Emma Withington reviews Knee Deep…
As you settle in to your front row seat and choose how you spend those idle, thumb twiddling moments before the curtain rises – read the playbill? Get a snack? Tune the orchestra? – you are blissfully unaware of the consequences a simple ‘night at the theatre’ will hold.
Knee Deep is a ‘Swamp Noir’, adventure, indie, murder mystery, sci-fi thriller in three acts – phew, quite the mouthful – and is brought to you by Prologue Games and Wales Interactive. You influence the lives of three protagonists with cat-killing curiosity; a tenacious blogger, a reporter at the end of the line, and a desperate detective. In backwater Florida they get caught up in the mysterious death of second-rate actor Tag Kern and the curious case of Cypress Knee in the nighttime; it’s up to those with nothing left to lose to seek out the truth.
‘Another beautiful Florida sunset, tainted by a dangling corpse…’
After its success on Steam, which now supports VR, Knee Deep makes the move to PS4. Knee Deep‘s PS4 port contains all three acts: Wonderland, Festival, and Boomtown, and features the all important voice acting which was missing from the initial PC release of Act 1 back in July 2015. This was remedied a few months later in November, as Act 1 received the update on the release of Act 2.
Knee Deep has a unique visual style, bringing you into an interactive play in which sets revolve, evolve and develop ‘set-ception’, as the theatre stage transitions smoothly between locales, time shifts, and your own plush seat. Graphically, Knee Deep isn’t spectacular when it comes to character models and is largely salvaged by lighting and the set design. It has the ability to occasionally get away with poorly rendered sheet backdrops and realism inconsistencies, that reflect a theatre environment. On the PS4 you may experience occasional lag and texture layering delay, but overall you are too focused on the narrative for these hiccups to pull you out of the experience.
Knee Deep‘s supersized theatre production begins as an in-depth, lengthy episodic tale that reflects choice based games of the popular Telltale variety, albeit the similarities end with the choice system. You control the decisions made by our inquisitive trio, but the characters move autonomously for the game’s duration. Your time is spent casually pressing buttons between dialogue to further the plot, and helpfully alerts you as to when you are making a ‘critical choice’. There is also always the nonsensical ‘give a strange response’ option, if you want to up the quirky that is already on offer.
You don’t solely make rudimentary conversation choices, however, a particularly interesting mechanic involves the regular reports published by the three leads. Based upon clues, facts, or barmy conversations with the locals, you take a snippet of information and choose your ‘spin’ on the story which can be either cautious, edgy, or inflammatory. Due to the ‘no-fail’ system there’s only so much damage you can do – certain characters will treat you differently and you might not garner the information to inform later choices, but either way your fate is sealed.
In some respects this ‘no-fail’ system is restrictive on the gamer and also places specific expectation on the game’s conclusion. Rather than reflecting the consequences of your actions, the anticipated fixed ending leaves a pile of loose ends, regardless of the lines of enquiry you chose to pursue or your ‘critical choices’. This is a frustrating outcome, as it is not through fault of your own that some major quest-line was missed – it is not changeable by you, the player. On the flip side, if you desire a game in which you don’t end up having palpitations as to whether or not your choices could birth cataclysmic results – thank you Witcher 3 – this is still a compelling, and unique audience participation experience, which is about the journey rather than the destination.
Wonderland is the longest of the three acts and with a huge amount of setup can drag in places, causing you to be able to put the controller down. However, it is more bang for your buck as far as length is concerned. Festival is significantly shorter, serving as what is essentially a fast-paced interim act, but is by far the most enjoyable. Unexpectedly, Boomtown hurdles towards the finish line in less than an hour, creating significant genre clashes in the process. Knee Deep maintains its Noir skin and balances the amalgamation of genres well, up until this act. A sci-fi angle is introduced, which becomes gimmicky and removes you from the Fargo-esque small town murder mystery that you genuinely wanted to solve. Alongside this shift, Boomtown leaves many questions unanswered which, as mentioned previously, isn’t quite as satisfying or immersive as the lead up to this act.
The three protagonists: blogger Romana Teague, reporter Jack Bellet, and detective K.C Gaddis are solid and performed well enough by the voice actors to maintain interest in the diminishing plot. Many of the supporting characters lean too heavily on specific quirks, and are not as well realised. Councilman Gary Buckingham becomes a one gag pony, as he uses words in the wrong context and his associate has to correct him constantly. This produces a chuckle initially, but becomes an overused momentum killer. There is an undercurrent of irony throughout Knee Deep so there is a possibility this is intentional, reflecting the larger than life aspects of ‘stage acting’, but is hit and miss as a whole. There are flashes of brilliance in this vein that you want to see more of, but Knee Deep becomes a jigsaw puzzle with missing pieces.
Each twist and turn generates in-game audience reactions with oohs, ahs, and gasps, maintaining the theatrical conceit. The soundtrack and sound design remains a solid performer throughout Knee Deep. An atmospheric, country blues sound with its signature ‘Swamp Noir’ twist – perfectly evoking a backwater town with something to hide.
Experience: A bold and unique experience with so much to offer, but sadly falls short of expectation it sets up in Wonderland, with a wavering plot and supporting characters as wooden as the surrounding theatre environment.
Replayability factor: Low
Game Mastery level (Trophies): Easy – with multiple playthroughs of up to four hours a pop.
Availability: PS4 – 31st January 2017, £11.99.
Rating: 6/10
Emma Withington – Follow me on Twitter
