Games like this prove the validity of Games as a serious medium for Art while simultaneously revealing the blandness of the average AAA-Title.
The game looks beautiful, more beautiful than many pre-rendered cutscenes just a few years ago and I have not encountered any technical issues.
On the gameplay: The fights just look stunning and build an incredibly dramatic athmosphere that gets your adrenaline up and the heart racing. I would say that the fights are easily the most engaging I can recall in any recent game. I did, however, need a few minutes to get used to the controls and the camera angle. The mechanics do a good job of transporting the theme of psychosis, such as the excessive pattern seeking represented by Senua having to find rune shapes in the game world - And these runes can be anywhere: The walls, the ground, in the Trees... The puzzles are not very challenging but often carry metaphoric meaning and are enjoyable as such, at least to me.
Athmosphere/Theme: I will avoid spoilers, but as you can tell from the trailers, the game and its story are dark and dealing with psychosis. The voices in Senua's head are arguing, bickering, encouraging and disparaging. They will comment on your actions and what is going on around you, sometimes giving you advice, sometimes just putting Senua down. In other games, you experience the game world through the character that you play, but Senua's Sacrifice succeeds in putting you inside the head of Senua. You know what she is thinking and feeling, you witness her fear and her confusion, which helps suck you into the game and the character. Instead of making the character an in-game extension of you, you become the real world extension of Senua. At times the game is a cross between heartbreaking and uplifting. One of the strongest moments to me was when Senua screams at her demons: "I will not let you kill me." Dang girl!
All in all it took me 15 hours to finish, so it is not a very long game by current standards.
