The Silent Age (PC) Review

The answer to that is that it largely does, however, with a few exceptions and a significant feeling of missed potential. It would be hard to go too far into detail on the story side without spoiling it, but the main gist is that Joe the janitor lives his everyday, boring existence working for a large faceless government organisation known as Archon. One rainy day in 1972, Joe's life changes forever, when he is summoned to the head office and told he has been promoted due to the removal of his supervisor, Frank. When Joe enters the restricted basement for the first time, he sees the experimental technology Archon is producing, as well as a mysterious sign of blood and murder afoot. What follows is an intriguing tale that takes Joe on a trip into the future to save the world.

It is indeed an intriguing yarn and there are some very interesting twists, including the ending that leaves a number of questions hanging in the air for the player to ponder over. Additionally, with time travel plots, it is always a fear that they get tangled up in themselves so greatly that plot-holes become inevitable. Thankfully, The Silent Age is a very contained and controlled tale that avoids becoming overly ambitious or experimental. This, however, has a negative in that some players are liable to find the tale a little too contained or, to put it another way, short. The hallmarks of a mobile title are definitely here to see in the length stakes, taking possibly as little as five hours, with no significant reason to replay. Furthermore, it is not the most dramatic story, with quiet tension and revelation being preferred to any action-packed set piece moments.

Of course, a point-and-click game is not usually the place to find such set-piece moments. Action in The Silent Age comes in the form of the time honoured collection of items within each scene and then devising how to combine them with something else to progress the plot. Some games make this process immensely frustrating in the aim of challenging gamers, but The Silent Age straddles a nice balance between easy and frustrating, with all the puzzles making logical sense for a start, as well as the game not throwing too many puzzles in the way. The scenes are just the right size to avoid annoyance. That said, though, one particular grievance about the gameplay is the amount of running the player is made to do between scenes. It can't help but seem like artificial padding and the way movement works requires endless double clicks when needing to run back and forth between rooms and stairs.

Joe as a main character is likeable enough, and he does have his humorous quips. It is just a shame most of the time they feel shoehorned into a game that does not strike a funny tone at all. Additionally, some of the characterisations and dialogue fit squarely in the clichéd routine, for example, there is even the immensely overused cliché of the 'good cop-bad cop' routine in the second chapter. However, it is at least an improvement over the mobile versions, with most of the lines of major character dialogue being voiced, and voiced fairly well at that.

Praise also has to go to the art style. There is a real contrast throughout The Silent Age, between the apocalyptic future world, which is rainy, dark and desolate, to 1972, complete with the pictures of President Nixon, the garish suits and, at the later stage of the adventure, a nod to the world of disco. Joe as a character is a bit of a disappointment in this regard as he is fairly boring. Of course, this was the literal 'average Joe' the developer was going for, but the only sense of personality that comes out in his character is the '70s era moustache.