Unheard

Unheard is a detective game unlike any other detective game. In it, you try and solve crimes based on an audio recording, but it’s a little more complicated than that.

You area detective, tempting to find answers for various crimes; art theft, murder, bombings. You are equipped only with a blueprint of the crime scene and an audio recording.

You have control of the audio recording, with the ability to fast forward, rewind, and listen to it as many times as you need. On the blueprint you move your character from room to room, which affects which parts of the audio recording you hear; you only hear what happens in the room you’re stood in.

From this you have two jobs: identify all of the characters involved in the crime by tagging them from a list of names, and answering questions about the crime.

I love the concept because it’s so simple, but solving the crimes is anything but. You have to listen to each recording many times from several angles to pick up the relevant information, using context clues and deduction to find the answers. If you want a game that makes you feel like a real life Sherlock Holmes, this is it!

The voice acting is great, the crimes are clever and original and they’ve found just the right difficulty level to challenge you without forcing you to resort to guesswork. It’s an original angle on the crime game genre (it’s definitely not another point and click adventure!) and I adore the tone they’ve managed to capture.

It’s a great concept and gets a lot of mileage out of it with all of the different levels and I’ve spent many enjoyable evenings plugged in listening to crime scene tapes. If you’re into crime or just want a game that engages your braincells, I would absolutely recommend giving Unheard a go.