It has been a while since I have had the chance to start playing games again, and it’s been only slightly longer since I’ve completed my last review. Luckily for you, I’m going to attempt the seemingly rare — a brief review! I’ve been preparing for this moment by reducing my fiber intake just so my fingers won’t get writer’s diarrhea.

Secret Files 2: Puritas Cordis is a very typical adventure game. Personally, I feel that the heart of any game that dares enter the adventure arena is the story. The story of Secret Files 2 starts full of tension and mystery, it pulled me in right from the start! Don’t fear, though: If you start to play, you’ll be able to escape from the game’s mighty pull as things go from mysterious to predictable and then from predictable to boring.

The game actually starts as you play Bishop Parry, who is being raided by some mysterious elite agents responsible for the death of a colleague. As you scramble to find a safe hiding place for the documents the agents are after, each step seems to add to the mystery of what they say, who is after you and why. After the introductory scene, you’ll start to play as one of the two main characters, Nina, and from there, the story and mystery just starts to fizzle as more and more is added. The other main character is Max, Nina’s ex-boyfriend, and if you haven’t figured out already, they get back together in the end; well ... oops. I told you it is predictable.

The controls for Secret Files 2 are very simple. It is basically a bunch of left clicks for an action and right clicks for descriptions. You can combine items and use them on yourself or on objects in the scene. There are a few really great puzzles in Secret Files 2, but most of them fall flat; they are rather simple. It felt to me that as I progressed, the puzzles become more and more annoying, I hesitate to say “difficult” because I knew exactly what I wanted to do and what item I wanted to do it with. When I first started, the story and gameplay was just fantastic. I found a few items and used a logical set of interactions to complete my goal; when combined with the story-generated tension and mystery, it was quite immersive.

As you progress, the game degrades into screens full of items to pick up and mash together, the shallowness of the story becomes revealed and I started to lose interest. The trick to most of the later game is figuring out how the developers want you to complete the puzzle; the most common problem seems to be using items that in some ways make little sense. It creates a feeling like you are playing a game, not romping around in an adventure. For those that do get stuck, there is a hot-spot locater button on the main screen and a hint system in your character’s journal, which is kind of useless.

Voice acting plagues many adventure games. This is especially true for Secret Files 2. The two main characters are absolutely horrible, and the minor characters are even worse (but at least they acknowledge it in the game). The acting lacks consistency, situational awareness and proper inflections for much of the game. It might be difficult to come down hard on the actors when the scripts are this poor. Every character seems to have the same odd patterns of speech, and they all make the same grammatical errors. It often feels like characters are talking to themselves. For me, it stood out, and I constantly noticed how bad it was.

The one area Secret Files 2 does very well is the cinematic sequences and graphics. The graphics are detailed and refined, and the game quite often breaks into a cutscene that is nearly identical in graphical style and quality of what you regularly play in. The blending of these two modes is something you don’t often see and really helps to put the game onto another level, approaching an interactive movie.

Even if Secret Files 2 was nearly perfect in every other way, the basic and predictable plot really drained my sense of accomplishment along with my will to continue with the game; I honestly just wanted to get it over. I found myself not liking the characters and rolling my eyes at the very basic sense of humor being displayed. The game itself is decent and quite playable, but it really didn’t mesh well with me. Looking at Secret Files 2 from a more positive aspect, I could see a younger crowd enjoying the humor, puzzles and story; but I really struggle to see how an experienced adventure gamer would want to stick with it.