A 5-star game in all aspects: excellent graphics (though improperly lit in some scenes sadly), ambient sound, voice, music, cutscenes, puzzles & storyline. And a HUGE game environment--so many places to go. Definitely lots of running around but good maps provided. Intriguing storyline with some philosophical depth: questioning limits of artistic genius vs madness, what love is worth & so on. Game atmosphere & pacing are well done, never boring. I despised Oscar & his taunts yet many of his comments have merit & sometimes I almost pitied him. So glad there are no ghosts, nothing supernatural, just old-fashioned wickedness born of an almost logical kind of mental illness/insanity. The marvelous puzzles are many & varied; HOS are few & all interactive. Puzzle presentation is fantastic too--colourful & contextual. Some puzzles are unique or twists on classics, most medium difficulty, a few (e.g. train puzzle & finale puzzle) hellish hard IMO. Skip & hint buttons work well. No sparkles on Expert mode. Since game world is so big, Strategy Guide is useful. Game ending is great! CE bonus chapter (@ 1 hour) adds to story & sets up for sequel (though it's complete). A fun, long game (took me > 6 hours 1st time with skipping 3 puzzles); excellent production values; hardly any reading thanks to the audio messages; & a creepy story that makes you think a bit too... definitely worth every penny as a CE IMO.

I just finished Brink of Consciousness: The Dorian Gray Syndrome and it is a absolute winner! To me this is the best game of 2011, too bad it can't compete for that title, because of its release date The game bears no resemblance to the novel by Oscar Wilde other then the reference of the villains name and the name of the reporter. The game is about a psychiatric syndrome (although not recognized as a DSM diagnostic criteria) called the Dorian Gray Syndrome. The syndrome always involves a person with strong narcissistic traits who wants to preserve beauty and stop aging. The person suffering from this syndrome will go extremely far to accomplish this. Sam Wilde is a reporter who wrote a newspaper article about a serial killer. This article caught the attention of our villain and serial killer Oscar who kidnaps Sam's girlfriend and uses this to entrap Sam in a huge mansion. Sam is there to free his girlfriend and thus gets entrapped in a dark psychological cat and mouse play with our villain. The game, at start, suggests to play with sound for the best experience. Whenever something scary happens we hear it in Sam's breathing and heartbeat, which adds to the suspense. Sam's constant coughing was a little too much for me, as if a little bit of rain will do that. :suspicious: There are large spoken sections over the intercom as our villain comments on the progress Sam makes in the mansion. This might be rather lengthy and tedious for some, but I loved the spoken comments which attributed to the psychological game ambiance and experience. There is a lot of exploring to do in this game and a lot of back tracking. Fortunately there is a map, although it is not interactive (you can't jump to another location) to keep track of interesting places. The game has a lot of interesting puzzles, some harder than others but all manageable. There is a skip button for the puzzles. I personally love puzzles and since this game really has a lot of them this was one more reason to love the game. H

This game is fantastic! There are so many unique elements to this game, and I had so much fun playing it, this will be the first game EVER that I've even considered playing again. It's an extremely large file, so I would recommend downloading the demo first to make sure your computer can handle it. You are a journalist whose girlfriend has been kidnapped by a psychotic serial killer and you must go to the killer's estate and rescue her. There are 2 game modes to choose from, casual and expert. Casual mode offers highlighted areas of interest and hints refill quickly. Expert mode offers no highlights for areas of interest and hint refills more slowly. After playing the demo in casual, I decided that playing in expert mode would be the better choice for this game, for me anyway. The hint button is handy, but only in an area where there is still something to find or do, otherwise, it just tells you "there's nothing more to do here." There is also a map and journal. The journal has a "recorder" tab so that you can listen to what the killer says to you in the event you need to, or want to, hear it again. He taunts you over loudspeakers, which are located in every area/room of the estate and I really liked that I could go back and listen to everything he said anytime I needed, or wanted to. The beginning of the game does suggest that you keep the volume up to enjoy the full experience of the game and I couldn't agree more! I did, however, turn the music off. I would also recommend purchasing the CE! This game is incredibly long, which is a very good thing in my book, however I found myself referring to the strategy guide quite a bit, not to assist with the puzzles or HOS, but to assist with placing inventory items. Although the map does indicate the areas where there are puzzles, areas of interest, etc, I still needed the SG, because of the length of this game, the fact that there are at least 80 rooms/areas and it's very common in this game to find inventory items much later in the game that are n

PLUS SIDE = This is one of the longest Hidden Object Puzzle Adventure games that I have recently played, took me over 4 hours for the main game and that included skipping some of the puzzles and looking at the Strategy Guide twice when I was really stuck. You play as a journalist covering a story about missing young people. You are summoned to a well-maintained, spacious mansion to rescue your kidnapped girlfriend. As the story unfolds you realize that the kidnapper is a seriously deranged serial murderer. You will search over 30 locales in the house and surrounding area, aided by a helpful map and journal. The graphics are visually pleasing (although disturbing) and the voiceover for the villain is extremely well done (you can go back and listen to recordings of his speeches). The cat-and-mouse game that the killer has set up is eerie and creepy, and the killer's mind is frighteningly bizarre. However, I really enjoyed the beauty of the setting because it was not dark, dirty and ugly. The game is not linear, meaning that needed items for a scene are not immediately available. There is a good ratio of Hidden Object scenes to mini-games/puzzles. The bonus game is well done, and took me over an hour to complete. Extra content for the CE includes an interesting taped video interview with members of the game development team. MINUS SIDE = The game theme might be too disturbing for children. The game is not based on a supernatural theme. Although it is based on the concept of love and love lost, this is not a typical romance story.

I'm completely fascinated with this game..the developers have obviously put a lot of effort into creating it.. Everything is polished..from the graphics to the sound effects.. I especially love the voice-overs...they sound very professional and very fitting with the genre. The baddie has a very creepy voice in particular which goes exceptionally well with the storyline.. The storyline itself is based on some beloved characters and is pretty true to them..even down to the coughing of the main character... The only beef I have is the amount of running around you have to do..there is a map, but if the map were clickable, allowing the players to travel straight to the location, I think I would've found this game perfect.. I haven't finished yet..but I bought the game before finishing the demo if that gives any indication of the quality.

This is a psychological thriller. It is best suited to mature audience as far as subject matter is concerned and even they may have a hard time with it. As a game though, it is excellent. Graphics, voice over, sounds, puzzles, are state of the art. I found the length of the game just right. The HO scenes were not many and their difficulty was not hard so they didn't disturb the flow of the story. Some of the puzzles were rather challenging, usually coinciding with a point of challenge in the story itself, a very interesting coincidence. As a CE there are the usual extras and the bonus chapter. I found this chapter very satisfying in both length, puzzles and story content. It was not absolutely necessary for the story so the game will stand well also as an SE. In the long debated CE vs SE issue, I believe that this game stands as a perfect example of how a CE to SE relationship should be. I would like to see more similarly well done games although I would prefer more cheerful subjects, as these days I get enough gloom and doom in real life as it is!

Dual mode HOPA, light on the H0, heavy on the PA. Advanced mode has sparkles for H0S only, hints and skips load slower. H0S have some interaction and puzzles range from simple to tricky. All puzzles have reset buttons. Journal records your thoughts and clues. There's a map, which you will use. If you get lost easily in games, you'll use it a lot. There are a ton of locations: three levels and the map for each level fills the entire screen. Locations aren't shown on the map until you've entered them. Map shows your character, H0S, puzzles, areas of interest, locked areas and exits and stairs. Options include four different volume controls, widescreen and full screen, and also a grainy option, if you want to play the game with movie cinema grain. I did for a little while, but preferred the clear and polished graphics. Eerie, creepy and inventive, not too dark but certainly bleak, this is a psychological thriller in every sense of the word. Music fits the mood and it's fully voice-acted, which adds a lot to the experience. It is closed captioned also, for those with hearing impairments or who don't like playing with sound. Extras include bonus game (an extra hour at an entirely different location) and it does conclude the game. The SE will be complete but leaves you with a cliffhanger type ending; the bonus game wraps almost everything up. Other extras are the usual concept art, wallpaper and music, and there's also a video interview with the devs. This is the same dev who gave us The Fool, but you would never guess it. Dorian Gray is as different from The Fool as you can possibly get. They really aren't resting on their laurels here and it shows. Great game!

This game was so enjoyable and lasted about 5 hours in length. The bonus chapter was as fun too. This is the perfect game to play on a cold, rainy day of relaxing. One of the better hidden adventure games recently released. Graphics were nice, sound was awesome and just creepy enough to enjoy. You will not be disappointed in this game.

This game was excellent IMO! It is a psychological thriller. However there is no blood or gore. The story line is captivating and keeps you playing to find out what happens next. I am not a novice at these kind of games but this game took me a total of 6- 7 hours. Not so much because it was difficult but because I wanted to experience every part of the game. The puzzles were not frustrating and the HO's were not overwhelming. This game provided a good blend of story, adventure,puzzles and HO. I really couldnt ask for more. The collectors edition is well worth the money.

BFG has released another great game on the heels of House of 1000 Rooms! The graphics are really good, crisp and sharp, though I didn?t like the way Sam?s (the protagonist) face looked. He had a strange appearance. The game also has a moody atmosphere that is appropriate to the disturbing plot. Though there are a lot of dead bodies, there?s no blood or goriness, which I much appreciate. The mini-games are really challenging, but luckily the skip button fills pretty fast in the casual mode. And the game does have two modes, casual and advanced; always a plus. This game also has some of the best voice acting in any game that I can remember playing. The villain has a smooth, cultured voice that still sounds creepy, and Anne sounds scared without overacting. I deducted a little because there?s a lot of back and forth, but my final score is 4.5. This is a really good game, and I don?t think that you would be disappointed.