Dripping with Style
Vigil (published in Europe as Victi) is a remarkable experience. And sometimes a frustrating one, as we'll get to, but let's start with the reasons you may find it not only interesting, but even compelling.
It's a fully 3D graphic adventure, playable almost entirely with the mouse--and the graphics are amazing. Amazingly stark, that is; almost everything is black and white, with splashes of color used to emphasize some features (and something in color is almost always important to the game in some fashion). It is visually striking, stylish, and a clearly points, in a way, to one of the futures for games: as we approach photorealism, photorealism becomes pointless, and the way to create graphically compelling games is to instead adopt an innovative and unique style.
Vigil's soundscape is as compelling (and compellingly creepy) as its art style; its music is shuddersome electronica, and the characters "speak" in an unintelligible language of their own (with text subtitles, so you have some idea what's going on).
As with most graphic adventures, it's a puzzle-solving game--but the puzzles here are not inventory-based, instead depending mostly on having you change the state of the great palace in which you live in some fashion to cause changes to the game world.
The story is as surreal as the game's graphics; you are some sort of trans-human living in a trans-dimensional palace, and have slain your kin for personal gain. Now, a personified Evil is attempting to destroy you, and you have to destroy it first. As the story unfolds, it remains just on the far side of comprehensibility--creating an almost literary sense of dissonance and uncertainty. Strange, and strangely effective.
If we could end the discussion of the game here, we could perhaps say something like "you must play this masterpiece." Alas, the game is not without flaws--severe ones, in fact. For a start, there are no in-game saves or save points; it is divided into four acts, and if you die during an act, you must start over from the beginning of the act, which can be inordinately frustrating.
For another, the surreal nature of the story and setting mean that the puzzles are often obscure; it's hard to figure out what you should be doing to advance. (Luckily, there is a walkthrough on the publisher's site, which ameliorates the problem to a degree.) This, too, can be frustrating.
Still, if you have an interest in innovative adventure games, or in strikingly different and effective ways to use game art, the demo is well worth checking out--and if you determine that the interesting aspects of the game outweigh the defects, well, at $10, it will not put much of a dent in your wallet.
The Developer Says
All my heroic deeds were but an offering to cowards. Those thousand warrior slaves sacrificed under the same flag would have just contributed to give more importance to a caste dedicated to command a decadent people.
Bitterness has invaded my mouth, a deadly venom rushes through my veins, confidently drank in a cup offered by traitors. I will no long feel the warmth of defeated blood on my battle-pained body. My last enemy was my own kin.
The ultimate attack against evil may not happen, our deceased One knew it, I will never know...
Plunge into the dark and disturbing story to reveal the secrets of your ancient civilization’s relics and exact revenge on the Evil destroying your universe. Ritualistic killings and blood lust blur the line between your own kind and the Evil you seek to annihilate.
Your ultimate goal is to free yourself from this tormenting place and understand the origin and the purpose of this uncanny Evil. An Evil that annihilates all in its path, it has no shape but seems to follow a precise scheme, drowning everything under a black essence; it is impossible to stop or even to slow down. Since its birth, the universe is slowly disappearing.
Avoid traps, solve puzzles and devour the faces of your slaves for sustenance.
Engrossing cut scenes bring you every brutal detail as the gothic sci-fi story unfolds and plunges you into confusion. The chilling music, menacing characters and stylized black and white presentation draw you deeper into this gruesome, episodic 3D adventure game.
Reviews
"...this is a very innovative, creative and well thought out concept that has a few flaws in the execution... you're either going to love it or hate it."
-- Internode
"If you enjoy the true challenge of an intensely difficult puzzle laden with ideals of gore and killings, then Vigil: Blood Bitterness could make you a very happy gamer!"
-- Gamer's Info