Pendulo Studios’ Alfred Hitchcock: Vertigo is a fervent experiment in marrying classic suspense with modern interactivity, but the marriage results in an uneven union. The game promises a psychological thrill ride inspired by Hitchcock’s Vertigo - yet quickly diverts into an entirely new narrative that bears only thematic resemblance to the 1958 classic. You step into the fractured mind of writer Ed Miller, surviving a car crash that seemingly claims his wife and daughter - though no evidence of their existence remains. The narrative unfolds through three key perspectives: Ed himself, his cryptic therapist Dr. Lomas and the local sheriff, creating a tense tapestry of unreliability, memory and identity. From a cinematic standpoint, Vertigo shines. Its visual direction emulates Hitchcock’s signature angles and framing, occasionally delivering that spine-tingling sensation of watching a noir thriller in motion. The original score and sound design nod to Bernard Herrmann’s legacy...

This game SERIOUSLY needs warnings for p3dophili@ and m*lestation. They aren't just mentioned, they're major plot points at the end of the game, have a mission centered around them, and come with speech options that are... not very sympathetic to victims. I haven't seen every movie Hitchcock ever made - hey, some of them are tough to find! - but I've seen 36-odd of them and don't recall either subject being referenced or implied. The Good: - Some fun nods to Hitch without going too over the top, mostly in the character models for the main family. - The soundtrack is great! - There's decent variety in the speech options. The Meh: The designers and writers really erred on the side of not being too referential, which results in most of my complaints. (By the end of the movie, the bridge scenes actually reminded me most of the Bacall-Bogart movie "Dark Passage"... directed by Delmer Daves.) There's some small benefits, and some big downsides. - You won't necessarily kno...

This game is amazing. Everything about it is deep, dark and fun.

Grabbed this on sale for cheap a while ago and finally took the time to play it. Story takes a while to get going, but once it does it is quite the twisted spiral of events. Gameplay isn't anything groundbreaking but in the interactive movie category it goes above and a solid example of storytelling. A true mind bend.

I really can’t give a score to the gameplay, because there’s basically no real gameplay — you just follow the story and press a few buttons, or a combination of buttons, every now and then. But the story is truly amazing.