Sat 10 Jan 2009
Mental Repairs Inc. – REVIEW
Posted by Igor Hardy under Indie, Reviews
[5] Comments
As of January 2009, I played a fair amount of indie adventure games released in 2008 (well, just a few of those that were heavily lauded actually). While there are still some last year highlights out there waiting for me, Mental Repairs Inc. is without any doubt the best one I came across. What’s more, although it’s completely freeware it matches (and in some areas surpasses) the technical quality of games that require some kind of financial investment before playing.
First of all – no glitches! It’s a flawlessly working piece of software created using the free and popular Wintermute engine. The prerendered backgrounds present classy, art-decoish interiors of a corporate building from the future. We also get cinematic angles, well conjured atmosphere, super-professional designs of the various company and product logos (possibly inspired by some real ones) and an interface stylized to look like from some electronic gadget. The main character is equipped with an impressive 3D model and the other “characters” have a presentable appearance as well. As for the music, it fits and helps the atmosphere, but doesn’t stay with you – very backgroundish. And that would be about all there is to say… Oh, I should write what it is about and how it plays too?
Well, let’s just say that someone has finally realized that the great concept from Psychonauts of entering psychotic minds as interactive game locations can be much more interestingly explored in an adventure game. The major difference in the premise is that the subjects of the main hero’s “mental repairs” are not exactly human. Probably even soulless. Yet all this is quickly established in the game’s beginning, so don’t consider anything spoiled. The actual tale is short, but fully embraces the short story medium and turns into a twisty, little piece of sci-fi that matches the quality of writing for a decent Star Trek or Twilight Zone episode. With a touch of… Nah, that would be telling.
On the surface the interface resembles the verb coin from Curse of Monkey Island. However, it reminds me more of the very fun, but unfortunately lost in the mists of time interface of Return to Zork. In short, the different command symbols you get to choose from depend on the clicked object and they are not the same if you approach the object while holding an item. This is quite refreshing after the simplified simple-click-solves-any-problem interfaces of todays commercial adventure games and should be applauded. You don’t get the enormous variety of action choices that Return to Zork provided, but let’s not be too nitpicky 
.
The puzzle’s difficulty is medium/a bit on the easy side (very little on that side though). You receive plenty of hints from both character conversations and object descriptions and (if you want) also additional ones from Googles (come on, you must know Googles, and if not, then google it 
). The various combinations and uses of inventory items (100% of all puzzles besides dialogue puzzles and operating Googles) while not awfully ingenious, deliver quite a bit of fun by delving away from the straightforwardly physical interactions common in “non-mental” adventure games. My favorite puzzle involved finding some kind of fuel for a symbolical representation of a stove.
the slick looks of this game somehow bring the BioShock looks to my mind
Without a doubt the game provides and intriguing premise and several hours of creative, escapist entertainment. In the end, though, I wouldn’t say that I felt as strongly about the overall experience as I had in the cases of some much more amateurish looking indie games with a more old school approach to things (not that there’s anything truly experimental in here). Perhaps this title is a little bit too polished, too professional and technically smashing (undoubtedly a tremendous effort – it’s been all done by a single person!) for its other qualities to equally shine. Yet I definitely recommend Mental Repairs to everyone. It puts to shame a lot of commercial adventure games we see nowadays.
My score: 3
/5 starks
the “ ” is for the superbly polished game design
Note: Download Full Game Here
Note 2: The game’s author – Renzo Thönen – has cut his teeth in game design putting together several mods for the original Thief games (this series is one of my favorites too) and creating an award-winning adventure game Murder in a Wheel (read our review) using AGS (Adventure Game Studio). All this in the last few years, so I guess he’s only warming up . Hopefully he won’t give up on the adventure gaming kind of gameplay for future projects.
Great review Igor, though there’s something in this game that doesn’t let me get too interested in it…
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Really? I found the concept incredibly intriguing. It’s quite a bit like Psychonauts, only much more focused, much less wacky, and without the platformer bits.
Btw this was the first review ever that was posted on this site. With Murder in The Wheel by the same author freshly reviewed, I decided to remind of it and stickied it on top for a few days.
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Great review! I loved this game when it first came out. Wonderful concept and really nice graphics. Speaking of which, it’s a shame you used that screenshot instead of one that really shows how gorgeous the art is. Out of context, that screenshot looks really amateurish.
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Igor Hardy Reply:
June 18th, 2010 at 11:47 pm
I used this screen because I felt it was eye-catching while the rest of the game is a bit dark, not looking that nice in a miniature. However, I feel I should have added at least 1 more image into this review. During HardyDev’s early days I could be really stingy about the screenshots.
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I didn’t realize that this review was written a year ago! I saw it linked from SHH’s blog and assumed it was new.
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