‘Cognition Episode 2: Wise Monkey’ Review
Phoenix Online Studios are one of those indie developers I have a lot of respect for. Each team member is based out of a completely different area, spreading the team across continents. Something about the massive amounts of coordination is inspiring to me. Phoenix Online Studios has two claims to fame. Their first was the Kings Quest fan game series called The Silver Lining. The more recent project is the Cognition: An Erica Reed Thriller series. Cognition Episode Two: The Wise Monkey released last month on GamersGate, the Phoenix Online Store, and Steam Greenlight.
The Cognition series is a point and click adventure divided into four episodes that tell the story of psychically gifted Erica Reed, each episode focusing on a different FBI case. Set in the city of Boston, different locations are unlocked on the map as more evidence is found. Gameplay is mostly traditional, apart from when Erica uses her powers. Erica has a unique power among super heroes – she can see the past though eyes other than her own. This means she can touch an object and see a vision of its past, or after some effort is able to see the memories of other people. This usually plays out by finding objects in the game and using the cognition button on them to show the player a clue about what to do next.
Wise Monkey starts off right after the first episode, Hangman. Erica’s boss had just been kidnapped and murdered, with the killer still free. I’d rather not spoil much more, but things get even more dramatic once Erica’s love interest Sully is taken by the killer – but only after being mutilated in front of Erica’s eyes. The player is told the bare minimum about the killer, and then Phoenix Online gives us permission to start investigating the gruesome scene of the kidnapping.
Wise Monkey improves on literally everything from the first episode. The cutscenes are more frequent and better animated. There is more opportunity to use the Cognition powers, with shorter tutorial scenes. There were even more rooms to investigate than in Hangman. Most importantly, the story was a lot more intense, and kept me on the edge of my seat for the whole ride. One scene towards the end of the episode had me afraid to move forward, fearing the worst had happened to Sully.
The art style of Wise Monkey is the same as Hangman, maintaining a comic book styled aesthetic. I mentioned above that there were more frequent and intense cutscenes. Composer Austin Hayes continues to prove his mastery of the point and click adventure music arts, giving areas a unique feel to each of them. And of course Cognition is again made whole by talented voice actress/singer Raleigh Holmes as she portrays our protagonist.The episode is finished off by what seems to be the series’ theme song The Taking performed by Holmes’ band. This really finalized my opinion that Cognition is a high point in crime drama point and click adventure games.
A more subtle improvement of Wise Monkey was the puzzles. They had a much more logical feel, which was the root of my main complaints about the first episode. In one scene, I had to use Erica’s cognition ability to remind a witness what happened in a scene. I was given four snapshots of her memories and told to use those to help her remember. After a lot of trying to emulate the ‘item plus dialog plus memories’ technique of the first episode, I realized all I needed to do was order them chronologically using the clocks in the pictures.
The gruesome storytelling of Cognition plus Phoenix Online Studios’ acceleration towards greatness have me intrigued to see what happens next in the series, and proud to say I’ve been a fan of Erica Reed since the beginning. I only wish the game had lasted more than the three’ish hours it took me to finish it.
