Xbox
PCOverview
Victoria McPherson, a brilliant young FBI agent has been tasked to investigate a serial murder case. The bodies are piling up but without any solid leads or evidence, Vic starts to lose hope and show signs of stress and fatigue. A good unwinding is in order and she decides to take a small Christmas holiday vacation and visit her father at their family home in suburban Chicago. The vacation takes a surprising turn when Vic finds one of Gus McPherson’s old case files, reads it, and finds strange similarities in the killer’s MO between her own current case and the one her grandfather was investigating.
Characters
Victoria McPherson
Vic is the granddaughter of private detective Gus McPherson, and continues to show the family’s smarts in the FBI. She studied psychology and criminology at the FBI academy in Quantico and has earned her place as a top profiler specializing in arsonists, rapists and serial killers. After solving the now infamous Mississippi Crawler case, whose victims were all young women and disposed along the banks of Mississippi, she has returned to the Chicago office, taking on her second case on the force.
Gustav McPherson
Gus has fled to Europe to begin a new life after being wrongly accused of homicide in New York. While Gus is staying in Paris and pursuing the life of a painter, a case too interesting to pass by crosses his path. An American couple, the Whytes, murdered and gruesomely beheaded in a close by hotel. The former New York detective is hired on the case by a sensuous woman to investigate the death of her sister and brother-in-law (events of Post Mortem). Fearing that the blame might once again fall wrongly on his shoulders, Gus flees Paris and finds himself in Prague, where he meets the love his life, Ida Skaličková. Gus’ detective skills are once again needed when Ida and her friends hire him to track down a local menace, a killer choosing his victims from prostitutes.
David Miller
As a result of FBI staff shortages, Chicago Police Department assigns officer David Miller to work with the FBI agent in charge of the case. Trying to be the best he can, Miller doesn’t have it easy; sidelined by Chicago PD, dealing with his new partner who has a grudge against him, and even the FBI coroner has it in for him.
Mr. X
The serial killer behind the mask and under the top hat, Victimizing only women, drowning and disemboweling them in the present day Chicago. Another killer dressed the same way terrorizes female prostitutes in 1929 Prague, murdering them by slitting their throats.
Game Play
Still Life is primarily a point and click adventure game consisting of the user interacting with environments and puzzles using the mouse. As a point and click adventure title, the player does not directly control characters but rather guides characters through the environment by clicking. The game play primarily involves evidence collection and puzzle solving. As an FBI agent, McPherson is responsible for the careful collection of evidence at crime scenes. Rudimentary evidence collection such as fingerprint taking, blood / hair collection and picture taking found in the CSI titles is present.
The game includes puzzles such as (but not limited to:)
- basic cryptography
- slider puzzles
- item combination and manipulation
Players will primarily control Victoria McPherson in modern day (if European influenced) Chicago, but control Gustav McPherson during flashbacks in Post War Prague.
Computer Requirements
- Processor: Pentium III 800 MHz
- 16X CD-ROM drive
- 128MB RAM, 256MB with Windows XP
- DirectX 8.1 compatible 3D video card with 32MB of memory
- DirectX compatible sound card
- 600MB of available hard drive space
Prequels/Sequels
Still Life is a sequel to 2003's Post Mortem and a prequel to 2009's Still Life 2. In addition to being released for the PC the game was released as an Original XBOX title which is currently not backwards compatible with the XB360.
