Alfred Hitchcock Presents: The Final Cut Review

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Alfred Hitchcock Presents: The Final Cut

Review by Mike PhillipsJuly 2002

This is a tale of a game gone sour, mostly from a desire to market a product by paying homage to a legendary master of his art. It needn’t have been that way, for this game could have stood on its own merits with a little more attention to originality and a little less desire to imitate Mr. Hitchcock’s unparalleled style.

The Final Cut obviously wasn’t presented by Alfred Hitchcock, but rather was inspired by him, and therein lies an enormous problem.  I can play some round-ball and say my game is inspired by Michael Jordan, but after a few minutes it would become painfully evident that the only commonality I share with his Airness is our first name. Likewise, The Final Cut fails miserably at creating a “Hitchcockian” suspense thriller. For all we know, Mr.  Hitchcock himself may have languished in obscurity attempting to create viable computer games, so why gamble with that nefarious movie/novel-to-game crossover that never seems to work?

Putting the Hitchcock fiasco aside, there are some promising aspects to the game if you are patient enough and dig very, very deeply.

Passionate Adventure (1924)

During the introduction you meet your in-game persona, Joseph Shamley, a psychic private detective from Los Angeles. The day before Joseph is about to embark on a long needed fishing trip, a striking young woman arrives in his office, placing a check on his assistant’s desk, while never speaking a word. Apparently Joseph wasn’t at all curious since the next time we see him, he’s on the way to his favorite fishing hole.

En route he has an accident, or as he so eloquently (sarcasm intended) states, “our cars mated,” involving a red Mercedes convertible driven by the aforementioned striking young woman. A chance meeting or, perhaps, a setup? Well, that’s for you to decide. Joseph foregoes the fishing trip in lieu of the intrigue presented to him by this mute woman. He jumps in her car and they arrive at the estate of her uncle, Robert Marvin-Jordan, a wealthy recluse who is currently funding as well as controlling a pending film. Mr. Marvin-Jordan’s fortune wasn’t derived from film, but he has had a lifelong fascination with Hitchcock. Upon Joseph’s arrival at the estate, he learns the crew has gone missing, and Mr. Marvin-Jordan wants him to find out what happened. If this all sounds contrived … well, unfortunately it is.

During your investigation you’ll meet the crew—the problem is nearly all of them have bought the farm by then, most in a very gruesome fashion. Everyone used an alias and everyone had various motives for killing at least one other crew member. Several of Robert’s business dealings and business partners are introduced via discovered documents, dysfunctional family members enter the picture when roaming the estate, and red herrings are as abundant as ants at a Memorial Day picnic.

The plot is intriguing, even suspenseful at times, if you can endure being mired in total confusion until the epilogue, when everything finally comes together. Many may consider it an act of mercy by that point; it’s a formula that works well in film and television, but in a game that can easily last over twenty hours it just doesn’t fly. If copious note-taking isn’t your idea of fun, spend your gaming dollars elsewhere.

The graphics are a mix of 2D backdrops and character models done in 3D. The backgrounds look amazing—shadowing from lights shown on walls, detailed paintings and furniture—the artists involved did wonderful work. Colors are a bit drab, but considering the nature of the game they’re functional, setting the morose mood throughout.  The 3D rendered characters are fair, not exactly up to today’s standards.  Lip-sync is nonexistent; character’s mouths move randomly if at all.

Controls are a combination of keyboard and mouse. And the keyboard controls are fully remappable to suit your playing tastes, a welcome addition since I found the default controls extremely cumbersome.  You have to walk to various game locales, which can be time-consuming, but the first trip is enjoyable if only to see the sights. Thereafter a zip feature can take you immediately to a place you have previously visited, a very nice touch.

Sound effects, while used sparingly, are quite good. While walking around the movie set one hears crickets chirping, thunder booming, several birds squawking, as well as passing airplanes and jets.  Voice acting is passable, although there isn’t much in the way of dialog. The anomaly in the voice acting occurs during the introduction—for some reason it doesn’t sound like the same actor doing Joseph’s voice throughout the game, and both the voice acting and dialog in the introduction are nothing short of horrid.

The game comes on two discs, and it must be started from disc one.  Fortunately, if you have two drives, having both discs inserted gets around that annoying design flaw often seen in games. Save games are limited to ten slots and are annotated by date and time only.

Downhill (1927)

Back to sound effects—due to the lack of music in outdoor locales, the absence of footfalls is a rather glaring omission.  Undoubtedly, the most accomplished Foley artist couldn’t have pulled it off, however, as Joseph literally levitates up stairs and ladders.  Clipping also rears its ugly head throughout the game—Joseph often reaches through a door in order to open it—a testament to how far behind most adventure games are in the world of 3D graphics. 

Which provides a segue to the controls again—the cursorless interface works similarly to LucasArts adventure games of late.  When Joseph approaches something that can be viewed/interacted with, his head turns to look at it. However, an icon flashes at the upper left of the screen and an incredibly annoying “blip” sound occurs to remind you that a particular action is available. It appears as though the designers wanted to appease everyone … and failed.  Either go with the immersion factor of no cursor or use point-and-click mouse control with a cursor. Individually both would have worked, but combining them creates an awkward, complex disaster.

Any adventure game hoping to rise above the recent glut of excruciatingly mediocre games needs a coherent, involving story line. Unfortunately, The Final Cut fails in this respect, adding itself to the growing list of adventures that never manage to spark any emotions, positive or negative. Brief clips from many of Hitchcock’s films are used as “psychic” flashes, the problem being that it seems the story was constructed around these clips rather than woven from the ground up. I constantly had the feeling the designers were so busy attempting to flood the game with as many references to Hitchcock as they could that they forgot to develop the story.  Now there’s an ironic twist—a game inspired by Hitchcock with a weak story.

Puzzles in the game are extremely rudimentary, often downright absurd. The abundance of “puzzles” (if you will) involve figuring out which magnetic card unlocks which door. One puzzle requires you to follow a recipe to the letter; it’s an exercise in tedium at best, hardly creative puzzle design. The worst “puzzle,” and I refuse to even elaborate on it, is hilarious. That would be a good thing if The Final Cut was meant to be humorous; alas, it wasn’t.

Breakdown (1955)

One of Hitchcock’s greatest accomplishments was his masterful use of different camera angles, and The Final Cut uses this technique liberally … too liberally. It works fine during cutscenes, but when Joseph is walking down a path and the camera insists on jumping around, utter chaos ensues. There are points at which you are moving Joseph and he disappears off screen—the only recourse is to randomly press movement keys until he reappears, a puzzle itself.  Worse yet, Joseph can be standing still and camera angles will be switching back and forth simply because he is standing on a crossover point.

The absence of convincing dialog is another of the game’s greatest flaws. When Joseph discovers a corpse, there is no shock or remorse expressed verbally; rather, a clue is entered into his PDA. It’s impossible to become immersed in a story when the characters seem ambivalent about it.

The initial premise of the game, which occupies much of your gaming time, is nothing but fluff; the meat of the story is underdeveloped and poorly expounded. Storytelling, the backbone of an adventure game, appears to be a forgotten art, and that’s a shame.

Bang! You’re Dead (1961)

There are two versions of the game, European and North American.  In the original (European) release, there is an incredibly inane, insipid, arcade sequence early in the game. Fortunately, it was removed from the NA release, and you’d never know it—the sequence did nothing for the plot; it simply extended the game with a lot of reloading. I guess it didn’t make the final cut.

I borrowed an original release copy in order to play that part, and I was also informed the Euro release was buggy as all get-out and included a few dead ends. I can’t comment on that as I played through the NA release twice and never encountered any serious problems.  A few “hiccups” perhaps, but nothing that required a can of Raid to fix. I assume the developers fixed these problems, and they should be commended for that. If only they could have removed the Hitchcock references and further developed the story … perhaps next time around.

One can only imagine how many classic games could have been ruined by this “presents” philosophy. Clint Eastwood Presents: Outlaws, Robert Wagner Presents: Thief, or Sigmund Freud Presents: Sanitarium … the list could go on forever.

I can’t in good conscience grade this game, with the arcade sequence in the Euro release, and if the bugs and dead ends do indeed exist, I’d have no qualms over giving it a .  However, with the improvements, by no means does the NA release deserve a , nor does it deserve a .  Playing The Final Cut was a similar experience to eating my Aunt Thelma’s meatloaf. It’s palatable but nothing to rave over.  I must admit playing it was far from a torturous experience—in many respects I enjoyed it all while simultaneously hating it. Fellow adventure gamers may also find the game worth the time and money.  Just don’t expect filet mignons when Aunt Thelma’s meatloaf is the entree.

That’s the issue that perplexes me, though—it would be refreshing to see adventure game designers striving to create a masterpiece, rather than being satisfied with an average, unfinished, underdeveloped product. The End

The Verdict

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The Lowdown

Developer: Arxel Tribe Publisher: Ubi Soft Release Date: November 2001

Available for: Windows

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System Requirements

Windows 95/98/Me Pentium 333 64 MB RAM (128 MB recommended) 8 MB video card (DirectX 7 compatible) DirectX 7 (included) 24X CD-ROM 16-bit sound card 300 MB free hard drive space

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14 Responses to Fear Factor

  • Fear Factor | Tap-Repeatedly.com | Reality Topics Blog

    […] nobody@flickr.com (graftedno1) wrote a very interesting post today.   Here’s a quick excerpt:My greatest fear is to be trapped alone in a confined space with a blind human, in total darkness. They have a heightened sense of smell and hearing, and. […]

  • Matt "Steerpike" Sakey

    Lewis, you made me think of the scariest moments I’ve experienced in gaming, and we’re very similar people.

    Bioshock had two moments – the dentist and the flooded room filled with mannequins.

    Thief had Return to the Cathedral, which was terrifying to me. Thief 3 had Shalebridge Cradle, which is so scary it ought to be fined.

    System Shock 2 kept me on the edge of my seat, but it was more lonely panic than true fear.

    Korsakovia was so scary that I uninstalled it.

    And STALKER. Oh, god, the haunted labs in STALKER. The latter two games don’t have scares like that. Few games do.

    It’s especially rare for a game to have more than mere “moments” – for a game to be scary from beginning to end, that’s a triumph.

    Wonderful article. As if Gregg’s review wasn’t enough to convince me that Penumbra is not something I have the courage to play!

  • DPenn

    I’m with you Lewis … I’m a bit of a puss. I just have a hard time wrapping my head around the idea of dread as entertainment.

    Still, I’m drawn to dark stories when they have something interesting to say, whether it’s a game like Thief or a film like, say, Gaspar Noe’s Irreversible. So I’ll push through, sometimes peering through my fingers.

    The trouble with games, though, is that if you look through your fingers, you’re probably just going to have to play through the scenario again. :~)

  • Mike "Scout" Gust

    I wanted to play this game. I downloaded the demo but the controls were just too wonky for me to get my head around. I liked the atmospheric vibe a lot. I think I’m a bit desensitized from an overdose of horror movies in my youth so I don’t so much get the dread thing from these games as a nice creepy vibration. If only the controls were better…

  • Lewis B

    @ Mike, what’s wrong with the controls bud? As someone who despises poor control schemes, Penumbra’s is just like any other FPS, except to examine things you right click on them.  To use things you left click.  I’m not sure that can be considered difficult 🙂

  • Gregg B

    @Steerpike: Yeah my greatest shit-scared moments were with those games too. A few spoilers below people, so beware.

    Bioshock – Haha, I remember the dentist. I didn’t really find the game that scary overall but the bit where you go into the wine cellar and notice a mannequin facing the wall and after upgrading your weapon it’s stood directly behind you motionless and quiet just for a moment before attacking you. I shat a brick. I also missed that bit originally until Lew told me about it.

    System Shock 2 – same as you really, more unremitting tension all the way through rather than specific terrifying moments. Oh actually, theres a bit where you call a lift and it breaks then you realise a service droid is coming to fix it… I do remember having sleep issues after my first encounter with the cyborg ninjas though.

    Thief: The Dark Project – The Sword and Return to the Cathedral and Down in the Bonehoard and well, loads of them. The Sword made me break out into goosebumps though because there was a bit where you could hear this creepy giggling which seemed like it was following me about then it suddenly changed to this horrible throaty noise. What made matters worse was that the EAX (bless you Creative) made my foot steps sound like somebody else was there with me. That level was incredible, a bit too incredible as it seems I missed great chunks of it because I was so eager to leave.

    Thief II: The Metal Age – Trail of Blood where you end up in that opening with those damn tree beasts. God the first time I saw one of those hurtling towards me I actually died shortly afterward. Do you remember that Mechanist child walking around on one of the levels? That was a little creepy.

    Then there’s Penumbra: Overture – quite a few bits but I’m not mentioning them here.

    Oh and S.T.A.L.K.E.R. – The brain scorcher lab just because it was so damn quiet. My imagination seriously got the better of me there. Those stuffed animals and heads I’d seen in various buildings led me to believe that those creatures were lurking somewhere in the Zone, specifically that lab.

    @Mike: My control setup was perfect after some tweaking (as well as the simple weapon swing fix). If you ever fancy giving it another go, give me a shout and I’ll let you know my setup.

  • Lewis B

    I’m not sure why guys, but one of my starting paragraphs had gone missing, even though I copied it straight from the original source, and It was fine earlier. 

    Incase you missed it due to some technical issue you might want to re-read just after “Well no she wouldn’t in truth, but in Penumbra: Overture you don’t want to move anyway.” at the very start for those who’ve already read the article. Apologies 🙂

  • Mike "Scout" Gust

    Lewis, it was the weapon swing. It had this terrible, unresponsive feel to it, like trying to hit through molasses. I couldn’t stand using it. I tried the .ini fix as mentioned in the review but it didn’t seem to help. Of course this was the demo…but that shouldn’t have made any difference. I might try the second game instead as I guess they did away with the weapons thing.

    I’m see your first paragraph just fine. It’s the dialogue, right?

  • jdeuel

    I like the argument that weapons can remove fear, but even loaded to the teeth with ammo in AVP’99 the Marine missions were frightful because the enemy was anywhere at any time.

    As for Penumbra Overture, if the controls are anything like the original Penumbra they need to hack in some Wii-Remote 3d controls. I did not like using my mouse for 3d movements.

  • Gregg B

    @Mike: I’ve read that many people avoided conflict altogether in Overture which incidentally is something forced upon you in Black Plague. As somebody who has been renovating a house over the last 6 months with no DIY experience I can safely say that swinging a hammer is significantly easier in real life than it is in Overture without the fix. The fix balanced that for me.

    I’d highly recommend completing the first Penumbra because it’s one big build up to Black Plague which spoils the ending to Overture in the intro. And it’s a great ending too. Just so you know!

  • Lewis B

    @ Steerpike, those moments you mention are all my worst too!!  Do you remember the Robot labs in SS2? Absolutely terrifying, waiting for robots to burst out on you! 🙁 oh and have you ever player Condemned?

    @ Mike, The use of weapons in Penumbra is different to say HL2, where the player is physically holding the weapon, as in Penumbra it floats slightly infront of you.  However, if you change the control method to normal weapon swing, it’s no different!  Speak to Greggi and he’ll tell you what to do 🙂

    @ jdeuel, AVP the original and its sequal were scary however what type of fear do you think it is? I don’t think it’s anything more than sheer tension.  Having a Smart Gun makes you feel incredibly powerful.  I can honestly say in Penumbra the fear is sheer unrivalled terror, where you actually have to force yourself to play on.  It genuinly is that scary! 🙂

  • Jason Dobry

    It’s so true, an arsenal of weapons and ammo rapidly deflates any sense of horror or uneasiness in any game for reasons you already mentioned. Sakey, I thought Bioshock was more “lonely panic,” while I was pretty much always terrified in System Shock 2. I really, really, REALLY did not want to enter The Many’s nursery, and my weapons were so unreliable and ammo so scarce that I never felt safe.

    Silent Hill was terrifying for the same reasons. Ammo was rare and I frequently had to rely on my pipe for self-defense.  Even when I had ammo, the game mechanics prevented my character from being anything other than marginal with any firearm.

    Fear had one moment for me: I was climbing up a ladder, and as I reached the upper platform, my guy briefly looked down as he climbed off. As my perspective looked up again, that Ring-esque little girl was RIGHT THERE, reaching for me. I screamed and she was gone.

    What else…the original Aliens vs. Predator sent me into a locker room and I could only hear the facehuggers scurrying about somewhere within. I had to go in there. I advanced about three steps before the damn thing screamed and filled up my screen with its repulsive underside as it implanted me with its spawn. My roommate made fun of me for weeks for screaming like a girl child.

    Korsakovia–meh.  I was too annoyed and frustrated by the box rearrangement/jumping puzzles to be scared. I uninstalled it after an hour of play, I think. Maybe the scary parts were later, but I doubt it.

    As for Penumbra, I did play through about half of it before other games distracted me. I remember unease and creepiness, but no sweaty fear. I think I’m to blame here, or, more precisely, my daughter, who was still an infant at the time and generally allowed me only to play during the day for 45 minutes at a time. I was denied total immersion and the fear effect suffered. Maybe I should give it another go after I finish Call of Pripyat since she sleeps through the night now. With any luck, Penumbra will keep me from doing the same.

  • Gregg B

    I played the demo of F.E.A.R. but that ladder scare is the only bit I remember. Christ, that made me jump. I’m not too good with cat scares.

    Also I felt exactly the same about Korsakovia. It was creepy at first but then it began to irritate me far too much and it just soured the experience. I stopped playing as a result. Not to mention, when I realised I could bash those smoke-things with my crowbar they didn’t bother me nearly as much.

  • Online Up

    Great article. I look forward to reading more in the future.

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