Tintin Reporter - Cigars of the Pharaoh Reviews

I bought this game and it won't launch. Steam support punted me to Microids (the developer), who took a month to even acknowledge my initial support request. They then asked if I still had the problem and after I gave them all the details they requested, they've ghosted me for another month. I tried getting a refund through Steam, but because Microids dragged their feet for so long, I'm outside the refund window. I was excited to play this, but now I'm just furious. Microids' customer support is absolutely abysmal and their complete lack of communication is unacceptable. I'm left with a broken game and zero recourse.

This game is AMAZING so far. It's a breath of life that the Tintin franchise desperately needed. I really hope we get more games by these developers. We need Captain Haddock! The artwork, character designs, animation, and voice acting are all flawless so far (except for one character design which I will get to later.) I love how the art style is kind of similar to the 2011 Tintin movie, except a bit more stylized. It reminds me of The Super Mario Bros. Movie, with realistic textures on top of stylized character designs. I love it. I also love the references to previous Tintin media. The fact that this game uses the theme song from the 90's Tintin cartoon by Nelvana makes me SO HAPPY. And I also enjoy the "Tintinologist mode." I'm learning a lot of new facts from it. I only have a few complaints: * I wish there was an actual combat system implemented into the game instead of the quick-time events that are frequent even in just the short amount of the game that I've played so far. * The one character design I'm not fond of is Rastapopoulos. His head looks a little too big, and his torso a little too small. Looking at the Google Images results for Rastapopoulos, it seems like his head/body proportions tend to vary, but I prefer it when he's drawn a bit big and hefty, as it makes him look more intimidating and evil. I know that the animation in this game was done with motion capture, so you were probably just using the body proportions of his physical actor minus his head, but in my opinion, Rastapopoulos's big head makes him look a mascot costume. I just find it offputting.

Very buggy. Not designed for ultrawide so elements of the top and bottom and chopped off (this is just playing in fullscreen mode, no mods) Controls are designed for gamepads but workable on PC, one particular part of the game seems impossible to progress without a game controller. Sad as it is a fun and entertaining experience otherwise (its obviously geared towards kids, so its not quite as fast paced as the movie but still good)

As a Life long Tintin Fan, This entry had so much potential, the music, the Characters, the mystery are all there, however the game is incredibly Janky. So much of my game play was ruined by characters clipping, or glitching, or actions just not working. This game just needed another few months of polish and a maybe a little more deviation to give a satisfying adventure. On a plus side, it kept me on the edge of my seat, even having known the original book and cartoon.