REVIEW : Peaky Blinders: Mastermind (PC)

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REVIEW : Peaky Blinders: Mastermind (PC)

REVIEW : Peaky Blinders: Mastermind (PC)

Can You Be Faithful to Excess? As you progress through the levels of Peaky Blinders: Mastermind one wonders if the developers have not followed with excessive zeal the desire to trace the TV series from which this video game is based.

The plot, developed in collaboration with the father of the series, Steven Knight, has all the ingredients of a canonical season of the Small Heath gang. There is a murder, a culprit too easy to spot and catch, a fuse that lights up and a streak of gunpowder he carries right under the chairs of Thomas Shelby and co. Judging by the age of one of the group members (Finn) and the hierarchical situation of the Peaky Blinders: Mastermind could be a kind of prequel to the first season of the TV show.

REVIEW : Peaky Blinders: Mastermind (PC)

Orchestra conductors

The game, as already mentioned in the preview, knows how to grasp one of the fundamental structural aspects of the series: the slow construction of a perfect plan, thanks to which the Shelby family manages (or almost) to defeat opponents who, up to a minute before the final revelation, they were convinced they had victory in their grasp. This planning is the basis of the underlying mechanics of Peaky Blinders: Mastermind: the actions of each character available to the player are embedded in a pentagram made of intersections and exchanges, which works only and only if all the actors are in the right place, at the right time.

The actions take place, time is rewound, the skills of the various gang members are exploited to reach the mission objective before the stopwatch runs out of seconds.

At its best, Peaky Blinders: Mastermind manages to create very interesting multi-level puzzles, with different teams of characters on the field and crossovers to be calibrated precisely to be able to win. When fewer actors are available, the missions become more linear and inevitably lose their bite; this choice, which sacrifices a lot in terms of gameplay, is aimed at making this video game a real “alternative” season of the TV show, without making it too much of a mystery. This is where the double-edged sword of fidelity comes into play.

REVIEW : Peaky Blinders: Mastermind (PC)

Wedged between two mediums

The two main problems of Mastermind are the children of this choice of direction. The ten stages into which the story is divided echo the episodes of a season and many of these serve more to move the plot than to create new, real challenges for the player. Removed the tutorial stages, which we talked about in the preview, the story unfolds passing by points that sound – not surprisingly – familiar in the heads of the fans of the show. There are the investigations of Tommy, the messes made up by the most irascible Arthur and John, the traumas of the war that resurface, and so on.

For this, we need to wait, just as happens in the various seasons of the series, for the last “episodes” to finally have the big plan in our hands, with the decisive actions. An understandable choice regarding the story, which however inevitably damages the part played; one gets the impression that some missions serve only as a filler, which can be replaced by just a movie, and that only in the final stages of a very short game you get a taste – tasty, it must be said – of the potential of the game system. by FuturLab.

REVIEW : Peaky Blinders: Mastermind (PC)

Of other hidden enemies

There are other minor issues worth mentioning in this review. As satisfying as it is to fit the various pieces together in the course of the most intricate missions, in those situations the impracticality of the navigation system on the playing staff comes to the surface: if you realize too late that you have made a mistake in a single step, perhaps an only one character, at the beginning of the mission, most likely it will be necessary to recalibrate everyone’s moves – and each change deactivates the possibility of a “fast forward” to the next hub. Time, so precious and calibrated to normal things, ends up being a drag when you are forced to rewind and play the same segments over and over again.

The technical part flows without many smudges: from the graphic point of view, the isometric view justifies the absence of too many details and the environments, however simple, reconstruct the gloomy atmosphere of Small Heath. The soundtrack is adequate – an important point, given the quality shown by the TV series in recent years – even if some short loops become unsustainable if you make the mistake of staring at them. The illustrations that introduce and conclude the various missions are generally of good quality, except for some that show smudges that hardly go unnoticed.

REVIEW : Peaky Blinders: Mastermind (PC)

Although the plot is pleasant and, as mentioned, in line with the structures presented in the show, the dialogues are largely forgettable, with some trivializations of the characters that make your arms fall. Poor replayability: there aren’t many collectables, but for perfectionists, there is a chance to get a gold in each mission – completing it within a set time.

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review-peaky-blinders-mastermind-pcPeaky Blinders: Mastermind is certainly a short and unfriendly product, but to which we must acknowledge the merit of having been able to centre the most important elements of the original work and has translated them into a non-trivial puzzle mechanics and, in its most successful moments, fulfilling and lively. The adventure has its ups and downs, paying the price of a bold choice - that of tracing the structure of a typical season of the show all too faithfully - and a few smudges here and there, especially about the dialogue.

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