Posted on: November 13, 2023
Everkeeper
Verified ownerGames: 667 Reviews: 4
Great adaptation of a classic book
"The Invincible" is by far my favourite Lem's book and from the first announcement of this game I've been waiting anxiously for the moment I'd be able to play it. Now over three years later it can be safely said that the game delivered on it's promise of respectful yet creative interpretation of the source material, with only a few small issues in tow. It should be cleared up from the start what this game is not: it is not, nor it ever aimed to be, anything like “No Man’s Sky” or “Starfield”, games which emphasise to varying degree exploration of large, open worlds. “The Invincible” is closer to titles like “Medium” or “The Vanishing of Ethan Carter” – a linear, narrative-driven experience with quite a lot of dialogue and scripted sequences and not much in the way of exploration, inventory management or anything of the sort. It’s slow, methodical, but while constrained it brilliantly conveys the scale and inhospitality of an alien world, something no game I’ve ever played managed to do so well. The retro-futuristic “Atompunk” style and the lack of hi-tech gadgets reinforce the experience which aligns perfectly with the book’s tone. I won’t spoil anything regarding the plot because that would basically be ruining the experience for anyone wishing to play it, suffice it to say then that Starward Industries chose to tell the original story from a different perspective and add to the Lem’s universe with their own characters and subplots, and from what I’ve seen so far it all seems to have turned out pretty well. There are some minor technical issues like very poor DLSS support (only “Auto” mode with horrible smearing) and some glitches with FSR 2.2, a few patches of weird geometry and an odd low-resolution texture here and there - one star off for that, with the hopes of a patch soon. Overall though the game is pretty well made and works nicely even on lower-mid tier hardware like RTX 2060 SUPER and R7 2700x. All in all – a fantastic hard sci-fi experience!
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