Hitchcock: The Final Cut (PC)

GameSpot editors' review

• CNET editors' rating: 2.5 stars OK
  Detailed editors' rating
  Overall score: 5.8 (2.5 stars)

• Reviewed by:
  Ron Dulin
• Reviewed on: 04/11/2002
• Updated on: 05/17/2006
• Released on: 03/31/2002
• Originally published on GameSpot: Hitchcock: The Final Cut (PC) Review

With the exception of some extraneous elements, Hitchcock: The Final Cut doesn't have much to do with the master of suspense. It references his work, but it doesn't resemble it in tone or style. Some of the visuals are inspired by scenes from his films, one of the characters is a Hitchcock fan, and a few of the puzzles require a cursory knowledge of his more famous films--but beyond these superficial elements, the game bears no comparison to Hitchcock's world of paranoia, intrigue, and ugly deeds.

Joseph Shamsley is a private detective with psychic powers. According to the game's Web site, his parents died on the day of Alfred Hitchcock's funeral. Shamsley has been hired to investigate a series of disappearances on a movie set, a vanity project undertaken by an eccentric, wealthy Hitchcock enthusiast named Robert Marvin-Jordan. Early on, it becomes clear that the disappearances are actually murders and that there's something more complicated afoot than a film shoot.

So complicated, in fact, that it's nonsensical. Either The Final Cut features the most intricate web of false leads ever devised or the game makes no sense. It's impossible to discuss the problems of the story without spoiling some of it, although it's difficult to spoil something that's so incoherent. There may or may not have been a real film shoot. Everyone involved is working under an assumed identity, and none of them actually have any film skills. Is it an elaborate plot to set up Shamsley? Or a series of unbelievable coincidences? You'll never know, even if you finish the game. The Final Cut's plot has a few interesting threads, but none of it makes any sense when taken as a whole. You have a mysterious, mute niece with a precocious Minah bird named Alfred. You have a strange family with a dark past. You have a series of brutal murders that are all related but may or may not have been committed by the same person. The game never answers any of the questions it raises--instead, it shirks responsibility at the last minute by throwing some truly ridiculous curveballs your way.

It's disappointing, because the interesting elements of the story could have made for a decent game had they been flushed out, instead of simply thrown in the mix with all the other confounding stories. At the beginning, you start to connect the dots, and the plot seems to be heading in a good direction. But more and more facts and twists get added, and the dots just form a messy blob. The most interesting subplot bears more than a passing resemblance to Vertigo. It involves a dead woman who isn't dead and ends with a confrontation in a bell tower. The Final Cut is at its best when the designers just rip plot elements straight from Hitchcock.

Other references to Hitchcock include the manor where the Marvin-Jordans live, which looks like the Bates' house from the front, with a luxurious grand ballroom tacked onto the back. Having your home modeled after the infamous Psycho house, down to the tattered wooden floors, is a reason to question not just your sanity, but your taste as well. The other primary references to Hitchcock involve Shamsley's psychic ability, which gives him "flashes" when examining certain objects or places.

The psychic spells are all short clips from Hitchcock films, taken out of context and appropriated here as supposed insights into the story. Shamsley will see an overturned glass, and a quick scene will show a glass getting knocked over. He'll enter a bathroom, and you'll see a quick clip of the famous Psycho shower scene. Strangely, there's no attempt at making the contents of the game match the contents of the scene, so the bathroom in The Final Cut looks nothing like the bathroom in Psycho. Shamsley will examine a drinking glass, and the flash will show a coffee cup. It's as if the scenes were tacked on at the last minute, a suspicion that's all but confirmed by the fact that by the end of the game, the flashes have even less to do with the places or objects that inspire them.

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