Sinister City Reviews

I recommend this game *if* you get it cheap, i.e for like 50 cents etc. [u]The good[/u] Some of the puzzles are challenging Oddball sense of humour Can be completed quickly Decent trading cards/badges [u]The bad[/u] Brings nothing new to the HO table Graphics are sub-par Some of the hidden objects don't match up to their descriptions

[b][u]Game Information[/u][/b] "Sinister City" is a Hidden Object Puzzle Adventure game. The game was developed and published by JetDogs Studios. [b][u]The Game Review[/u][/b] Game Visuals I want to mention that the visuals in the game are well done. The visuals can be adjusted in the game's option menu. Game Audio I want to mention that audio for the game is well done. Even though the audio is somewhat simplistic and repetitive. The audio can be adjusted in the game's option menu as well. Gameplay There are two different difficulty game modes to choose from: Easy and Advanced. There is no padlock feature that is available to lock the inventory panel in place to make it stationary. The inventory panel automatically comes stationary. The hidden object scenes consist of the following: Traditional word lists and Find 'x' amount. Some of these hidden object scenes may require little or no interactions. (Please be aware that in one of the hidden object scenes, there is a bug/glitch, it causes you to exit the scene every time; when you collect the item. Reinstalling the game would fix the problem.) The puzzles are fairly easy to solve without having the need to skip any of them. There are seventeen different achievements to unlock from playing the game. Each of these achievements does come with some requirements that need to be completed before they can be unlocked. Miscellaneous There are five different trading cards to collect. Only three of those trading cards are given out by the game. There are several ways to get the rest of the trading card: Purchased from Steam's Community Market; Trade with friends; Booster Packs and its' Booster Pack Creator. Final thoughts: I have found the game enjoyable to a certain extent. Even though there was a glitch/bug in the game. The replay value for the game is low. I would not recommend this game.

+ Puzzles aren't frustrating + Story is a parody of Vampire genre so don't take it seriously + Achievements are glitchy that they unlock even if you don't meet the requirements lol (easy 100%) + Nice music - Needs tinkering to run on modern systems

After going about the discussion section to see how I can launch the game, I finally was able to play the game. It's such a cute little ironical game about vampires. Love it! PROS: - Reminds me of Dracula: Origin; - Interesting story; - Fast-travelling map; - HO with various puzzles; - Achievements and trading cards. CONS: - Sometimes, you click on the right location, but it doesn't help you get there or the HO won't trigger. My solution: You got to click the menu (globe) icon and click Continue, once that done John (your protagonist) can access that area or puzzle. Even if it's complicated to make the game run, I'd say it's worthwhile. The game is packed with good laughs and great puzzles. If you like vampires, this is a game for you.

Sinister City is a ghoulish adventure that will frighten you to the bone, seize your soul, and cause your blood to run cold. You will spend the entire hour or so of this game in constant fear and...Whoops! Got my intros mixed up. Your fiance has been kidnapped by a vampire! Are you a bad enough dud to rescue your fiance?! Action and adventure await in Sinister City! Hmm..Nope...That one kinda sucks too. Truth is, there's not much to discuss when it comes to Sinister City. Not too long ago, this game was on sale for around 10 cents. On top of that, it has cards, so you're all but guaranteed to profit off of the purchase. Therefore, I'm going to assume that you already own this game, and are just reading this review because you assume there will be some funny jokes. You know what they say about assumptions right? In the interest of being "helpful" I'll talk about the actual game. Sinister City is a hidden-object puzzler. Look for the object, find the object, click on the object, become a winner. I must warn you though, the objects tend to be hidden. Occasionally there are puzzles to break up the monotony, but nothing too strenuous. For those exceedingly rare situations that you're actually stuck, a handy "HELP!" button is always nearby. Not all hidden-object games are equal, and Sinister City is IMO an example of a mediocre one. The images are of a lower resolution, which makes objects muddy and difficult to spot. Yeah I know, it sounds ironic when you think about it, but bear with me on this. Another unfortunate technical issue is the prevalence of bugs. These can range from disappearing images to the game no longer properly responding to your inputs. Thankfully, these are usually cleared up by quitting to the main menu. The game saves automatically and constantly, so all you have to fear is those wacky vampires, not the possibility of losing progress. The following couple paragraphs include SPOILERS! ----SPOILERS---- This next aspect is not so much a complaint about Sinister City, but about adventure games in general. All too often they rely on this logic that is baffling to normal human behavior. At one point in this game you have to find some books so that somebody will talk to you. There is an abandoned bookstand nearby, but the protagonist doesn't want to steal the books. In order to pay for these $20 books, he finds 75 cents in loose change scattered on the ground. If that made too much sense, consider that the protagonist steals a key from the bookstore to open a mailbox. Sinister City's attempts at humor are also...pretty laughable. Early on the protagonist acquires some vampire hunting equipment. He's getting geared up to kill a vampire, but then some guy points out that not everything is as it seems. The protagonist takes a closer look at a stake he picked up, and he finds the words "MADE IN CHINA" engraved on it. The "Made in China" gag is as old as time, but it doesn't work when written on a stake. A stake is a piece of wood sharpened to a point. It's possible that the Chinese stake is actually made of soft rubber, but wouldn't the protag notice that? Here's a thought: Crosses are also commonly used to fight vampires. So how about having the Cross say "MADE IN CHINA". Eh? Eh? Okay whatever. The point is this, when you're trying to make a gag out of something that's almost impossible to screw up, it doesn't really work. Yes, I have a nasty habit of nitpicking. What can I say? I love talking about mistakes. ----END OF SPOILERS! YOU CAN BREATHE EASY NOW.---- Even with its faults, Sinister City is still an enjoyable romp. It doesn't take itself seriously at all, the voice-acting is amazing, and the game ends before you get tired of it. I'm not usually one to recommend bad games - even the ones that are "purposefully" bad - simply because they take too long to complete. This game delivers on hidden objects and puzzles, which is always nice to have when you're not in the mood for more Counterstrike or DOTA2 or Sakura Angels. It's nothing difficult, but at least it'll give you something to do if you have an hour or so to burn.

This game is unplayable. At first I thought it was because I played it on linux and proton just didn't cover it, but I tried it on windows and it doesn't work. According to the discussion boards, the game has many, many bugs and the developers won't fix it. That's why it's cheap, though it's broken and being cheap doesn't change that. Why not just take it down so you don't have a broken game attached to your company?

Your girlfriend disappeared and you end up to chase her in her hometown, full of vampires and discovering that her dad, the chief, isn't ready to let her go to a human. In other words, she'll be wed to a vampire the next morning. Your only way is to convince him that you're the one for her... Sinister City has probably one of the worst plots in HO games if you take that seriously. In reality, the plot is a great parody of horror stories as the father wants to be an actor, the mother is a powerful businesswoman and that every vampire met is friendly. The gameplay is the same as other games of the genre: list of items, objects to find and to use, puzzles to solve. Everything is quite easy. However, there is a game-breaking bug at the beginning and the only way to get past it is to exit the game and relaunch it. If you don't know that, you may be frustrated to be stopped so early in the story and that you can't do anything about it. Once past that, you can enjoy the game that isn't so bad as you could fear. The graphics are correct, even if the vampires aren't really terrifying as they should but as it's a parody, it's normal to have them behaving comically. The soundtrack is correct too. I played the game more than a year ago and I suppose that you can feel that with my review. But I remember clearly that I said to people: Once you get past the famous bug and if you can handle a silly plot, you'll enjoy the game. So, while Sinister City isn't the greatest game out there, it's still a good moment to pass. Other titles from JetDog are better (Frankenstein: Master of Death is the best example) but well, Sinister City will not make a hole in your wallet and will not hurt you.

Just by looking at the reviews for this game, I knew I was in for a cringeworthy title. Everything in this game was cringy, but I still enjoyed it. It's like a Bollywood movie, complete with bad acting and scenery, but it's part of the joke. Plus, puzzles and mini games. You play as John, who is searching for his bride Nina, who is being held captive by her father Count Orlock. You must solve puzzles and unlock the path to free her and complet Orlock's wish: to become a famous Hollywood actor. Not much more can be said about that, pretty much tells it's own story right there. Aside from the acting, I enjoyed the puzzles because some actually were challenging. P.S. How is Ipkis married?

I've played many hidden object games but have never bothered reviewing any of them, partly because I think everybody generally gets the idea by now and more or less knows what to expect, but also because, with a few exceptions, there's usually so little difference between the content and quality that were I to write reviews for each and every one I'd essentially end up trying to find dozens of different ways to say the exact same thing. (By the by, just about anything published by Artifex Mundi should see you right if you're looking to get into the genre) But I'm writing one for Sinister City as I feel I need to come to its defence a little and share my own take on it. It seems like such a cop-out when people say the only reason somebody doesn't like something is because they don't understand it. It's sort of a thinly-veiled way of calling someone stupid rather than accept they might understand it perfectly but just not like it, that they simply have a different preference than you. But after reading a lot of the negative reviews, this is one occasion where I actually feel like some people kinda didn't get it. As pretentious and w*nky as it is to say, there is a difference between something being parody, pastiche and just plain bad, and this game dips its toes into all three, which is where I think a lot of confusion comes from. Let's get it out of the way and say what needs to be said, many parts of this game are bad, unintentionally so. Graphically it's kind of somewhere between looking like a PS2 and PS3 era game and there were quite a few times in the hidden object sections when I wished everything was clearer or more distinct. In other games in the genre these sections can have a more artistic slant with their high quality renders of interesting scenes and items. Here, everything is far more workmanlike and pretty forgettable; a straight on view of some open cupboards or top down into a box with a small handful of items in it. They don't feel hugely inspired. But worst of all are the bugs and glitches that plague the game. It happened to me a few times where some strange artifacting would appear in the form of white blocks across the screen and completely obscure my view, or every time I'd click anywhere in a hidden object scene it would kick me out of it forcing me to manually enter the scene repeatedly after every object I found. In fairness, this only happened to me in the second stage of the game then never bothered me again after (exiting to the main menu then hitting Continue eventually seemed to fix this for me. In some cases I think Steam pop-ups may have triggered this to happen, but I'm not completely sure). They were the only issues I had personally, but others have complained of far worse, like losing save data every time they closed the game or buggy achievements not registering properly, or in some cases, not even being able to start the game at all. And if anyone had these issues then they'd be absolutely right to give it a bad review as their experience with the title. But, thankfully, I had a far better time with it. Well... eventually. [View Comments for the missing 4th paragraph] You play as a sort of Tom Cruise lookalike trying to find his kidnapped fiancé and being lead to Sinister City in the search. A kindly old hotel receptionist tells him to stay away from there, that it's a vampire city, and the guy doesn't even bat an eyelid at the mention of vampires. Nor does he when he's invited to a session of telepathic communication to try tracking her down, he just accepts the offer and follows an old man into a darkened back room. I think pretty much everyone who plays it either laughs their *ss off at these points or else says it's stupid and loses all hope for the game, I know they were certainly my reactions. But then I got to a point where it just sort of clicked with me. I realised they understood these games are dumb and their stories make no sense, so they start having a little fun and going all out ridiculous with it. The head vampire kidnaps his own daughter to arrange for her to marry a kid's TV presenter to vicariously live out his own failed ambitions of movie stardom that he's secretly harboured for centuries. Oscar Wilde, this is not. But I love that they have fun with it rather than being so serious like most of the other games and I was surprised at how much I laughed at some genuinely funny moments in it. If you have to make a crazy, nonsense story, I think it's way better to go funny with it instead of trying to be respectable with how legit you are with your craft, and I applaud them for making that move here. Like I said, if anyone had a bad experience with this on a technical level then I can't argue with that, and to begin with I was right there with them. But by the end this game thoroughly won me over and I had a great couple of hours with it. With some funny moments, some interesting hidden object play that I eventually came around to, and at least an attempt at a new variety of mini games for the genre, I can easily say this was the best 9 cents I've ever spent.

In Iron Man 3 when it turned out that the Mandarin was actually[spoiler]a down & out actor named Trevor Slattery[/spoiler]I was pretty p***ed off to say the least. This is because they ruined this character's first silver screen appearance by making a mockery of him. Dracula though has long since been overused making appearances in books, movies, and HOGs probably somewhere around the thousands at this point, so it was nice to see him in a different role for a change. This combined with the game's cheesy jokes are what tipped this review to the more positive end for me, because lord knows after I encountered a game breaking bug about a third of the way through the game during a cutscene of all places I was ready to hit that dislike button so freaking quick. I didn't though, because this game's unique twist, dad jokes, and poorly dubbed dialogue made this game memorable for me. Plus with coming in at £0.79 it's the same price as all those sh**ty achievement spam games. Only here you're getting a point & click/hidden object game with a decent enough story played out to you with the help of voice actors. It's an all around good time no thinking required and sometimes that's exactly what you need.