As deep as a puddle, as wide as a shoe
TL;DR: If you're into late 90s (early 3D) adventure games with all the jank that came with them and just can't get by without another dose - this game is for you. Otherwise - it doesn't even scratch the sci-fi/noir itch.
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So you want a deep sci-fi dystopian dark story? Not here, my brother. Here you get a paint-by-numbers cliche-ridden shortie that can't even quite decide if it wants to be dark, grotesque, a pastiche or psychological. You're a low-ranking member of a corporation, that deals in synthetic brains and consciousness transfer. That means that of course the higher-ups are shady and of course you experience technical problems with your own brain and of course there were unsavory goings-on with the creation of the technology. Because it needs to be dark and edgy and ooooh.
It's a dystopia so of course there's bodies everywhere and of course there's junk everywhere of course nothing seems to work properly and of course there's a fuggin hidden laboratory beneath a defunct amusement park (and of course both the park and lab are laden with dead bodies). Because it needs to be grotesque and edgy and ooooh.
If it's a sci-fi dystopia where everything is wrong - that fact needs to be in-your-face. So of course no one cares about the dead bodies, of course the only entertainment in a poor district is an old arcade box at a cemetery, of course the cops don't care to even cover dead bodies on a car accident scene. Because if it doesn't veer on pastiche, it is not clear enough that it's edgy and ooooh.
And finally: you - of course your perception is clearly tampered with, of course you are being duped by the system (or the corporation), of course YOU are the central pivot of the story (the Small World Plot cliche in action) and of course everyone and their dog revolve around you and the fate of the world is at your sole discretion, my dear special snowflake, because you're special and edgy and ooooh.
But enough about the story - let's tackle other aspects.
The graphics are what they are. The creators went all-in for a certain aesthetic. It doesn't gel well with me, but that doesn't mean it's a bad decision and that the game looks bad - au contraire, the game is quite good looking (for the aesthetic, mind) and the lighting does much of the heavy lifting to produce proper moods with great success.
And the moods are kinda there. It's unfortunate that the authors have no concept of SUBTLETY, as everything is in your face and lingering a tad bit longer in any given space makes you notice how shallow the whole thing is. It's sci-fi, it's noir, it's dystopian, but it's no Dystopika is what I'm saying. And the grotesque aspects that come with the setting and should be presented as brief strokes of contrast, are instead shoved in your face by the bushel to the point of the nauseating realization, that you're simply a bit too grown-up to see this as "stuff for grown-ups".
Which makes it all the more baffling that the puzzles are trivial, second-grade primary school levels of challenge. There's no thinking to them, no concept of clue-collection, no real discovery - you are led by the hand like a child through a world with visuals and themes that try so hard to be adult. Although if there was any deeper level of challenge, many players might actually quit midway through.
Because of the Jank. Ohh the Jank. You'd almost expect that there would be tank controls in this, but luckily that must've been playtested out of the product early on. Nevertheless the controls are clunky, the murky screens make it quite hard to discern where you should actually go and often the transitions between multiple angles on one scene are so disjointed, they add disorientation to the list of things one needs to fight with to progress. Everything in fact seems to be resisting you ever so slightly. Maybe it's to create an oppressive mood? Or maybe it's for the few people that are nostalgic towards this kind of clunk, as whenever it clunks, you clearly feel some familiarity to it's clunkiness.
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To summarise:
* it looks OK, it sounds OK
* story is cliche and you'll be feeling a pointed sense of disappointment once you see that you've had it all figured out within the first 30 minutes
* controls and gameplay feel are jank
* not much game to speak of
* and the overall mood is not noir, but rather try-hard. One of the characters is literally named NOIR - you can't get more try-hard than this.
Had the authors been less ham-fist'd, it could have been a decent mood-piece.
Had they been more gameplay-focused, it could have been a decent adventure.
Had they known how to avoid writing cliches, it could have been a clever, little thought provoking story.
They unfortunately chose neither of those routes, so now this game is stuck in all the small ways it could be stuck in. Overall - not worth my time and not really worth yours either.
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