Film Fatale: Lights, Camera, Madness

Cinema gave work and world-wide fame for many people, as well as broke many hearts, dreams and took many lives. Fugazo Games, the developers of a new Hidden Object game, has been interested in a dark side of filmmaking. So, we have Film Fatale: Lights, Camera, Madness.

In Film Fatale: Lights, Camera, Madness, go back in the 1940s and find the reason of a secret disappearance of one eccentric film director and a film star. Honestly, the setting of an old-time abandoned movie studio is charming and very intriguing. This is a really nice change of pace after all those haunted mansions. The spooky feeling is there as you wander about this studio alone, exploring different scenes and backstage areas.

Challenge, or the lack of thereof,  doesn’t let Film Fatale: Lights, Camera, Madness win a lot of hearts. There aren’t many hidden object scenes but most of them are rather simple and easy to explore. Still, each scene matches the room and perfectly designed. There are very few puzzles and some are easy and you have seen them before many times. But the main crime of this title is that its gameplay is extremely short.   

Rather than a clever gameplay,  Film Fatale: Lights, Camera, Madness is all about the environment. The voice-overs are wonderful, the evil-doer is the most sinister one, the hidden object scenes look like movie shots. Even the music background is great and very well suited to the game ambiance.

However, the graphics of this installment isn’t the best one. Yes, the illustrations are decent and pleasant, but they lack the artistry of more prominent games, and while the effects and animations are rich and surely add much on gameplay, they are still very ordinary.

In the end,  Film Fatale: Lights, Camera, Madness is a “might-be-later-if-there’s-nothing-else-to-do” game, but definitely the most atmospheric out there.

16, February 2012