I just noticed this game as I was on YouTube and skimming GameInformer's videos. The little image to the video looked like a horror game so I clicked it. Horror games have been good to me this year, with RE7, Outlast 2, and replaying The Evil Within. As I watched only a few minutes, I noticed it was a cyberpunk, which I love. I didn't think I had seen the game before, but when it showed Rutger Hauer, I realized I had seen an image of it a couple of weeks ago and just assumed it was going to be a bad game. Now I am totally interested in it! It also seems to be reviewing well too (well, at least on GameInformer and GameSpot, which is all I've checked so far). It seems I have another game to get this year. I've really been into horror and cyberpunk recently, so this coincidentally blending both together is good timing. Was anyone else unaware of this game, or is this a game you've been waiting for? Are you interested now?

Oh shoot, I saw this trailer! Man... I guess it was kind of forgettable, which is ironic.

I did a thing and began watching a preview LP of this...and then kinda watched all of it, so I guess I'm not picking it up to play personally, because the hook is the narrative.

That said, it seemed like a little more elaborate Layers of Fear. The story was interesting enough the whole way through and the "hacking" sequences were mostly effective and visually creative though I was a little bummed that the game outside most of those sequences takes place inside a couple of apartment buildings. Some of the UI stuff really reminded me of the Syndicate, which probably makes this the closest thing we'll ever get as a "sequel" to that game. Or maybe there's hope if this game, RUINER and Cyberpunk 2077 really set the gaming world on fire. One can hope at least...

The thing that bothered me the most was the voice acting. Rutger himself delivers a decent performance, while the rest of the cast consists of ok, campy and kinda terrible actors. It especially irked me a bit more as I was playing Hellblade and the audio/voicework in that is amazing.

I am playing it right now, the game is actually pretty sweet. I am not normally one for a story-focused adventure game, but this seems to be scratching an itch I didn't know I had.

@monetarydread: From what I understand, you don't do much interacting with the game aside from walking around? Is it a walking simulator? I don't really have an issue with that if so. I kind of assumed it be more of a horror game though (maybe not running away from things, but hiding at least).

@glots: Yeah, that's a reason why I immediately thought the game looked bad when I saw the trailer, but it was because of Rutger Hauer's voice work, which was just kind of gravely and bland, a lack of tonal shifts. I heard the voice work was terrific though from reviews. I'll have to check the game out myself. Going to go in pretty much blind; I've only seen the first couple of minutes as he sat in the car.

... Eh. Getting this I feel like I should probably get Hellblade too.

@ntm: It definitely wasn't terrible the whole way through, but I wouldn't go for terrific either. Fortunately most of the lackluster VA happens during the first few hours.

If you played Horizon, you can expect the same level of, uh...acting as with some of the NPCs there. Not bad enough to make your ears bleed, but still enough to make you wonder if the devs had to tighten up the budget and did some of the voices themselves...

I want to be interested in playing this. But I think I want to take a break from games where I read other people's emails...

@glots: Nope, the voice work isn't good. Well, to me it's not 'bad' really, it's just not fitting one bit. It sounds like it comes from a Saturday morning cartoon. And yeah, I don't like Ruger Hauer's gravely voice in it. I'm playing it, and I don't know... it's okay so far? The rundown, sci-fi apartment building design is okay and the visuals aside from the chugging frame rate on PS4 is decent. I'm not far in, so I'll have to see how it turns out, but so far I'm neither loving or hating it. The sound effects are loud, and some of it, like when going into one of the different vision types is kind of scratchy sounding. I also bought Hellblade, so that game is next. I played Horizon, the voice work is better in that game than it is here.

Yes. I've been playing it for an hour or so and the atmosphere and story delivery so far is pretty great.

Very cyberpunk and I've definitely been pulled in to the game already.

Looking forward to putting some more time into it this evening

@ntm: Horizon's voice work as a whole definitely beats it, but it also had those few actors who would've been more at home in a cartoon, as you mentioned, or in a trashy b-movie.

Not surprised by the framerate, sadly. That became borderline annoying with SOMA, when I played that on PS4...and with every other "walking simulator" really, but I'm not gonna derail on that further.

Finished the game in the afternoon around one today. The game was okay. I liked the surrealism of things (some moments reminding me of MGS2's end with the Campell dialogue). The sound crackling in spots, especially in one part where it even made the voices slightly slowed so it made the characters sound somewhat drunk was bad. It's a weird thing though because while it didn't sound good, I don't know if it was intentional or not because the game is full of intentional glitch like moments in the story. The voice acting from just about everyone aside from some of the central characters (though sadly not Rutger Hauer) was barely even decent sounding; they sounded like they came out of a Saturday morning superhero cartoon or something, but mixing in vulgarity. I wished the game ran more smoothly too. Otherwise, it was a really good looking game. The frame rate was often chugging (though had moments where it seemed to be running at 60fps), and the environmental loading was sometimes annoying where I also originally thought it was an intentional thing.

What I mean by that is that simple doors that you can go through wouldn't open immediately, so the icon that shows you can open a door would spin in circles as it loads the other side. I had assumed early on that it was part of the story, but it's not. The story was okay and dealt with some moral choices, and ambiguous choices depending on how you assume what one character meant in the end, and so technically there is no good or bad ending in my opinion. The world was also okay, but not quite as good a cyberpunk world as I would hope to see. It's basically the setting of the scene in Blade Runner where Deckard takes out the replicant snake skin from the bathtub, just spread out through the whole game, but it has just enough variety in the look and with what you're doing in the game that it wasn't much of an issue. The game is a little longer than I was expecting, at about seven hours perhaps. I'm not quite sure, but that seems about right. Lastly, the game, while not that tense or scary certainly had creepy moments here and there. It may even come as a surprise when or if you die because it plays largely like a walking sim, but it's a little more than that, where you have to sneak at points or run away similar to most horror games.

This won't be going down as one of my favorite games this year, unfortunately, but it wasn't bad. I wish it was fifteen bucks instead. I should note that I played it on the PS4, which is probably why there were those major visual and sound issues, but I believe I wouldn't love the game even if those things were gone, but it'd certainly be a bit more enjoyable to play. Alright, next is Hellblade.

I just picked it up last night, gonna play it with my wife watching, put a couple hours in so far and its pretty fun.

I'd echo this take and add that this game pretty successfully and competently nailed the things that it went for, but ultimately didn't go anywhere exceptional. There's a lot of conceptual and thematic similarity to SOMA going on in >observer_ and although I really appreciated the Blade Runner influenced cyberpunk world setting of >observer_ , there's more to the SOMA experience overall. That said, I finished this and I didn't finish SOMA; perhaps because this only clocks in at ~8hrs.

I played this on Xbox One and like the PS4 version, I think it'd be fair to say that some of the sections are weirdly unoptimised in terms of frame rate, especially considering that for the most part the dips occur in close-quarter locations of the kind where you wouldn't usually expect to see problems. In other areas, the frame rate seems to be a solid 60fps. Odd but ultimately doesn't detract from the experience too much.

>observer_ is definitely a game I'd consider as having been worth my time playing but ultimately felt a little disappointing just because the early game setting felt so absorbing and the initial intrigue it created was correspondingly very high. It isn't sustained. As the story plays out, certain plot developments and inferences made by the protagonist didn't feel earned, and character reactions to environmental and narrative developments didn't really resonate.

>observer_ is a walking simulator (with 2 forms of detective vision added on). This limitation to gameplay could well have been a design decision but I would have liked there to have been more to it than there was. The main twist on the standard walk around and look at stuff activity, being a 'hide from the monster' dynamic. While this added to tension initially, it was very overplayed (and nothing more than an irritation to be endured) by the end of the game.

@extintor: SOMA was fantastic. I loved that game; it is one of my favorite games of that year, and I think you should definitely finish it unless you already know the things that happen in it by watching it on YouTube or something (as opposed to reading about it). The length between SOMA and Observer aren't that different. I agree that Observer has a similar theme, though SOMA does a better job at making me empathize and think about the subject matter. The setting in SOMA, the theme, and how it uses the end of the world as a way of showing the theme was really effective. As for the whole hide and run sequences in Observer, I didn't mind them. The only one that was a slightly annoying was the bit where you hide in the grass. The game is so much a walking sim that when the possibility of death comes up, it can come as a surprise. I had intentionally run into an enemy to see if it was true that you could die.

I fucking loved it. Little to heavy on the surreal dream sequences and not enough of the tower block, which is a phenomenonal space, but I had a fantastic time with it. Very much a game that I'm willing to forgive a lot of its flaws because the style and atmosphere focus on what I think cyberpunk does really well.

@ntm: I got very close to the end of SOMA and it has been so long now I think I'd be better served by watching the last hour or so on youtube.

SOMA has multiple characters, some of whom you develop empathy and sympathy for. It has a more convincing narrative arc, partly because the characters are better written than >observer_ overall (although I do quite like the janitor character). Much of what we understand about the relationship between the protagonist of >observer_ and his son for instance is derived from interogative memory sequence 'bleed-over' here and there. It is somewhat effective but doesn't really establish enough about their relationship in the context of where the story ultimately goes.

I picked it up over the weekend and put about 6 hours into it.

It's pretty great but BUGGY.

I fell through the environment in two different levels and one of them I could replicate at will in a certain area. I even captured a video of it. Also, there was the moment when you attach a thing to another thing and press a thing, as soon as the animation of the result of those things started, crashed to desktop the first run through, had to reload the game then it got passed that part fine.

Overall cool though.

I think the game's goddamn fantastic, so far. I really like Hauer's acting, actually. I think he's actually an okay voice actor, given the way his character is supposed to be. I really like his beaten down, barely-giving-a-shit (but in a good way) delivery; whether that's because he's consciously "gravelling" up his voice or that's just how he sounds - whatever, it worked for me. Maybe I'm just forgiving 'cause I love "old and taking none of your shit" detective character types.

The thing I like best about this game's style, and what I hope will get it in the running for the coveted STYYYYYYYLE GOTY category is the Blade Runner/Alien theory of the future which says that the future isn't going to be any cleaner or sleek than now. It's going to be the same, grimy world, just with a little cooler tech. Unless you're rich, which of course has always been true. That interpretation was always appealing to me.

One thing I'll say to anyone curious who isn't already playing (or who is and hasn't found this): find Paulina. I don't know if all the sidequests are expected to be on the caliber of that one, but it's my personal favorite so far. Up there with some of the top sidequests of Automata, I think.

Expected a QL lead by Brad, but I doubt that's happening at this point anymore.

Because he is leaving, right?

Well, the game's already about a week old, which is an eternity these days...

...but of course we do know the real reason.

@extintor: Being honest, the thing I felt saddest over, or where I cared most for something that was going on in the game was killing the pig in Observer. The side task where it had a guy working on body parts illegally for those that needed them, in the end of that mission where his tests were on the garage floor. I felt bad for the pig so I put it out of its misery.

@poobumbutt: The Paulina side quest was... okay. I was disappointed by there being little payoff, in any of the side quests really. It just came to a moral decision, and then that's that, onto the main stuff. It may have been one of the creepiest looking/sounding parts in the game in my opinion, though what you did in it wasn't that interesting.

@retrometal: Are you referring to the moment when you walk into a bedroom with music playing on the radio (which you have to turn the dial on) and then a gate closes off? If so, the moment I was done with that scene if you will, the game froze on me and I had to quit the game. This was the second time trying it, as I had left after that scene was over the first time to take my dog for a walk earlier in the day. I played it three times which was annoying. To me, that was not really 'buggy', but going hand-in-hand with the bad load times and probably why the frame rate sucked in moments. I guess you can call it a bug.

I've finished it. I think it's a good evolution from the developers previous game (Layers of Fear), but still has quite a mod'ish feel to it (clunky controls, re-used assets, bugs). IMO it's main problem is that the game's core gimmick ('The Cell' style brain jacking) is really underdeveloped. Those sequences don't really expand beyond being overly drawn-out Layers of Fear'esque fun-houses that reveal the code to a keypad at the end. Simmilarly, the 'synch levels' and synchrozine injecting/management has no function asside from making the blurry screen effect go away.

So three star territory for me, but if the developer keeps this pace of evolution game-to-game then the next one by these guys should be one to watch out for.

I thought this game was fantastic. It nailed the aesthetic. I have never seen better dream sequences in a game. The environmental story telling was great. I really loved the world and wanted to explore every piece of that tenant building. It is definitely not for everybody.

The bad:

The game is also borderline unplayable at some parts on xbox one because of the frame rate. Also, ran into three bugs that made me reload.

The ending sequence went on too long.

4/5 really want Alex and Vinny to do a QL

I loved the atmosphere and really wanted to love the game. Problem is that it felt like yet another spooky horror house, just like their last game. Way too much walking forward to trigger spoopy moments, way too many cliches. The PT tribute was way too on the nose. The best part of the game is the first time you "jack-in" and then nothing ever compares.

@ntm: Am almost finished with this game and absolutely love it. Hope this is the beginning of a series, would love to come back to this world.

It looks interesting, but I can't help feeling like it will be on sale sometime in October, and I'm not really starving for games to play right now.