Obduction ®

First, I am a fan of Cyan games, so I already have a bent towards this type of game. It can take some time to make it through the entire game, but it doesn't seem like it because it is so engaging. The puzzles are very good, and don't seem like puzzles for puzzles sake - they fit the game. You have to learn the story as you go - which is part of the fun. Highly recommended!

First, let me say that fans of Myst, Riven, and other adventure/puzzle games of the sort will not be disappointed with Obduction. It's a difficult game, but there's an internal logic to it and it never feels like it's being unfair or asking you to make absurd leaps to solve problems. Now, getting to the "slightly flawed" part... I'd have to say that the plot is paper thin here. That means the ending, once you hit it, lacks any kind of emotional impact. If a player is just looking to reach an "end point" in the game, there's nothing to complain about there, but if you want a sense of closure, there's not a lot to go on here. I may be alone in that. Beyond that, the game seems to want for some optimization as of version 1.5.2. I'm running an AMD system at 4.0 ghz with 16gb of RAM and an R9 390 w/ 8gb of video RAM and it required a LOT of tweaking to the page files to keep from crashing. Even with that handled, there were a lot of frame rate drops and instances of texture popping while moving through the various areas of the game world. Were I barely scraping the bottom of the system requirements, that would make sense. As it is, I'd call it functional, but a little broken. Apparently, this can be fixed if you roll back to version 1.4 using GOG Galaxy, but I was too far in the game to want to risk losing my save when I found that out. Bottom line: even for these flaws, I played through to the end, had some fun and don't consider the time wasted. The environments are beautiful, the sound design and music are great (was there ever a doubt?), and the puzzles are challenging, but never feel unfair. Just do yourself a favor and poke around the environments. If you're stuck, chances are you overlooked a path, a note with a critical bit of information, or something along those lines.

"Obduction", in case you were wondering, is a technical term in geology, and refers to the emplacement of oceanic crust on top of continental crust. The UAE is a good example. Reportedly Cyan wanted to call the game "Abduction", but the name was already trademarked. But given the surreal character of the game, "Obduction" is weirdly appropriate. This is a great game, and I feel bereft now that I've finished it. The graphics and atmosphere are wonderful, and the puzzles are integrated into the world and are very satisfying to solve (with a little lateral thinking). However, some of them do require quite a bit of walking over the same paths; but then the landscapes are so gorgeous to look at it's not too much of a pain. The story is good, though a little confusing towards the end (probably I was going too quickly). Highly recommended.

If Obduction ® used an open-world game engine it could have moved alot faster. I didn't feel like checking out side paths anymore unless I really had to because they usually didn't seem to have purpose, causing me to backtrack and waste more time. I will give it an extra star for have dx9 looking scenery, but not alot to interact with. The point and click interface makes (movement?) so boring. It's just not fun when you spend most of the game waiting to get to the next artifact. GOG gave me this for free so I wanna say "thanks", but I don't think I can continue playing this. I may not live long enough to finish it.

I got Obduction for free from a GOG.com giveaway. I had never played a adventure game like Myst, so when I loaded it up I was a bit unsure of it. There seemed to be nothing to interact with. So I kept pushing forward. I eventually got to Hunrath and was blown away by the visuals. Obduction is a pretty game. I explored Hunrath for a bit until I met C.W. He gave me an objective: turn the power on. From this point, the game just clicked with me. I kept playing through it until the credits rolled. I didn't really understand the nuances of the story, so when we made it back to Earth I was confused why everything was dead. Overall it was a fun game.