Update Three Hundred and Forty: 20 October 2019

☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆

Okay okay okay in my defense I didn’t realize how short this game would be.

I’ve played a ton of Wadjet Eye games, and this is a remaster of his first one. It’s particularly interesting to go from David Gilbert’s latest title (Unavowed) to this and see the level of growth and expertise—and boy, is there a lot.

the Shivah has you playing as Rabbi Stone investigating the murder of a past member of his synagogue. It’s fairly straightforward and, as evidenced by my playtime, incredibly short. Gilbert’s staple of using the in-game internet to look stuff up got its start here, I suppose, and it made me feel incredibly nostalgic. Other things didn’t age as well, like an uncharacteristically stiff and poor performance from Abe Goldfarb, a voice actor that’s been in every Wadjet Eye game to date.

Gilbert has talked before about how looking back at Shivah made him cringe, and I can understand why - it’s an early work and it shows. While I’m thrilled at it going all the way in on the Jewish aspect, I’m similarly not thrilled one of the main character beats Rabbi Stone had is committing to not conducting an inter-faith marriage because “Jews are going extinct.” That’s not great.

Even so, it was a nice one hour!

Next up: I’ve had the remaining two of three Shadowrun games sitting in my library for years now, but I can’t bring myself to pick the next one up. Instead, I’ll dive into -

See you soon!