I wanted to like this more, since it has a lot going for it - good sounds, interesting premise, ability to drive or walk. I was pleased at the extensive options at the start (so I could turn off motion blur, bloom, grainy filter etc) and redefine keys. Unfortunately, the tooltips still showed the old keys, and I found the controls for different things a bit clunky - keys for read, for interact, for drop, for pick up, for use (turns out you have to hold it down for that). I kept having to check what I'd defined that control as, and even then I had trouble getting out of some screens if I didn't use escape on the other side of the keyboard. The options were also clunky to set - I clicked on one to change it, and it went red, which I assumed meant disabled. But that didn't work. Then I tried the arrows next to the option. That didn't work. You have to click on it THEN use the arrows. Why not just have a simple toggle box for each option?
It was the narration that stopped it being a 4 star game for me. As you walk around a voice comments on your actions in the third person. You have no idea who is speaking, or why, and your character seems to ignore it. But not only was it a huge distraction, the things said were often stupid, or apparent attempts to be comic. I would be in a creepy building, listening for noises, then suddenly a voiceover would make a comment about tidiness or whatever. Moodkill. There may be a setting to turn it off, but obviously the first time you play you don't know how relevant/good/useful it might be, so leave it - and before long the excitement and tension of the opening scenario has been lost by silliness. At that point I didn't feel like continuing. I have no idea what the point of the voiceover is, but it is counterproductive. Imagine playing System Shock, and as you did things a laconic voice suddenly said "And at that point Goggles decided he really should have done a course in engineering" or somesuch.
Without the narrator: 4*; if I'd completed the game, maybe 5*.
