Close To The Sun

Like many here, I got this game on EGS when it was offered for free. While visually, its very interesting, the game is really not much more than a walking sim. The gameplay really just involves going from point A to point B with some small stealth elements, occasional QTEs and light puzzle-solving. The story is relatively enjoyable, if a little predictable but its not bad at all. If anything, the story is the real highlight here. Its enjoyable and the characters are voice-acted well, in my opinion. My only qualm with the story is that it is incomplete. It ends on a cliff-hanger with the intent for more, but I don't know if they're going to make a sequel. I hope they will because the story deserves to be completed. Honestly, I don't know if I can recommend this game. The gameplay is mediocre at best and the story, while fun, is incomplete and waiting for more. Unless you're really interested in the premise OR a sequel does get released which completes the story, I'd say you're better off spending your money elsewhere.

My 4-star rating is assuming developers release a performance patch. Otherwise I'd give it 2 stars. This is an extremely good story-driven horror adventure game. It has an interesting premise and well-done story. Excellent graphics. Great audio & voice acting. Responsive controls. But it desperately needs a performance patch ASAP. Most of the time performance is good (i.e. 50-60 FPS) but it's quite common to see intermittent frame rate drops of 20-30 FPS all over the place in this game. In other words, the game intermittently, but persistently, drops to 30 GPS or less. Not good. The drops in FPS often occur in exactly the same spots when replaying a level. I've tested by stopping and staring at the same spot when a stutter occurs, and the drop in frame rate is usually persistent until I look away. In other words, the 20-30 FPS drop persists until I look away to a different location. I'm not a programmer, but this seems like something that should've been caught during Testing and QA. A stutter here and there is fine, but persistent, easily repeatable stuttering is a sign of poor QA, rushed delivery, or both. My PC has an Intel i5-8400, GeForce GTX 1050 Ti 4GB, 8 GB RAM and Window 10. Well above Minimum Requirements. I confirmed via MSI Afterburner that RAM, CPU and GPU are *not* totally maxed out when these FPS drops occur. On average when stutters occur RAM is 70-75% utilized, CPU is 80-85% and GPU is 85-90%. As a comparison, I run these Unreal 4 games @ 1920x1200 and **consistently** get 60+ FPS: - Senua's Sacrifice - High Settings - Conarium - Very High Settings - Obduction - Very High Settings - Observer - Medium Settings Final comments... No options to remap keyboard or controller and limited options to adjust Graphics. Both inexcusable for a 2020 game based on Unreal 4 engine. This really could be a great game. I hope the developers quickly release a patch to address the poor performance and lack of configuration options in the menus.

What drew me to this game was the art deco style, the Bioshock-esqueness of what promised to be an interesting game, even with the low reviews. However, I was not prepared to be seasick. I have problems with motion sickness in general, but my dual screens and high graphics have mitigated most of those issues for me in games where previously I would only be able to play 10 minutes at a time. Five minutes into this game and I was ready to toss my cookies. The rocking of the ship is constant. Even on the purportedly "biggest ship ever built" where there should be NO rocking motion if you want to be realistic - large ships do not rock like that. I still really wanted to play the game though - the beginning and the design was enough to make me want to keep playing, so I looked through the graphics options.... there are barely any options at all and absolutely none that allow you to turn off the ship motion. I went to Google and the forums, hoping someone possibly modded it or found some way to turn off the motion. Nope. So unfortunately, this game is completely unplayable for me. If you are someone who might possibly suffer from motion sickness do not buy, you cannot avoid the rocking.

It's a hard choice between 2 or 3 stars. The game looks nice, the premiss is decent and the story is also decent. Gameplay is very bland, the puzzles are few and very simple. It's more a playable cinematic story simulator than anything. Even on 25% sale I still think it's too much for this game.

So, I bought this game on sale a while back and it was sitting in my backlog. Then I checked howlongtobeat.com and found it only takes about 4 hours to beat and decided to knock it out. So glad I did! This game is my type of game. That being said, this type of game isn't for everybody. Check the GAME DESCRIPTION before buying any game... If the game doesn't live up to it, dock it stars and complain. This game, however, lives up to it's description... And wonderfully. So, I give it a full 5. This game is essentially a walking simulator with some horror elements and very minimal puzzle solving, along with a few run for your life segments. If you go in expecting that sort of thing then you won't be disappointed. It's not a survival horror game, and it's not an FPS. Go in expecting a beautifully dark environment where science has pushed it's limits too far, and people are now having to live with the consequences. Who can you trust? Who are your friends? And what happened to your sister? Why are there bodies strewn all over the ship in various forms of slaughter? (This game is not for the weak of stomach, there are some truly gruesome places on this ship.) I really enjoyed this game. If you go into it with the right mindset then I know you will to. Don't expect what it's not.