Dirty Split

Those Of You out there who are aficionados of free games will have likely seen this before, but seeing as we hadn't managed to cover it up to this point, and with me being a big old adventure fan and all, I thought I'd make sure there wasn't anyone out there who'd missed it The game is Dirty Split, and it probably has the filthiest title you've ever heard in your life. The funny thing is, I can't for the life of me understand what the title has to do with the game itself.

A traditional adventure in every sense, Dirty Split is set in the swinging '60s, with you playing Dragnet-style (that's the movie Dragnet, made when Tom Hanks was a good actor) gumshoe Al Baxter. Baxter has been called in to investigate the murder of a socialite's ex-fiance. Tine man was behaving strangely in the past few weeks and had only just called off the engagement, without any explanation as to why he had chosen to do so. Enraged, the socialite's brother had threatened him, the dunderheaded cops taking this to be ironclad evidence of his guilt and summarily chucking him in the local nick. This is where you come in, interviewing the family, the accused, and the cops.

Soon it becomes clear this crime is convoluted, and you're jetting off across America in search of the real killer. You do this using an extremely easy-to-use interface - right-click brings up the actions you can perform, and applying stupid actions to inappropriate objects leads to the customary witty rejoinder from your character.

The sheen of classic LucasArts games is all over Dirty Split, right down to the "I'm selling these fine leather jackets," and "Look! A three-headed monkey!" lines dotted liberally about the place. Puzzles are a little offbeat but aren't outrageous. A little bit of perseverance and the most difficult ones will be solved quickly. That said, there's easily a few genuine hours play here and the script is pretty tight.

The bane of most indie adventures is the voice acting, but Baxter is pleasant to listen to, although some of the female voices are iffy.

In the end this is as good as you are going to get from the indie adventure scene, so if you pass it up, you'll be spitting in the developer's face.