Review

Cognition: An Erica Reed Thriller – Episode Two: The Wise Monkey

I was impressed with the first episode, the Hangman, from the Cognition: An Erica Reed Thriller series. But now Phoenix Online Studios has made me a full blown fan girl with its release of Episode Two, The Wise Monkey! While the puzzles and character development are greatly enhanced in this installment the story line is really why I am hooked, and I can assure you that after playing Wise Monkey, you will be too!

Before I expound upon the little ingenuities that make this episode stand out, let’s revisit the premise of this series. Erica Reed is a second generation FBI agent who lost her beloved younger brother at the hands of the Cane killer, a serial killer whom she was investigation at the time. Three years later, in episodes one, she is faced with investigating a gruesome murder that is more closely related to her than she is aware of. Additionally, Erica has the power of cognition. That is to say, she can peer into the past just by touching an object. As the story and episodes progress, you see an expansion of this power that can allow you to not only see a small part of the past but possibly even recreate past events, manifest objects, or decipher lost memories.

Now I have to stop right here and say that Erica’s cognition is the best part of these games, after the captivating story that is! Most adventure titles use a generic gaming approach; touch and collect everything in the environment in hopes of it coming in handy later on. However, what can be frustrating about this approach is that you may not know when these items will be important (think finding an item early only to use it at the end). Then there is the more annoying aspect of finding out that you needed to combine these items in some weird and unintuitive way in order to progress the story. I did not have this happen in episode two at any point. All of the items were very well utilized in conjunction with Erica’s growing problem-solving powers. Her cognition now has a synergistic effect; she can combine items in her inventory to recall a past event.  With all that said, I feel as though this episode made a better, more regular use of all forms of Erica’s cognition. Moreover, you receive less input or “help” from the supporting characters in this episode compared to the first, which makes sense seeing as how the investigation of her current case relies heavily on her cognitive abilities.

Speaking of the current case, it is more than a little interesting! The first case was mysterious and haunting but this case is much more hands on and urgent. You will investigate the case of the Wise Monkey, a killer who is hell-bent on targeting those who have wronged them in the past and taking trophies in the process; namely their eyes, ears, and tongues. This is already a stark contrast to the first episodes in which there was really only one victim that sparked the investigation. Even the opening scenes were more action-packed and required some quick thinking in order to respond appropriately. Furthermore, the character development was more intriguing. To be fair, the first episode introduces you to the characters so there isn’t too much building that you can do at that point. However, I commend the writing in the Wise Monkey because through some very short interactions you are able to learn much about the main characters and how they are tied to one another. And if you are more of a problem solver and not too interested in backstories and character development, you can always choose not to read into the personal emails or view personal items.

Overall, I appreciated how the puzzles in The Wise Monkey were challenging but not convoluted in any way. Everything that I had to do in this episode to solve a puzzle just made sense, even if I didn’t see the solution right away. My problem with the first episode is that at times my logical solutions seemed to be deterred by opposing remarks form Erica (see review of The Hangman). In the Wise Monkey, my solutions weren’t deterred by these comments as Erica will usually reward your logical thinking by pointing you to the next logical step.  Also I think that there seemed to be more verbal context clues to guide you to appropriate solutions then there were in The Hangman and these were much appreciated! And of course, if you are really stuck, you can just send a quick text message Erica’s father/former FBI agent for a quick hint.

My one and only complaint with this installment of the Erica Reed thrillers would be the lack of an auto save function. Now I won’t call myself a hard core gamer by any means but I still game enough to know that choosing your save points is a pivotal skill when it comes to adventure games. Even though I usually save right before and after something major is about to happen or before entering into a new environment, if I forget to do so, I can rely on the game’s autosave features instead. This would be a great addition to the Cognition series. Having played the first episode, I was already accustomed to manually saving my games and making multiple save slots, since you are often not allowed to save once you have begun a new puzzle. However, it seems as though this preemptive saving ran me into a glitch. There is one puzzle that somehow allows you to save your game after starting it. Because I save at every opportunity, due to the lack of auto saves, I caused my game to glitch out. It seems as though an auto save point would have solved the problem of having gamers inadvertently saving themselves into a glitch. And though the glitch I speak of was circumvented by the development team, I think it was something that could have been avoided in the first place.

Other than the minor saving issues, the Wise Monkey is most certainly worth its price tag and then some. The cinematography and musical score of The Wise Monkey always helped to heighten the atmosphere when Erica comes across a shocking piece of evidence or when interacting with a suspect. The hand-painted backgrounds are still impressive and the voice acting is consistently engaging and expressive. I particularly like the addition of a new character, “Melissa” who is the epitome of the stereotypical hippie crossed with an eccentric music student.

The expanded use of Erica’s cognitive powers is well executed and not overdone at all. I really am curious to see how these powers will continue to grow in the future. Most importantly this episode did not disappoint on the storyline and the mystery continuously thickens as we roll into episode three: The Oracle. The title alone gives me hope that we will finally be provided with some desired answers to questions about this shadowy character that not only seems to know of Erica’s abilities, but is well informed of her current cases. So my advice to you, the reader, is to play episodes 1 and 2 now so you can join me as I impatiently drool over the next installment of the Phoenix Studios’ Cognition: An Erica Reed Thriller!