Arkham Horror: Mother's Embrace vs Linda Brown: Interactive Story
Arkham Horror: Mother's Embrace
Arkham Horror: Mother's Embrace is a story-driven, party-based adventure RPG complete with unique gridless turn-based combat, and a creepy Lovecraftian theme. In this game, you get to control a ragtag team of investigators with varying experiences and talents. The goal here is to track down the mysterious cultists who are involved in the murder of Professor Tillinghast during what seems to be a sacrificial ritual. Will you be able to find out what’s really going on and who’s to blame for the murder?As someone who has not played the board game version of Arkham Horror before, this turn-based adventure RPG is a pretty great introduction. I absolutely love the horror-themed storytelling here and the voice acting is simply brilliant. Since I’m an avid fan of turn-based RPGs, the gridless gameplay here is unique enough to help it stand out. That said, the game is unfortunately marred by several glitches, especially the annoying camera glitch which can only be fixed by reloading a previous checkpoint.
So, to sum up, Arkham Horror: Mother's Embrace may not be triple-A level, but it’s a solidly fun game in spite of its bugs and is still worth the purchase.
Linda Brown: Interactive Story
Linda Brown: Interactive Story is The Other Guys' forey into the interactive storytelling business after their pretty good sucess with the Sherlock-themed hidden objects game, Sherlock Holmes: Lost Detective. Similar to the latter, this game features an intriguing and immersive, romance-and-mystery-filled story where you'll be playing as Linda Brown herself. Meet a host of interesting characters (and you can even date some of them), travel to various locations as you follow the trail of clues, and make important decisions that will change the path of your narrative.However, unlike games like Episode or Choices, Linda Brown: Interactive Story has a gameplay that is a lot similar to any of the games Telltale Games produced. This means that characters in the game will remember your reactions or responses and act accordingly the next time you meet.
The only major downside in this game is that, like Episodes and Choices, there are special "premium decisions" that you can make to further deepen the storyline, but the diamonds needed to buy these special decisions can be pretty costly - $3 per premium decision. Due to this, it might be great to have the option of earning diamonds by watching video ads.
Overall though, Linda Brown: Interactive Story is still a very well-written interactive story that doesn't only have romantic elements but also an intriguing mystery that rivals most hidden objects games. If you enjoy a good mystery with a dash of romance, this is the game you should play.