Observation

This review assumes you have read about, or watched videos on, the basics of the gameplay mechanics and will not go into them. Observation is a fairly decent indie game that heavily features puzzle-based gameplay and some very light exploration. The storyline is the main focus and, while I'd like to comment on it, doing so risks giving away the plot as all you're meant to know at the start is that you're an AI on a space station helping a human scientist stay alive as she (and you) figures out what is happening. The puzzles are generally decent, though some of them start becoming same-ish and repetitive since they are mostly simple pattern matching or sequence memorization. The atmosphere of the game is, by far, its greatest strength. Creepy mechanical noises reverberating through tons and tons of steel hanging in space provide a tense backdrop for a game where death is impossible for the player character. The game areas are meticulously detailed and the lighting is superb. You really have a feeling of anxiety and desolation as you move through the inexplicably abandoned hallways and rooms of the Low-Orbit Space Station. The story concludes rather abruptly, and afaik, there is only one endgame version to be reached. This fact, along with the extremely linear, story-based approach of the game, plus the repetitive puzzles, makes me feel as though the replay value of this game is fairly low. The first playthrough is still decent fun if you can forgive some occasional bugs with the UI and clunky controls. For an indie developer, I think this one was worth the purchase as I'm happy to support smaller studios willing to take risks with games that really break the archetype of a game's basic structure.

Overall I enjoyed this game, it's a gripping science fiction interactive story. There are some flaws, however. The story has some plot (and science) issues in later acts. Not a huge deal I suppose since most games (and books, tv shows and movies) do as well. The gameplay does not have any branching which while disappointing I can understand since it's telling a very specific story. The gameplay also employs some mini-games for it's puzzles, most are okay but some are very difficult to do with keyboard + mouse (to the point of wanting to smash the mouse against a wall). This cost the game a star. Another issue are the onscreen prompts for what keys to press, if you rebind anything it will show the original key. Moreover, for 'back' it says to press "X" (someone didn't change it from controller/console), the actual key is backspace. This is pretty inexcusable. There are other controls (shift while in SAMOS) that aren't even documented. C'mon. The game isn't overly long, average playtimes seem to be between 4 and 6 hours. The full price ($24.99) is a bit high for that so I'd recommend if you want to purchase the game to grab it during a sale.

I thoroughly enjoyed this game. It was great in all areas. The story was good, and the controls did not get in the way. Unfortunately it wasn't available on GOG at release, which is when I wanted to purchase it, but I felt I had to write a review of this game on the GOG store.

The idea of playing for AI is great and the story is good, althought at times predictable (no spoilers, but if you finish the game, you'll see a lot of similarities to some well-known films and books). What spoiled the fun for me is the gameplay. Controls are non-intuitive at all, puzzles are ok, but rather stupid (especially since you're supposed to be superintelligent computer) and at times repetitive. But navigation is the worst, especially when you have to move around and can't access the map: all rooms (minor spoiler - and spaces outside the ship) are similar and combined with visual glitches, spinning camera and darkness, it transforms a simple task of moving from A to B into a vertigo-inducing annoyance. Still worth playing though.

Pros: The story is a recombination of lots of different space sci-fi movies/books themes that comes together in a (sometimes) original way Voice acting is decent Cons: Very limited oppertinues to interact with main character Walking Simulator Puzzle-game kinda like Myst or 7th Guest SLOW camera movement No save game feature: was not clear if my game was being saved or not the whoile time... (it was) Puzzles are either very simple (copy this number from one side of the screen to the other is like 50% of them) or totally uninitiative treasure hunting elements of the UI or for notes can be very frustrating One of those trendy "unclear endings" where the writers are too lazy to even try to make the end / story make any sense. Your choices MAKE ZERO difference to the story, you are just watching it happen no matter what you do Despite the fact that you control the camera as the ship's AI, you have that powered ripped away from you every 10 minutes for some cutscreen that you could easily have watched with your own camera angles and not lost that immersion. some buggy face animations that completely take you out of the game (unacceptable given that you spend a lot of the game staring one person more or less in the fact). Conclusion: I love this genre of space thriller, but even if it is on sale, it just isn't worth the time to beat it. Just not that fun, even if at times interesting and even beautiful. I just don't get the praise for this game, other than people who like the story so much they didnt notice the other flaws OR maybe it is just being hyped-up by all the usual suspects in gaming "journalism" because of the female protagionist. There are a lot of better sci-fi space video games out there that you should play before this one... All 3 of the Mass Rffect Games, Galatic Civilzation 3, Offworld Trading Company, Alien Isolation, Deadspace 1-3, Prey, Rimworld, Star Control 2 remake, Portal 1-2, Half-life (all), Star Wars: KOTOR (all).