Frustrating, Slow, Annoying
Date : 2018-03-24 Entry ID : 17386 Entry type : review Game : Observer (@1909)
Rutger Hauer is voice acting the main character, delivering a flat and slurred performance.
This horror cyberpunk adventure is a frustrating experience.
The game mostly looks great, you're walking around detailed and interesting retrofuturistic environments, albeit with some annoying MPEG-1 looking effects representing the mental state of the main character. The music is minimal and ominous, and hints at a greater horror, although this horror was never backed up by the dialogue and writing.
Interacting with characters in the world was slow and awkward. Rutger Hauer is voice acting the main character, delivering a particularly flat and slurred performance.
However, at key moments in the game, the Rutger Hauer character enters the mind of a victim, represented by a The Cell-like hellscape. These sequences have been great, very weird and unsettling, and plays with the visuals in unique ways. These sequences are way more enjoyable than the rest of the game. For instance, we found a secret virtual reality pig room, which was fun, and then we somehow seem to have walked back into Layers of Fear.
The ending was also better written and more coherent than I had expected. The story involved transhumanism and werewolf body modification, which I'm all for. I especially enjoyed the AI-son character design at the very end, a floating human face that broke up into cubes whenever he spoke. Very weird looking.
These faint rays of light did not manage to counterbalance the frustrating gameplay. The game was painfully slow, with annoying controls, and was understimulating due to the lack of meaningful interactions. When the game ended, I was happy to not have to play it anymore. I would probably have enjoyed watching a playthrough more than playing it.
Review written on 2018-03-24.
Review score: 
(bad)
(bad)