PC Critic Reviews

In summary, I found Sinking Island to be excellent and enjoyed it immensely.

A solid diversion for mystery fans, though it’s got too many holes in it to stay afloat in your consciousness for long.

Though the gameplay gets extremely repetitive and the excitement factor is mediocre at best, Sinking Island will likely hold the attention of adventure mystery fans.

For those not familiar with the Sokal’s previous games Sinking Island can probably be skipped. But for those that are willing to overlook the faults and truly enjoy the process of figuring out just what is going on in Sinking Island it is reasonably priced enough to warrant trying out.

The frustrating part, as in most adventure games, is that even if you've been a good detective and have read this plot like a book, you still have to slot the evidence exactly how the designers intended, which in this case is definitely not as satisfying as just taking in a good mystery novel.

It’s hard to stay immersed in the story, and the methods of solving the mandates become more like chores after awhile than fun things to do.

Basically, Sinking Island has nothing going for it. The mystery is boring, the puzzles don’t require any thought, the dialogue is astoundingly bad, and too many parts of the game seem like they were made on the cheap (for example, when you talk to people their lips don’t move).

Welcome to one of the most boring artistic endeavours of our age. The murder mystery on a sinking island is solved by talking, looking and walking - mostly by walking. The island with all the clues and evidence will vanish under the waves in just seven hours, but for our bummy detective hero that's no reason to hurry. So he strolls endlessly through empty locations, and with just the pretty pictures to cheer you up, it's hard not to get bored to death on this Island of doctor Boreau. [Apr 2008]