The best part of this game is that it was nothing like I expected. At some point I gave up expecting anything, which actually helped me fully enter the character and try my best. In fact, I only intended to try it out, but the world was so interesting, the story so captivating and the characters so realistic that I got hooked until completion LOL This is no horror game, rather a sci-fi thriller. Thanks to the reviews that recommended to play in easy mode, I could focus on the story, not struggling with the mutants which, really, are one of the least important parts of this odyssey. The world is detailed and, although not an open world game, it feels huge. The puzzles really make sense, they feel necessary, there is no gibberish to sort out just for the sake of it. That in a few words, trying to avoid spoilers. The narrative is very consistent, things make sense along the way. There is no rush to explain you anything, nor absurd and unnecessary "mystery". Things start making sense just like in real life. There are no silly weirdo evil masterminds who prepared a big surprise for you at the end, unless you view them like that, depending on your personality. The characters are common sense, this is refreshing. The only thing I found a bit annoying is this tendency, fashionable these days, to force too many female characters in the important engineering roles. It feels a bit unrealistic, though not impossible, in particular considering the time and setting of the story. I read complaints about the inconsistency of the main character's reactions, in particular in respect to the decisions that the player takes. I didn't find that to be the case, the character maintains his personality across the game and it has its comic streak. The ending is priceless, and could not happen otherwise. That's when I knew it was better this way, haha! The philosophical ideas in it are not new to me, but it was fascinating to immerse in this world where they become palpable.
I enjoyed B1 and Infinite, this one is more of a B1 fetish fest. I could not play it more than a few minutes. It screamed to my face "let us put together everything memorable from B1, a lot of it, and mix it together". No mystery, no immersion, it is as infantile as if some kids asked their entertainer to give them big daddies, little sisters and make a game out of it. A Bioshock themed shooter. You are overwhelmed with everything at once from the start, characters, splicers, logs in a big mess you can't even follow. The logs come from very different characters with cliche agendas, all crammed together in that random place you start in. I am not a purist, I wanted to like it, but this is not for me.
I wanted to like it, but I can tell when a game will catch me from the beginning, and this is not one of them. It tries to force on you a pseudo romanticism that one may accept, but it fails from the ground up with the anachronism of your character who is looks like a Millenial lumberjack type with a modern voice. It lacks substance, I definitely don't feel that Victorian vibe. The environment is somewhat simplistic and the progress too scripted for my taste. It is completely arbitrary what ways you can access and what objects you can interact with. Movement is terrible, the controls and the in-game menus are a mess - to me, it looks like someone wanted to add many features to a game, not having a vision in mind that they wanted to make a game from. The sound and visuals are good, though.
