After nearly nine months of agonizing waiting (ok, honestly two months of waiting and seven months of forgetting all about this franchise) A Crowd of Monsters finally gets around to releasing their second installment in their episodic noir adventure, Blues and Bullets. I’ve played pretty much all the episode adventures out there, and I’ve suffered through mid-season breaks of The Walking Dead, Game of Thrones, and pretty much every other series going, but I’m sure I’ve never had to wait nine entire months between episodes. It had been so long that I actually had to go back and replay the first chapter before diving into the sequel titled, “Shaking the Hive”.
For those not familiar with the franchise-in-progress, Blue and Bullets is a classy homage to those old black and white detective movies, spiced up with a bit of Sin City highlights in various shades of red. In the first installment we met Eliot Ness and Al Capone 20 years after historical events that we might recognize, but it seems history has taken a few detours into what some might call fantasy and others would call absurd.
In this League of Extraordinary Gentlemen universe, the Hindenburg is now a flying resort anchored over the city and the Russian mafia has access to a giant submarine the size of an aircraft carrier (maybe bigger). At the core of the overarching story is the tale of missing children. Children have been getting kidnapped for over 20 years, and when Al Capone’s granddaughter goes missing, he hires his old nemesis, Eliot to track her down. At the end of the first chapter that search led him to the docks where he was about to board the aforementioned Russian sub.
Shaking the Hive starts off with a recap of previous events including any critical choices you may have made that are stored in your save file, then it takes us into the past with one of many flashback segments in this chapter. Here we learn that Eliot is having an affair with his partner’s wife that leads to some disastrous events. Once we are returned to the present you find yourself already onboard the Russian sub dealing with the scum of human traffickers who deal in adults and children. You’ll uncover clues and put together case scenarios using a virtual corkboard of flowcharted evidence, while engaging in sparse conversations and participating in on-rails gun battles.
Admittedly, gameplay is the weakest part of Blues and Bullets, while at the same time, the story and the way it’s presented has never been this stylish and cool. There are massive Brian De Palma-style camera shots, and some incredible art designs that look like they were lifted from Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow. But at the end of the day, you are ultimately walking around until a red eye icon appears indicating you can interact with something or shooting some fairly stupid AI henchmen in a cover-shooter arcade game or exhausting three topics of conversation in limited dialogue trees. Blue and Bullets is an amazing production that I would love to see as a real movie, but there is no denying its limitations as an adventure with any true gameplay substance. You can easily finish part two in just a few hours, and unless you missed any of the discoverable red eyes (and want the Achievement for finding them all) there is no reason to replay.
Shaking the Hive continues the outstanding graphical presentation of the first chapter with stunning black and white graphics with a touch of crimson to punch up every scene in some significant way. In one section you are exploring the woods at night with a flashlight totally under your control Alan Wake-style. This was definitely one of the cooler moments in the game. And even when the game returns you to the Hindenburg it does so with all-new camera angles and perspectives, so it never feels like the developers were just reusing old assets. And yes, those super-cool introspective moments are back with giant white and red letter words rising from the blackness. There is even a haunting nightmare sequence that had me flashing back to the original Max Payne.
Once again, the soundtrack is pure perfection, both in quality and thematic connection to the period piece presentation. The voice acting is much better this time around and the primary voice actors do a fantastic job of engaging you in the plot. I must confess, things get pretty emotional in places; especially when the kids (and a puppy) are involved.
Once again, we played Blues and Bullets on both the Xbox One and the PC, and while both versions of the game are nearly identical running at 1080p, the PC does offer higher resolution options at the expense of fluid frame rates. Then again, given the nature of the visuals you really don’t need to go higher than 1080p. The Xbox One still has moments of screen tearing, but only during cinematic pans and fly-bys of levels where the camera is moving faster than normal gameplay speeds. The PC does offer much faster load times – the Xbox One loads were often disruptively long between scenes and chapters. All in all, you really can’t go wrong with either version, but if you have the choice go with the PC.
Despite my criticism over the lack of actual gameplay I still can’t recommend Blue and Bullets highly enough. My only real complaint with the game is the nine months wait between the first two chapters – something that likely won’t be tolerated for the remaining installments. Admittedly, Shaking the Hive had more story and “gameplay” content than the debut episode, but you really can’t expect gamers with short attention spans to wait more than a month between episodes; especially when your story is this good.
