Omikron: The Nomad Soul

... the pharmacies... long streets to walk or taking a taxi... training with the robot... the concert, of course... my first heavy fight against a killingmachine of a robot... that i had to try 14 times before I finally succeeded in leaving the factory within 15 minutes... how long it took until I at last accepted the hell of a save-system... Wasn´t there a possibility to fight for money, too? - I did not finish the game in 1999, and the last time I tried it, it always crashed when I used the map (and you need the map!). I waited to see it on gog.com - and here it is! Wonderful! Finally I can go back to Omikron and finish what I started!

game. As a kid all I could afford was the demo and I thought this has to be the best game ever made, but I could never play it. 23 yrs later I can, and how could I even judge it other than through the lenses of nostalgia? The first half of the game is pretty good, some weird puzzles typical of that era, weird controls but you get used to them. Fighting becomes fun after a while. I guess the biggest standout is the atmosphere, and just that late 90s vibe that games don't have anymore. Best part for me though, is that I can file like that 14 yr old kid again, I can even smell it

...and also one of the best. You'll need to do a lot of troubleshooting to fix keyboard issues but it's well worth it. You could also just use a controller, I guess. The game's overly-ambitious, featuring gameplay present from multiple different genres (FPS, fighting games, puzzle platformers) and a soundtrack that I really wish was modernized because of the abysmal bitrate of the audio. The technical jank is well worth getting over, though. There isn't much else to say, since pretty much every gameplay aspect from the saving to the obtuse nature of the world is justified in-universe and a significant spoiler. The absurdist "it's not a game" elements are cringey for some, but imo they make the game way more interesting when it comes to certain, later revelations about the antagonist and their goals. In a way it's a more interesting precursor to creepypastas like Sonic.EXE, and that's all I'll say.

It is hard to describe this game. It's a 3rd person action/adventure game with some awkward first person shooter thrown in (for unknown reason to me). But it has a look and feel that is un-mistakenly futuristic and otherworldly much like Dreamfall. You can easily get lost in this games world. I don't remember the story so much as I do the visual and sounds but this is one of a handful of games I have played from start to finish 3 times or more. Plus it has great music from David Bowie (and some in game concerts to boot from Bowie's in game alter ego). This game reaches way beyond and bring back something worthwhile. Quantic Dream really needs to modernize this game.

I played the game when it was first released back in 2000 and enjoyed every moment of it. The story, the soundtrack, the conversations, the gameplay together create an unseen merge of genres which sets this game among my top-five games ever played.