I really wanted to enjoy this game, it is an artistic masterpiece and the Geiger/Beksinski inspiration is rendered pretty much flawlessly and it is something to behold. Actually playing it though is an onslaught of frustration and tedium. The game is structured in a linear fashion presenting a mix of puzzles and combat to provide meat to the wandering through decaying halls. The puzzles are the better of the two gameplay styles, though they cause problems of their own; each puzzle takes the form of a simple logic test, move the boxes to bring the correct one to a certain point or press the buttons until they all light up are the most common. But while a few have a satisfying context to exist, such as parts of the mechanism are broken meaning youneed to manouver around them, most of them exist on a panel to be interacted with and seem to exist for the sake of being there. In a game where you are intended to immerse yourself in a supposedly once-lived-in world, these puzzles conflict with any sense of logic and fell videogamey. The combat is just terrible. The guns feel OK at best and the melee weapon is just annoying to use. Every so often when killing an enemy in melee your weapon will get stuck in their corpse and you will enter a 10 second where you shake it free, there are only a couple of animations per enemy and you'll see each many times during your playthrough, to add insult to injury the immersion this was supposed to add to is broken if this occurs amidst other foes as they all stop and wait while you shake a corpse about. The three enemies are similarly uninteresting, they all take the form of a shambling fleshy mass that either hits you up close or vomits pain at you. None of them are hard to kite around corners, and that will be your primary means of engagement, though the large melee-only one is capable of comboing you against a wall. Add to this that the asking price is £32 for a five hour game, and you have an utter mess on your hands.
