I've now tried several games from the people behind Gothic 2. Including Gothic, Risen, Elex, and of course this game. In every case, the controls are atrocious. Like Bethesda has always had a problem of creating terrible looking characters (though they've improved), this developer has never been able to create an intuitive control system that isn't clunky, making playing any of their games an exercise in frustration. Do they exist in a bubble? Do they not realize control schemes in games have been very well honed and refined over the years? Why do they insist on creating these otherwise great games, and then ruining them with awful controls? I don't get it.
DARQ seems to be following the trend of many puzzle games these days where obscurity for obscurity's sake is the game's core concept. Puzzle-solving should not first require figuring out what even is supposed to be a puzzle, never mind what it is you're supposed to be solving. ::::SPOILER:::: Example: you come up to a device that comes out of the "ceiling". There's a series of square and rectangle blocks, and a large block with a key symbol on it. It's very early in the game, so not much has been established yet, certainly nothing to do with keys or moving blocks. I had no idea what that thing was. Kept trying to use the key block. Couldn't. Thought a key was required to use it and went hunting for one. That wasn't it, either. After becoming frustrated, I started randomly tapping arrows and mouse buttons on the thing without purpose or plan, and one of the tiles moved. Discovering how something works on accident isn't gratifying at all. Providing a simple clue on how it works would have been simple. Have a smaller block fall or slide when it first descends. This would show "oh, these things move", and then a player has an idea of at least what you can *do* and where to start, and then figure it out from there. :::::END SPOILER::::: I got past that point and quickly ran into another dead end because, again, the game provides no clues or indications of what kind of interactions are possible. Everything has to be figured out by random guessing which, again, is not gratifying. Better luck on the next game, but this one falls short for me.
I'm a big fan of Point-And-Click games. I love solving puzzles. The catch is, I want to feel like *I'm* the one solving the puzzle, that I'm figuring it out via logic and rules of the game world, and that the solution makes sense. Further, I'd like to have an idea of what the puzzle even is. Stasis fails at all of this. Solutions to some puzzles seemed completely arbitrary. There was no "a-ha, that makes sense" moment upon solving them. I didn't even realize In some cases, I was solving puzzles' til I'd solved them, and then didn't know what they were for. I will say the game is nice looking. Lots of ambience in the world and graphics, etc. The sound-effects clearly lifted from Alien and other movies was kinda cheesy and lazy, though.
I remember being excited for this after having so much fun with the original Unreal. What I was hoping for was a return to the original world, Na Pali, to see what had become of the planet and its inhabitants since the end of the original. Instead we got this weird mish-mash of detached levels and uninteresting characters, paper-thin plot and uninspired level design. It feels like the classic "hand-off" from a developer to a different dev to handle the sequel, so they can move on to stuff they're more interested in. They get to cash in on the success of the original with a sequel, without actually having to develop it themself. Could call it having their cake and eating it, too. I thought maybe, with enough time away from the game, that coming back to it with fresh eyes would leave me with a different opinion. Nope. Still the same uninspired disappointment I remembered. As with the first time, I got caught up in the environment way too much during intense fights. When constant movement, strafing and avoiding is critical, it's a really bad idea for the battlefield to be riddled with obstacles you can get caught up on or trapped in. This made encounters that might otherwise be intense and enjoyable aggravating and unsatisfying. Too bad the original team didn't work on this. It could have turned out so much better.
I've tried to enjoy this game, many times. I bought it when it was still new, and still have the original game discs. I haven't made it past the 'save the smarties' part because the controls are just too frustratingly *bad* for me to get past that bit.
