Review: Theropods

Point and click adventure Theropods had me at “dinosaurs”—of course I want to play an adventure game with dinosaurs—but I was also intrigued by its complete lack of not just general dialogue but also any and all text. I get a title logo at the beginning, a credits roll at the end, and that’s it. Not even the settings or save menus use text. That’s got to be incredibly immersive, hasn’t it? Hmm. I found my answer during the first dramatic cutscene, the one I accidentally cut short when I misunderstood an on-screen prompt. I assumed I needed to act quickly in a QTE-style way to save someone’s life. I was actually being offered the chance to skip rest of the scene. I would have known that if the game had told me, but it chose not to. It’s immediately obvious that point and click adventures are improved in every way with a little text. Under these description-free circumstances huge sacks of what I assume are berries are reduced to little more than some brown with red on top. There’s no…