Backbone Review

In a not too distant future in an anthropomorphic world is a city protected by a wall, a wall that keeps everyone safe. It also keeps in things like corruption, greed, power, and poverty. In Backbone you will be taking on the role of Howard Lotor, a PI who happens to be a raccoon. He’s not one of those glitz and glam types of PIs, he’s the kind you call on to snap pictures of your cheating spouse. It is on one such case where things take a very bizarre turn, and it is that case that you’ll be playing through.

The story in the game is definitely filled with twists and turns and will definitely show you the dark underbelly of the city. The thing is, through the entire game I almost felt as if the developers didn’t truly trust the players with solving the mystery. Now I can’t be 100% sure, but I felt as if no matter how bad I was with dialogue selections the game was going to progress. That’s not to say that each of your playthroughs will be identical, there are small things, such as an item you might have picked up or a dialogue choice that might allow you a different approach, but to me it felt like the different approaches were really just the same one with a little different dressing. There is A LOT of dialogue in this game, and of course the purist/snob that I am I NEEDED spoken dialogue. There’s just a limit to the amount of dialogue, especially if it's background filler that I can take before my mind starts to wander off somewhere else. This is one of those games where I can see the potential and I feel like it could have been an amazing game to be had, but it just fell flat for me. I also, personally, didn’t really like the ending of the story, it felt like the developers ran out of time with the story and decided “what’s the quickest way to try to tidy this up.” 

So I sadly can’t really recommend this game, it was interesting, it had potential, but it never truly reached the heights I was expecting in the game. I will give the story writer their due though, they made me feel the emotions throughout the game. I felt the pain, the frustration, the loneliness, the potential spark of something special, and more, but it’s just not enough to save this game. Actually now that I think about it this would have been a very interesting mini-series to watch. Maybe that’s what frustrated me so much with the game, it never truly felt like a game I wanted to play, I wanted to watch the story unfold, and I think that approach would have strengthened the presentation overall.