by Dale Farris, President, Golden Triangle PC Club
January 2002

Game Overview

The Final Cut is a new action adventure game from the well-known Arxel Tribe development team that blends classic adventure game features in a setting based on many of Sir Alfred Hitchcock's most famous movies. Throughout this super, unique game, you come across hot spots that when clicked on reveal short flashes of video pulled directly from these famous Hitchcock films. If you are a Hitchcock fan or an adventure game fan, you should put The Final Cut on your must-play list.

You play as the primary character Joseph Shamley. Shamely is a private eye who became psychic after his parents died in a car accident on the day of Alfred Hitchcock's funeral. Leaving for his fishing holiday, he was forced by a beautiful and mysterious mute blond girl to accept a job. Her uncle, Robert Marvin-Jordan, a pharmaceutical tycoon, was shooting a movie on the private set of his estate, when the entire shooting crew disappeared overnight.

As Joseph Shamley, you go to work and find out what happened to the crew. Occasionally you meet up with a mynah bird called Alfred, and you search through the private property of a maniacal Hitchcock fan and get to the core of the mystery. At the very end, after the mystery is solved, Alfred takes wing to call the cops.

The story begins mysteriously, and continues to build as you run across more murders and more corpses, all the while viewing cut scenes from such famous Hitchcock films as Frenzy, Psycho, Saboteur, Shadow of a Doubt, Topaz, and Torn Curtain. Part of the fun of playing this neat adventure game is trying to identify which Hitchcock film the video cut scenes come from. Since I have seen most of Hitchcock's films many times, I was able to recognize most of these videos.

Remember the close-up of Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins) as he spied on Marion Crane (Janet Leigh) through his peep hole in the wall hidden behind a picture, watching her undress to enter the shower? How about when the neck-tie murderer in Frenzy stored the body of one of his victims in a sack of potatoes? Rather than just intersplicing these cut scenes into the game to add marketing value to selling the game, the developers have done an excellent job of making sure these scenes actually make sense in the playing of the game.

For example, as Shamley, when you come across a mysterious, large crumpled gunny sack in the kitchen of the diner on the set, you click on the sack to open it and this triggers a video scene from Hitchcock's film Frenzy when one of the corpses was found among a sack of potatoes. The main character Shamley comments about the body, and then searches in closeup mode for clues or necessary items he will need to pick up and use later.

These flashes of video scenes from Hitchcock films are explained by Shamley's newly acquired medium skills that allow him to "see" these flashes. When he comes in contact with something linked to violent events in the game, by usually clicking on hot spots in the game, or by just walking over or near such a hot spot, he will have these flashes that reveal something about the violence. These flashes are either created for the game, or pulled from these Hitchcock films.

There are multiple murders to investigate, a moody, mysterious mansion and sound stage to investigate, all the while building an interesting, complex story that requires concentrated gameplay to keep up with the plot. Occasionally, you will run into precarious points in the game. These will either require careful directional key movement in order to get Shamley through situations without dying, or timed situations that require him to use his noodle and figure a way out before time runs out.

Thankfully, the developers have coded the game so that when you do "die," you are brought right back to the most immediate point before you took those last dying steps. Now that's impressive! How many other games have you played in which you had to back-track or retrace a long serious of moves or actions, to again try and get beyond these death points in a game? Instead, in The Final Cut, you will be very impressed with the obvious purposeful design of the game that prevents you from having to again start all that preliminary stuff in order to again try and get past these death points. I sure wish other game developers would follow the lead by Arxel Tribe in how they make this far less frustrating.

The game comes on two CD ROM discs. The first disc is used to install the required files, and you play the game from disc two.

Game Background

What makes The Final Cut such a unique, refreshingly different adventure game is the super integration of Hitchcock films and Hitchcock lore into the game. You will run across a desktop paperweight shaped like a cow, with the inscription "Actors are like cattle," supposedly attributed to Hitchcock, but in reality not said exactly like this. You will see posters of Hitchcock and Hitchcock films all around, and one of the primary game characters is an avid Hitchcock fan. The inspiration of Hitchcock's work in the game successfully adds great play value to the game. Any fan of Hitchcock will enjoy playing this game and coming across all the many references to Hitchcock, including of course the many actual scenes from Hitchcock films.

Game Features

A super mystery based on the master's work
15 minutes of extracts from many Hitchcock films in many cut scenes
Backgrounds, graphics, and cameras set up in typical Hitchcock fashion
Investigation mode - get close up on objects to solve puzzles
Chase and shooting - chase or be chase, shoot or be shot at
Interactive dialogues - choices affect relationships with the many characters
Automatic help - psychic abilities help solve puzzles
20 hours of gameplay
50 different sets
30 minutes of film clips
Personal digital assistant (PDA) organizer of information
Inventory stored in the PDA
Combine some objects
Innovative camera angles changing all the time
Many pre-rendered backgrounds
High-color graphics throughout add to the realism of the eerie setting
Engrossing, rich storyline inspired by the works of Sir Alfred Hitchcock
Character storylines are deep, and open up as you play the game
Fairly typical controls that can be set up to suit the player

Game Play

You move the character around with directional arrows, while you use the mouse to take objects, use objects on other places or objects, zoom in and out, read text, or move around in an image. The various action icons indicate whether there is action to take, to open something, take something, look at something, or speak with other characters. Thankfully, by pressing the shift key, you can run fast, a nice feature since the game environment is spread out around a very large estate and you have to move back and forth on the grounds. In addition, pressing the F2 key will open up the map of areas you have visited, that you can click on to immediately return. The F1 key opens the main menu, F3 opens the inventory, and F4 opens the database. All these function in the PDA organizer. All the information you gather is stored in the organizer.

The character must be in front of objects he needs to activate, such as doors, and you have wait for the Action cursor before the action can take place. This means sometimes you have to work at getting Shamley in just the right location on the screen in order to do something like opening doors. Picking up items means pointing on the item with the mouse, and when you see the Action cursor, then you can pick it up, or do something else to it with other items already in the inventory.

Moving the character is usually smooth, but you will likely very quickly want to move in the Run mode in order to get him much faster around the wide open space of the game. The character many times also cannot go where it seems logical, such as across certain grounds, which can be off-setting, but understandable in such an adventure game as this.

This is not a classic first-person-shooter (FPS) action game, with full motion and fluid movement of the character in and out of all areas of the screen. The coding has been kept much simpler, and the character can only go where the game allows. With the 3dfx video card, this means the character does grow larger or smaller as he moves closer or more farther from your point of view. This sense of depth is certainly not as effectively realized as in so many other high-powered FPS games, such as Alice, or Clive Barker's Undying, but still this use of 3d effects does help in realizing a more graphically rich environment.

The characters are rather simply coded, but they do have enough features to help seem more real. The main character is also pretty well designed, and moves naturally throughout the game. You must also go everywhere and talk with everybody and fully flesh out all dialog options, or you will not open all the game for play. 

Game Play Concerns

Thankfully, you can save your game at any spot in the game. In The Final Cut, there are also spots where you have to chase or be chased, shoot or be shot, and these are not the most difficult of tasks I have ever run across. With the neat save game feature, you can easily get right back into your saved game, to try these again. These have been obviously coded to not purposefully be impossible to overcome, a nice approach by the game developers that I wish other game coders would follow.

Even if you "die," the game automatically starts you right back at the beginning of these death spots, which is a super feature that saves a lot time. The focus on these more challenging tasks seems to be to add enjoyment to the game, rather than trying on purpose to be the most difficult of any computer game now on the market. With this more difficult approach taken by so many other games, it is refreshing to run across this much simplified approach, which means this game is far less frustrating than many others.

Targeted Customers

The Final Cut will appeal to all adventure gamers, especially those that may be new to this genre of computer games. The movement of the character is simple enough to be quickly learned, and the focus is on finding objects, finding and talking to characters, and of course solving puzzles. The puzzles are integral to the game, and certainly no where near as deviously designed as in Schizm. In The Final Cut, the puzzles are more often the use of found objects in some other location the character comes across. The emphasis in the game seems to be on developing the complex story, as the character slowly begins to unravel the multiple murders.

However, as in all adventure games you must find all objects and open all dialog options with all characters in order to advance the game. This is made easier if you follow the walkthrough that is accessible at the Arxel Tribe web site. 

Windows System Requirements

Pentium 333MHz processor
Windows 95, 98, ME, 2000
24X CD ROM
64MB RAM (128MB RAM recommended)
8MB 16-bit video card (32MB 32-bit video card recommended)
100% DirectX 7certified video card required
DirectX 7 minimum required
Sound Blaster certified 16-bit stereo sound card
300MB free hard disk space

Install and Setup

After the installation, and you first load the game, you will play the game with the second CD ROM disc in the CD ROM drive. You need to leave the disc in the drive as you play, since if you remove it while the game is running, you risk losing any unsaved progress you have made.

The game will NOT run in a Windows NT machine, and has not yet been tested for Windows XP.

I loaded the game (all files) on a Win 98 SE machine (P III-850, 256MB SDRAM) that had a Creative Labs Annihilator 2 video card (an nVidia GeForce 2, 32MB RAM board), 30GB IBM 7200 hard drive, internal Zip 250 drive, standard floppy drive, a Creative Labs Live X Gamer! sound board, CD RW drive, DVD drive with MPEG 2 decoder, standard MS Intellimouse and keyboard, Logitech joystick, two 8-port USB hubs, Cambridge Soundworks DTS 2000 speaker system, and the latest DirectX files. The game worked fine with these boards and the latest drivers for each. The drivers came from Creative, and were updated as of 4 months ago.

Price

$41.66

Official Strategy Guide

Although The Final Cut is not the most difficult adventure game now on the market, nevertheless unless you make sure you find all the necessary items, talk to all the necessary characters and fully explore all the dialog options, you may find yourself stuck, wandering around wondering what is supposed to happen next, or where next you should go. The setting of the game also involves quite a spread out affair, meaning you will find yourself running all around the place, in order to activate all the necessary game points, in order for all the game to open up for you.

Thankfully, the game developers have provided a super walkthrough guide that is readily accessible at their web site. Here is the link to the official walkthrough for this marvelous game. This means you can follow this well designed guide as you play, or just consult it when you find yourself feeling stymied and at a loss what next to do or where to go. This is another super added feature of this game I wish other game developers would learn from. While I understand the reticence of many gamers to use any strategy guide, in my case, with all the many other things I do, I just do not have the luxury of all the extra time required to independently figure out the complexities of this or any adventure game. I sincerely appreciate the availability of this guide, as this helped me more quickly finish the game and realize all the wonderful design of all the game.

About Arxel Tribe

Born from the merger of Arxel Tribe companies, the Arxel Guild is a well established and experienced developer and publisher of computer and video games. After three years spent in developing high end multimedia software for companies like L'oreal, the studio met best-selling author Paulo Coelho and star designer Moebius and started the development of its first adventure game.

Pilgrim, launched in 1997, was published by Infogrames Entertainment. With this first game, Arxel Tribe became a recognized developer of author games, reputed for the beauty of its graphics and the depth of its scenario.

Four other challenging projects were launched by the team for various partner publishers. These include Ring, adapted from Richard Wagner's Opera and created in close collaboration with Philippe Druillet and Decca Records, Faust (also released as Seven Secrets of the Soul), freely adapted from the myth of the same name, and Louvre, in collaboration with Wanadoo Editions and Pompeii, an historical adventure developed for the Reunion of French Museums (RMN). I have been fortunate to have played all these, and each is designed to captivate your attention all the while you are working to piece out the story and solve the crafty puzzles.

In June 2000, the Arxel Guild and Universal Studios announced a license agreement on the super adventure game, The Final Cut, and in September 2000 the company announced the creation of its publishing structure.

In June 2001, Universal Studios and The Arxel Guild announced a series of exclusive license agreements on different properties, including the extension of the initial Hitchcock license agreement for another PC and a video console game both due in 2003, and an eagerly awaited Hannibal game for development on a PC and video console, each due respectively in 2002 and 2003.

www.arxeltribe.com

Contact

Arxel Tribe
29 rue du Faubourg Poissonniere - 75009
Paris, France
+33 1 53 34 98 31
www.arxel.com
hitchcock.arxeltribe.com

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