Game: Cognition: An Erica Reed Thriller - Episode 4: The Cain Killer

The fourth and final episode of Cognition: An Erica Reed Thriller is finally here! Does the last piece of the puzzle deliver a chillingly satisfying conclusion and live up to the potential that's been growing over the previous three chapters? Well, no, not really - but there's enough to it that it's worth talking about anyway. Read on!If you've been following along, you already know all you need to know about the graphics, sound, voice acting, and mechanics of Cognition: An Erica Reed Thriller. (And if you haven't, episode four is definitely not the place to jump in - go back to part one and start from there.) In that regard, The Cain Killer is more of the same, with the addition of a new mechanic: your conversational choices now have an impact on how much other characters like and trust you, and therefore how they react to you - and how the game ultimately plays out. Say the right thing and the ghostly face of your conversational partner in the lower-right corner of the screen will slowly fill up with light; say the wrong thing and it will drain out."It's an interesting idea, and obviously it's smart to be on good terms with everyone, but in a practical sense it really doesn't add anything to the experience. Conversational options are almost always binary - "I agree with you/I disagree you with" kind of thing - and there's never any doubt about which one will score the brownie points, nor pressure (or any reason at all) to opt for the negative choice. By the time the game was over I was effectively BFFs with virtually everyone in the game, including a lunatic serial killer and my boss at the FBI.