Bureau: Shattered Slipper

I’ve played a few games on Xbox Live Indie Games that cater to the gentlemen who like to play tug-of-war solitary if you catch my drift, but Bureau: Shattered Slipper is the first one that doesn’t make my skin crawl.  Coincidentally, it’s also the first one that isn’t a total waste of time.  You play as an FBI agent on the mend who is tasked with solving the murder of a young Stanford student.  It’s not exactly a riveting mystery.  I actually picked who the killer was the second I laid eyes on him.  But the way to get there is kind of novel.  Think of this as the grown-up version of Capcom’s Phoenix Wright games, with a touch of Carmen Sandiego’s time-management mechanics mixed in.  I never actually got in trouble for incorrectly guessing anything.  My one and only failure was related to mistiming one of the narrative’s two quick-time events, which happen seconds apart.

“So we meet again, Lara Croft. Only this time, my tight, revealing clothing is even more impractical than yours!  Mwahahahahahahahaha!”

Oddly enough, the training session in the game makes out like the quick-time stuff will be a regular feature, instead of just popping up for a quickie during the game’s climax.  Seems like it’s hard-ly useful at all.  Excuse me, I just blew up the pun machine.

Most of the gameplay, a term that should be applied loosely here, revolves around listening to conversations so long and dry that I wouldn’t blame the chick for whipping out her gun and firing it into the air.  Just to shake things up.  Instead, you occasionally just have to answer questions like you’re paying attention and shit.  Depending on who you’re talking to you, you either have to avoid pissing them off, or avoid sending them into hysterics, or try to intimidate them, or try to get them to fuck you.  And no, to you guys looking for the newest single-arm workout on the indie scene, there is no nudity or actual fucking here.  Everything you want happens off-screen.  I know, life is cruel.

After piecing together various clues, you have to solve the mystery.  This is done by watching a cut-scene, then identifying three items (or locations) shown in it.  No really, it’s like one of those “are you paying attention” things.  Once you identify the three items, you have to place them in the correct order you saw them in.  And that’s it.  That’s the entire game.  You do that a few times, then you do a couple of quick-time events, then you get a teaser for sequel, credits.  Honestly, Bureau: Shattered Slipper isn’t bad or anything.  I just wish there was more to it.  The whole thing takes an hour, and although the solution is pretty obvious, the writing isn’t embarrassing (mostly) and the main characters are interesting, enough so that I bought the original Bureau game and plan on playing it just for fun.  I don’t do things like that a lot on here, so I guess that says something.  It even features semi-decent graphics for an XBLIG.  My boyfriend was really impressed by how realistic the cars looked.  And that damn well better be the only thing that caught his interest.  I did have to shy my eyes away from them from time to time due to having flashy effects.  That is to say, flashy as in it had strobes and could set off my epilepsy, not flashy as in she shows you her boobs.  For real, there are no boobs.  Sorry if that killed the bulge in your pants.  For what it’s worth, her bulge is just fine.

Not convinced?

Hey, I’m not judging.  Maybe the poor girl has a hearing disorder and thinks that underwear is where you keep your clips.

Bureau: Shattered Slipper was developed by Twist-EdGames

240 Microsoft Points said “I know in video games starring girls, the heroine typically has the biggest balls of the cast, but this is ridiculous” in the making of this review. 

Yea Cyril, it was the low-hanging fruit.  What can I say, this game is full of things that hang low.

Hurley, whom I anticipate will suffer significant shrinkage when he sees those pictures, also reviewed this at Gear-Fish.

Trailer courtesy of ClearanceBinReview.com