Shaun Munro reviews Who Pressed Mute on Uncle Marcus?…
Wales Interactive’s latest FMV thriller romp is certainly a mild improvement upon most of their recent efforts – namely Night Book and Bloodshore – yet despite the greater thought that’s been put into its execution, it’s still a wildly uneven effort.
Sensibly shifting away from supernatural hooey and shoot ’em up shenanigans towards the better-suited genre of murder-mystery, Who Pressed Mute on Uncle Marcus? is basically a micro-budget homage to Knives Out – or rather, the Agatha Christie yarns that clearly inspired Rian Johnson’s film. Appreciably lighter in tone than Wales’ recent FMV titles, Uncle Marcus leans more willingly into its inherent campiness with a half-wink at the audience rather than attempting to play itself straight as too many of the studios’ previous games have.
Abby (Abigail Hardingham) is the outcast of her family, yet as is annual tradition she’s reunited with the whole eccentric clan over a Zoom-style call for a family quiz on her mother’s birthday. But just as the quiz is about to start, Abby receives a call from her beloved uncle, Marcus (Andy Buckley), who informs her that he’s been fatally poisoned by one of the six other family members, and it’s up to Abby to reveal their identity before it’s too late.
What follows is admittedly a pretty basic-assembly murder-mystery by conventional standards, albeit one filtered through the prism of an FMV game you’ll need to play repeatedly in order to amass clues that will let you accuse the supposed killer.
This alone gives Uncle Marcus considerably more replay value than prior Wales games, which with their aggressively mediocre stories might only see you curiously plow through the story once or twice. Here it’s an absolute necessity to keep going back in if you actually want to get to the bottom of the mystery, and even most of the failed accusations at least lead to amusing and/or over-the-top endings.
Eventually you’ll likely be left plugging away at every last combination of dialogue to uncover the few remaining clues, though, which at times can make it feel a bit too forensic for its own good, more akin to Her Story or Telling Lies than a slushy whodunnit.
But what mildly elevates this above recent FMV efforts from this publisher is surely the entertainingly knowing performances. Nina Forever star Abigail Hardingham brings a relatably frustrated quality to protagonist Abby, while it’s amusing to see The Office’s Andy Buckley hamming it up as the titular Uncle.
Elsewhere the various supporting players lean into their shameless caricatures well, sinking their teeth into the amusingly catty dialogue and ensuring that each and every one of them remains suspicious throughout. Particularly fun are Susannah Doyle as Abby’s boozy aunt June, and Eileen Davies as her dotty grandmother.
Even with some canny casting, though, many of the usual Wales FMV game issues abound, chiefly that the story just isn’t that compelling and, fatally, that the ability to skip previously-watched clips still forces you to re-watch a lot of material due to the way in which the video files are stored in-game. Over potentially a dozen or more playthroughs this becomes really quite tiresome.
It’s probably fair to call Who Pressed Mute on Uncle Marcus? a small step in the right direction for the studio’s stable of FMV games, but this is still a far cry from 2017’s Late Shift, which in terms of concept and production quality is so, so much more professional. Like most of their COVID-era games, Uncle Marcus feels distractingly low-budget in its very bones, but this glorified Zoom call is at least more entertaining than their most heightened works of late.
Not a terrible way to kill a few hours and certainly better than most of Wales Interactive’s recent FMV projects, but still sullied by presentational flaws and unremarkable storytelling.
Pros:
+ The amusingly campy tone.
+ Solid performances from the cast.
+ A decent incentive to keep replaying.
Cons:
– Story is a pretty generic whodunnit.
– Low production values.
– Ability to skip previously-seen video is inconsistent.
Rating: 5/10
Reviewed on PC (also available for PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch, IOS and Android).
A review code was provided by the publisher.
Shaun Munro – Follow me on Twitter for more video game rambling, or e-mail me here.
