Review by Jon Donnis
I have reviewed a few FMV (Full-motion video) games in the past, and I am back once again with I Saw Black Clouds.
If you have never played a FMV game before, think of it more as an interactive movie, whereby you make decisions for the main character in the film, and that will result in different outcomes, meaning that once you have finished playing, you can start again, make different choices and not just see different scenes, but also a completely different ending.
I Saw Black Clouds is a story about Kristina who has just found out about the unexpected death of a close friend. She travels back to her home town to find answers, but as she does, she uncovers a string of dark secrets, and those secrets turn out to be way scarier than she could ever have imagined.
Part supernatural horror and part psychological thriller, the game plays a bit like one of those feature length dramas you get on ITV late at night. The difference of course being that you the viewer can help choose the path the main character takes.
An interesting addition to this game, as opposed to other similar FMV games is the stats screen, depending on your choices you will see a graph that covers your personality traits, honesty, strength, morality, tact and introspection, as well as relationships with other characters. And perhaps most importantly how you face the situation in front of you, with denial, acceptance, or guilt
Starring Nicole O'Neill as the lead character that you will help make decisions for, this game is fully filmed in the UK, and has a very British feel to it.
Acting is of a decent level, and everything is filmed in HD, so looks and sounds to a high quality.
The Good
I Saw Black Clouds has a decent story, intriguing characters, and even some jump scares. Nicole O'Neill is great, and stands out in her performance on screen.
The Bad
I Saw Black Clouds suffers some of the same problems that many FMV games suffer, when making a decision, the game needs to load the correct scene to play next, which does mean a brief bit of lag, and sometimes the music from one scene to the next, will just stop, which just makes it all the more obvious that a new scene has been loaded up. There is also very little time to read the choices and then make the decision.
Overall
One way I have learned to play FMV games over the years is to sometimes just sit back and watch it like a film. When you do not make a choice, the game will make the choice for you. You will still get to the end eventually, and you will see one ending. This just feels better than sitting up close to a computer screen, constantly waiting for the next choice to come up. Once you have seen the film this way, you can restart, and luckily you can now skip scenes you have already seen, meaning you can make different choices, and watch unseen scenes fresh. Perhaps this is not the ideal way to play the game, and not the way the makers intended, but it does solve a few of the issues I have mentioned. But then that in itself raises another question, is it still a game, if you don't play it and just watch it like a film?
I Saw Black Clouds may not be perfect, but it is a decent little low budget supernatural horror thriller, and I do like them, as you would know if you read my Movie reviews on www.beentothemovies.com and with the option to make choices, it does make things more interesting.
I score I Saw Black Clouds a fair and honest 7/10.
Worth a look if you are a fan of British made supernatural/horror thrillers.
Out Now on Steam.
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