Shivers 2: Harvest of Souls Review

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(More customer reviews)Shivers 2, falling squarely in the family of point-and-click adventure/puzzle games, is a somewhat flawed but enjoyable, very challenging, and immersive journey. The premise of the game is that your friends, a rock band, went to a little town in the middle of nowhere to film a music video (after they earn enough money to pick up the tab, that is).. You go to visit them and find the town to be more or less deserted with the exception of a female ghost popping up now and then and some wacko running around in a stupid mask (i.e. your nemesis for this little adventure). The goal is simple: save your friends from the wacko. How do you go about that? The same as most games of its type...explore the town and solve a bunch of puzzles.
The gameplay is basically point-and-click. You look at objects. You explore areas. You solve a lot of puzzles (mostly of the extremely difficult brain teaser variety rather than the "find this item and use it here" type). Why anyone would lock their door with some horribly difficult puzzle that takes half an hour to solve is beyond me, but it's all part of the game. An extra bit worth noting is that the game actually allows you to watch music videos by your friends on television sets. The band, in all their infinite wisdom, decided to play detective and place clues to various puzzles in their music videos (haven't I seen this cartoon?). Not only are the music videos enjoyable to watch, but piecing together solutions to the clues with them and various other hints around town adds a bit of immersiveness to the game. Another touch of immersiveness comes from the fact that throughout the game, you yourself are playing detective. You actually search for personal info about the various people of the town and get to know them and study their interactions in an attempt to get to the bottom of the mystery and figure out the identity of the wacko in the stupid mask who may or may not be behind everything. It's not an easy task, though.. You'll likely need a notebook (and possibly a walkthrough) by your side and a significant amount of time to solve all of the puzzles and the mystery (although you can cheat and have the puzzles solve themselves at the cost of some points in your score)..
As for graphics, this game is a bit dated. It's over 5 years old, afterall. You have low resolution graphics, with the main game screen being displayed as a small box in the middle of your monitor. Still, they're sufficient enough that they don't take away much from the game. Also, the members of the band and their appearances and personalities actually fit their music and vibe perfectly (and the music videos actually look like music videos), so kudos to the development team for creating both visual and emotional character realism.
The sound is spectacular. The occasional background tunes and ambient sound are well done, and the rock music that appears in the music videos by your friends is amazing (and also included in audio CD format on the second disc!). I found myself watching the videos several times just for the music, and actually repeatedly listening to the soundtrack CD portion of the 2nd disc when not playing the game.
Now onto the major flaws of the game. The main flaw is that it's not scary at all. "Shivers" is quite the misnomer. While it does involve the supernatural, it's more of a mystery than a horror game. The second flaw is that the 2nd disc was somewhat buggy. It was perfectly playable until I reached one timed puzzle that repeatedly flew by in a fraction of the time it was supposed to take. The company didn't have a solution to the problem, and I ended up copying the answer from a walkthrough just so I could barely make it through the puzzle before time ran out.
Shivers 2 is an enjoyable and immersive game for those on a budget, especially those looking for a more thought-provoking puzzle/mystery-oriented experience. You'll find challenging gameplay and a bonus soundtrack of great music. Not bad at all for the price..

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