Omikron: The Nomad Soul

This is one of the most ambitious games ever created, and in many respects it was impressive for 1999! I thought it would inspire many developers but years after its relese, it somehow remains unique and unrivalled. Even amongst other Quantic Dream productions, this is the masterpiece. Of course, the game has some flaws. Gameplay elements borrowed from other genres, shooting and fighting scenes are rather awkward and boring, for example. Hopefully, they are rare and short. Some aspects of the storytelling like the "it's not a game" can sound ridiculous. The major flaw of the game was its unstability on modern systems, and Gog has corrected it. The ambiance is awesome, the universe to discover is incredible. Playing this game is as exotic and relaxing as travelling abroad. I give it 5 stars without hesitating. A game to (re-)discover, please do not miss it!

Omikron has the same great and bad features as all the Quantic Dream games - it starts as something amazing, full of ambition and clearly unforgettable. It ends as a mess of broken gameplay ideas, idiotic plot twists and long since it has outstayed the welcome. The concept was simple, but intriguing - you, and I mean YOU-the player, are drawn into the parallel world, inside the body of one character living there, to save that world from some danger. And while it is theoretically possible to complete the game inside that character, with all his relationships and special abilities, if he dies, you can transfer your soul into one of several other characters you may have met in that game world. This idea sounds great, and it is, however, its awesomeness is undermined by a lot of gameplay ideas. The basic controls in the game are rather ok, but when it decides to become a fighting game, or an FPS, it turns into the worst possible kind of that genre with horrible controls. And in the end, you have the game that starts full of ambition, with a cool city you can explore and go to David Bowie concerts, with some really fun ideas, but ends with you hating all of it, and that is if you can bring yourself to complete the game at all. It would be nice to see this game getting a remake or a proper sequel (which has been announced a very long time ago), yet the game itself should be taken more of an example of what can be done in videogames, but how it shouldn't be done.

While the game starts out with an interesting concept, it soon gets tedious and repetitive. The game itself is ambitious and shares the same flaw as most MMO’s today. Its game world is beautiful, open and seemingly large but shallow. The soundtrack is great and the plot is interesting but can only hold ones interest about halfway through the game until the soul and fighting combat system comes to light. The soul transferring is bland and makes your character seem pointless. The hand to hand combat system makes you want to pound your face into your desk. It’s difficult to beat because the computer opponents cheat and it’s buggy and has poor hit detection. The game seems just to have squandered it’s potential and I can’t help but think how much better it could have been if it were half its size. I would only recommend this game if you absolutely love science fiction and can look over ambitious, shallow and flawed games. I would, however, recommend Deus Ex instead.

Usually I'm quite stubborn when I play videogames Even if sometimes I'm a bit discouraged (when you meet Ornstein & Smough or The Bed Of Chaos in Dark Souls for example) but I keep trying...and succeed. Well most of the times. Omikron made me give up when I tried for 15 minutes to...pull a lever under water. Yes you read that. A LEVER UNDER WATER. Released in 99, this game has worse controls than Tomb Raider. In TR, when you have to activate something under water, if you are close enough, the animation will trigger. Not in this game, even if you are right in front of it. Beside that, the problem of Omikron is the hesitation of what to be : mainly exploration/ enigma oriented, the game also includes terrible hand-to-hand combats (imagine playing Tekken with a keyboard) and atrocious FPS levels (apparently nobody played Doom or Quake at Quantic Dreams -or played it but didn't understand their level design-). The same could be said of the story : it begins with an investigation about a series of gruesome murders in a futuristic (and of course dictatorial) world and quickly shift toward an esoteric gibberish with constant (and not very subtle) reminder that all of this is a videogame. No need to say that you do not really feel involved in the story... If you're looking for story-rich games that stick to their concept and set in a sci-fi universe, System Shock 2 and Deus Ex are waiting for you...