.5 out of 10.
0 Comments