I read all the reviews prior to buying it, thinking I would give it a try as I usually love a good adventure game and saw promise. The brief time played before nausea made me stop was intriguing. Pros: nice immersive atmosphere, the lack of music really brought home you were on an island somewhere. The first time I got caught outside at nite with nothingm but my lighter was pretty unsettling. Quickly I was caught up in exploration, viscerally felt the hills and slides when I tumbled. All that was good stuff. Cons: The camera shaking for whatever reason, fever fugue... illness etc combined with regular mouse steering promptly made me want to hug the toilet bowl. Point of view was forever out of sync with camera view and for this reason alone I have to delete the game as unplayable. The short time I played it already was becoming obnoxious that I could only hold a couple of flowers. You have to be kidding me right? I read that complaint in other reviews but thought it would not be that big a deal. It is. When you are exploring, have no idea where you are and come across some herb that you need but cant pick it up due to having your limit was really irritating, knowing that you may have a hard time even finding the area again. I have no idea why the devs went with that decision, perhaps to extend gameplay time? strange as they really tried to make the game as realistic as possible and in that mind it would be easy for the character to make a basket or use bits of cloth for a bag.. whatever for storage. the saves. or lack of them. I detest save points. Having to redo exploration and research because I couldnt find a lamp to light is .. well... retarded. lack of any instructions to read prior to the event happening. would be nice to know key bindings or some introduction instead of waiting for it to trigger some brief tutorial. so basically, I ignored all the negative reviews as I liked the look and premise of the game...to my detriment.
Art: fantastic. Quick time movies: fun and immersive. Music: innovative Interface: sucks big time. Overly complicated and inaccurate mouse targeting make this game a lesson in patience. Multiple mouse icons add to confusion whether its a puzzle, a interest point or whatever. The icon changes on a drop making a fussy, hot mess when all you want to do is explore the area. Add in the fact that you cant fast forward the incessant voice over taunts from the protagonist which happen whenever you click an indicated hotspot. In effect, gameplay becomes repeated voice taunts because the mouse keeps indicating an interactable hotspot by a grasping hand icon, used in every other point and click to indicate pick up/interact action but in this game you dont even get immersion text. the music is wonderful... too bad its too loud to hear the actual dialog. the idea for using a digital notebook for user settings and other functions was innovative but in actuality is another mess, with unfathomable buttons/functions, one just ends up clicking anything to see what happens. there is a hint button, not a clue what that does, so far just says arcane sayings with no references. all in all lots of promise but fails in the end with overly complicated user interface which does the primal sin of removing immersion from actual gameplay. skip buying it, watch a 'lets play video' instead off the internet
System Shock came as a freebie disc in my adventure game pack back in the day. I popped this sucker in after playing those casual relaxing games, curious as to what this first person shooter thing was all about. Within 5 minutes I was screaming out loud and sweating. Thus my introduction to scary shooters began. This was the holy grail of games to me, what immersion was all about. To this day I still hear those cursed freaky monkeys stalking me and get a lump of empathetic pity all the other ship crew who didnt run fast enough to survive, dying alone and backed into corners. Will I get this from GOG and see if the magic returns... probably not. It is rare that one can return to an old game and not have that wonderful memory tarnished by dated graphics and game mechanics. But those that dont mind all that I would recommend this game.
two stars for what story i saw and charming music. just spent an hour mashing different buttons in order to get anything to move let alone work. Then I find out its a platformer, which I abhor (the idea of spending half an hr just trying to go upstairs in order to explore is not fun for me), with a clunky save system so you basically end up running back and forth between saves or risk losing a half hour progress due to falling or some such nonsense. I liked the graphics and enjoyed what story I could see before losing patience with the game and deleting it. Dont understand the philosophy that unless an entertainment medium is painful its not worth playing. this is supposed to be fun, not frustrating, repetitive or aggravating entertainment. skip this freeware game unless you enjoy platforming, no menu, no key commands (for ex. under options, it helpfully states to use the attack key to attack, the jump key to jump and so on.. never once saying what keys those are) or how to even use objects in inventory. trial and error found movement was left/right arrow, but jump was the x key, use was the a, up arrow for dialogue/reading? i dont know. you get my drift? clunky controls to say the least. esc doesnt even take you out of the game. Sometimes nostalgia can use a quick kick in the pants in just plain user interface capability and for those that nay say and call me an adhd kid of the day, I say to them to remove their hair shirts and get on with life.
