Finally finished. This game is… difficult in terms of puzzles.

Did you like Kathy Rain? Even though it's from the same developer, Whispers is pretty different.

Kathy Rain was pretty straightforward, with a rigidly linear progression and perfunctory puzzles. Whispers is more traditional in that the world opens up and you must direct yourself through it to find clues. The game takes place in the future in Scandinavia, where AI has been outlawed, and complex mental tasks are carried out by people who ingest 'blue' to increase their cognitive capabilities. How very Dune. There's a series of murders, and you're an investigator who has to solve them.

The thing that isn't apparent on the first playthrough is that the game is extremely flexible, with many solutions to each problem. The game tracks how you respond to people and solve problems to determine how aggressive, empathetic, and analytic you are, and your mental abilities are upgraded accordingly. You have a variety of abilities, not all of which you will get. It's determined by how you solve the problems. So depending on how you play you might get super strength, or maybe the ability to detect anomalies in breathing and heartbeat to test for truth, or maybe the ability of persuasion. And what abilities you have determine how you can solve problems. It's cool.

The game takes place over the course of four days, and while the first two spend time to set things up, days three and four just whiz by in a flash, as the story unfolds and wraps up extremely rapidly. The pacing is really bad, and it ends just as it's picking up.

Maybe it's because I ended up with a high 'analytical' score, but damn. Many of the puzzles are really hard, requiring you to pick up on minutiae and make many tenuous mental connections.

Overall, Whispers is decent with some cool ideas, but isn't going to make waves as an adventure game. Solid, but unextraordinary.