Scorn

This game is very short. It is not forgiving. The ammo and health items are a little on the short side, such that you find yourself relying on melee attacks against enemies that can spit at you. The enemies are little more than bullet sponges, aside from some latter-game enemies. You will run out of ammo quickly The checkpoints are frustratingly infrequent, and you find you sometimes have to repeat the same sections over and over again because you got killed by enemies that always have an advantage over you until you discover how to avoid them. The puzzles are very esoteric sometimes until they click. But if this is not one of the most beautiful games I have ever played in my life, then I do not know what is. Somehow the fact that the game has these problems complements rather than impeeds it. I felt a constant sense of dread and perverse wonder at the world around me. I found that when I was doing these puzzles, although the assets were grotesque and unusual, I could fully understand what was going on. Then there's the level design. I've saved around 20 screenshots of the background and the world around me. When you have a graphics engine that allows the world to breathe and pulsate around you, I find that I had to stop and look at the rotten roses. So if you're looking for a grotesque fps then look elsewhere. This game sucks. If, however, you are looking to get absorbed and digested into a labyrinthian biopunk nightmare where you are tasked with the Sisyphean task of surviving in such a bleak world then I can almost guarantee you will never regret delving deep into this work of art

your time or money, is short and except the design is a bad game

In the middle of a vast, dry, dead waste lie sprawling palaces of towering keratinous walls with abortive fleshy experiments clinging to their bony innards. Ancient biomachinery suggests a now dead civilization, unknowably ancient, but once masters at manipulating life and subjugating it to their industry. With no memory of what has passed, you wake half-buried by dry tendrils and drag yourself forth to--what? There is no one to speak to, no one to explain this crusted, rotting mass of meat-machine surrounding you. There is nothing to do but move forward and avoid death. "Scorn" draws on rich artistic roots for inspiration. Much of the storytelling is left to the imaginative player rather than giving any opinions about why things have become what they are--or even what they are, frankly. Nothing is clear except that the world is ancient and dying. The cavernous ruin you explore is less than yielding in terms of how you get from one place to another, but the means of self-preservation, sight, and moving about are there to be discovered. All told, this relatively brief experience evokes the style of puzzling and exploration of classic gaming titles while presenting everything in a more modern format. The word "horror" is less applicable than "weird", in the sense that Lovecraft used when describing his own fiction. In weird fiction, the horrors and dangers loom silently in the umbral deep rather than jumping out of closets and disemboweling the hapless protagonist. That's how things work here; which is why the game isn't exactly a shooter. Someone may also argue that there are important non-literal takes on the themes of the game that bear discussion. As a consequence, "Scorn" may be the first thing that is considered both a video game and a virtual exhibition of expressionist art. I found that idea very appealing, and the game didn't disappoint in either regard.

My experience with Scorn was mostly comprised of hoping the gameplay part of the game would end so I could get back to absorbing the game's atmosphere. I would say it's an agreeable opinion that combat is not very good, and I believe I can nail that down to the enemy design rather than gunplay. Having seen other people's gameplay experiences it's clear that enemies are easily cheesable (assuming you want to fight them and not just run around them), but in my experience it seems like the enemies were designed in such a way to lead to cheap player deaths, with the 2 heavy enemies spawning in front and behind the player in a narrow hallway being one of the worse examples. How the game handles spawning is almost like Plutonia Experiment, but for a slower-paced fps game. Only time combat felt acceptable was in the game's finale, but even then some might argue that encounter wasn't very intuitive, which I'm inclined to agree. Other than that, if we remove combat from the game I'd argue it's a worthwhile experience. Puzzles are pretty neat, but of course the bread and butter is the world design and atmosphere. Visuals and soundtrack do an excellent job at creating a haunting and macabre world, and the story while esoteric is carried primarily by worldbuilding through your exploration of the decayed ruins of a dead civilization. Story is definitely something I'd be interested in going into further, since on my initial playthrough plenty of symbolism jumped out at me that's worthy of further exploration. Scorn is definitely an art piece, it's understandable that lots of people aren't too happy with that, and the game's store page doesn't help with it's reception. This game is primarily horror game/art piece, puzzle game secondary, and fps tertiary. I think there's immense value in that, but it's worth being aware of what the game is before jumping in.

Good thing I got it through Prime. :P