Cognition: An Erica Reed Thriller Episode 2 - The Wise Monkey

After setting up the bases of their sci-fi thriller, Phoenix Online delivers a second episode that is shorter, but much more intense and well-paced. It's a better episode, even though the production values haven't improved - a shortcoming that prevents it from truly shining.

Not many adventures have as much dark storytelling ambition as Cognition-endure the awkward conversations to get to the puzzles and story developments, and you'll be glad you stuck with it.

The high stakes created by The Wise Monkey's first scenes propel the player through the rest of the episode. Although the game stumbles mechanically in a few spots, it manages for the most part to maintain the tension that The Hangman lacked.

Compared to others of the adventure genre, Cognition Episode 2 is pretty average. It serves as a solid continuation of the Cognition story, but if anything it offers just a little less than the first installment.

The second episode of the Cognition series is a big improvement of the first episode, with a more purposeful direction and less backtracking between locations. Erica's psychic powers also take on a more central part of overall gameplay, but could be given an even greater focus. Writing is also improved, with the developers clearly having a good grasp of what makes a psychological thriller such as this work well. Sadly, there's just too little of it to earn it a higher grade.

The Wise Monkey is overall a better installment than its predecessor, but it still has its work cut out. Characters and dialogue are once again rather tin-eared and jerky animations can take players out of the experience.