The Eternity Clock

I'm gonna be a bit blunt and say this game is a bit overrated. First of all, it is crazy to me how I basically couldn't get the game on PC at all. It was delisted on Steam so you basically have to buy a used PS3 copy.

Yet another example of BBC not maintaining their own franchise well aside, the game is very middling. The story is very generic and just seems to involve as many villains from the Eleventh Doctor era as they could manage. The Eternity Clock refers to the Macguffin of the story and it just seems to be a thing causing issues with the time vortex. It's not very engaging as a story, and the dialogue often feels like it falls very short of the show's quality in even its worse episodes.

Alex Kingston and Matt Smith both reprise their roles for this video game and they do a good job. It's not easy to transition from live action to voice acting, but both of them do a really good job. I feel it is all but inevitable that one day Matt Smith will be available enough for Big Finish and I expect we'll get some good performances out of that based on what I see here. The developers also did a good job at incorporating the voices of various monsters such as the Daleks and the Silence. Some of the other actors are more mediocre, though. It is also kind of funny seeing the New Paradigm Daleks showing up here as just a little amusing detail in Doctor Who history. They don't look much better here than they did in the show.

The Silence in particular feel quite well done, though. They're creepy and sound dangerous throughout their appearances in the game. Eternity Clock even tries to incorporate their nature of causing one to forget things into the game play, which is cool as a concept. The game also makes excellent use of Murray Gold's music, and show you can spend hours listening to it without it getting annoying (unlike some of the repetitive dialogue from various monsters when you are completing levels).

In execution the game leaves a lot to be desired. As a 2D platformer I found the controls a little finicky. Most of the gameplay in the platformer involves puzzles that aren't so much difficult to solve - the difficulty lies in getting the game to do what you want it to do. It can be a bit frustrating trying to play through and that's where things can wear me down a bit. For example, with the Silence - it's neat that if you lose sight of them, you have to start over on some puzzles. In practice though I find that mechanic will arbitrarily kick in sometimes if the Silence are off screen for a second, while other times they give you a bit of a grace period to find one again. That inconsistency makes the game feel a little more random than practical.

In between the platforming, you have these more complex puzzles that were a little more fun and a lot more creative visually. The game is alright in that regard, for a PS3 era game, and a licensed one at that, it looks pretty cool and some of the visuals for the puzzles are pretty well done.

The game doesn't really have the feel of what I'd want out of a Doctor Who game, though. The lack of traditional combat through most of the game feels right for the Doctor and River has some pretty fun moments, but I'd rather something that leaned onto a good story more or involved making some decisions within the story. They make some neat ideas with time travel apparent by visiting the same area in multiple time periods. That's cool as an idea but in practice I found the levels pretty boring and repetitive because of that. A lot of it looks and feels like a generic game with the Doctor Who franchise slapped on to it.

Anyways, the game didn't do very well commercially and winds up ending on a cliffhanger that was never resolved. It's not a very satisfying experience overall. I would love for a more full fledged video game with Doctor Who but this sadly doesn't live up to that concept very well.