The thing that got me so interested in the game was that rather than playing the adventure game first person, you actually took control of a massive security system aboard a ship, and guided a female character around to do the work for you... Think of it like FarCry or Red Faction where instead of receiving orders and getting shot at, you are giving the orders and have to keep the girl alive. I do a pretty damn good job as commander in Battlefield 2, so I thought, "Sounds pretty cool."
I had heard of another game doing this before that was reviewed on TechTV, but from what i can remember, that was a console game that used a Microphone and voice recognition, and got horrible reviews. This seems to be brand new this month of February.
Anyway there was virtually no publicity done for this game and no reviews on Amazon.com, so I had to search around on GameFaq's forums and other sites and overall everyone had very positive reviews about the game. I found some videos and screenshots and wasn't crazy about the graphics, since they do look slightly dated and lower budget than something like Crysis (the first thing I noticed were the fact that her feet were modelled box-like such as in the first Hitman game circa 2001).
So overall, the graphics look like something out around 2003, but the shadows and environments make up for the fact. Shadow effects are well done, though there are sometimes graphical glitches, but nothing game-breaking.
I downloaded the demo from the official site:
http://www.experience112.com with good download speeds, it only took me about 20 minutes for a ~650meg file.
Installed the demo with no problems, and ran it.
The main menu is a little weird. Getting stuff configured took some doing, and you have to restart the game to change the resolution. You can customize menu colors with different templates, and you can customize the background wallpaper.
Overall the system reminds me of the game UPLINK, which I also highly recommend if you are interested in this sort of "adventure" where you play the game on your computer simulating another computer system.
Getting started with a new game, we get a cool, but rather too long cutscene of the camera flying around a cliffside at an ocean, and eventually flying around a derelict ship run aground on the beach with foliage covering it. The game then kicks on to the GUI, with 1 window open over the sleeping woman, who just happens to wake up at that moment. She pulls an IV out of her arm, and proceeds to have some inner dialog, spoken out loud, of course, so you know what she's thinking... I figure there's no way around it for game makers to do something like that, but what are ya gonna do? She complains of a headache, and finally notices that the camera is on, so she begins talking to the camera hoping I'm a good guy (as opposed to thinking I took her prisoner like any other movie that parallels this opening scenario like SAW or whatnot
)She helps me get the system online so I have more control... This is what sort of bugged me about the demo (which is in fact the first level of the game)... she talks to me as though she is a standard tutorial, rather than more realistically... I don't know how else to explain it. The whole experience seemed more like I was getting a tutorial than sitting at a computer trying to help a woman who had no idea what was going on. Once again, there's not much the game devs could do anything about it, because I did need her advice to kickstart the game, but I'm guessing things get better once I get stuff done.
Onto the gameplay review and whatnot:
Gameplay reminds me of Uplink, as in you are running a simulated computer system with a map, and various features on a left sidebar you can open... The problem is that it is not organized in the fact that windows tend to overlap each other especially if you are trying to do too many things at once. There are probably options to fix this, but I haven't tried anything yet but the default settings. You make the main character move by turning on lights remotely using the map interface, and you can select cameras by clicking on them. As the game progresses, she unlocks more "abilities" your cameras can do, such as rotating, zooming, and night vision, etc... Overall not too hard, but it can be overwhelming since there are tons of cameras and interactive icons to use that you need her to interact with.
I've heard stories from people that played the real game saying that the game keeps track of your computer clock, so that if you log off of the game, and don't play the game for awhile (half day or a day or more) the main character actually comments when you next play "Hey! I've been waiting here for (length of time such as half a day,etc) for you?! Where have you been!?"
Cool concept if it works.
The sound... The intro "music" was awesome. I start up the game and I hear soothing tones, and a soothing female voice talking as though she was directing me in a guided meditation... Something totally new and unique, I thought. The music is rather generic... Just background ambient music, and there wasn't a whole lot of variation in the demo. Sounds themselves were ok. Not much to hear when you're in a 30+ year old ship. Voice acting wasn't.... bad. I mean I can sort of tell they had to translate this from Dutch or whatever the native language it was in... the sound is clear, but it's just not as good as, say, Half Life 2. Still good, but not great. As I said before, the main character talks out loud more than a real life person would do in such a situation, but like I said, there's no real way around this.
Graphics, not bad, but slightly dated. They have cool and unique effects with the video cameras, including poor video feed and when she shakes the camera, there is distortion as though the cable was loose. Some video feeds are unable to focus, and keep blurring trying to autofocus.
At random intervals at points in the game, the screen will white out after she collapses, and you'll go into a flashback detailing some of what's going on, and the relationships between people.
About the story... Once you gain access to other user accounts, you will be able to read more files into what the whole project involved was about. Apparently, this research group found some sort of sea creature that extracts a chemical that reverses the aging process and heals diseases, but is also toxic, which sort of flubs up any commercial use for it. You get more of the story by unlocking more accounts and reading emails, and memos (sort of like System Shock). A cool but not new way of giving out story plot.
I got through the demo in about an hour or so... Trying to get everything and explore... It takes some getting used to figuring out the camera system, and whatnot, but so far I like the game. I already bought it on Amazon, and it should be in on Friday, whereby I'll give a fuller review whether or not it's worth a purchase.
In the mean time, do check out the website and demo. It's definitely under-marketing, which sucks because these big companies who can afford $$$ for marketing turn out the same old bullsh&t with better graphics, while small companies come out with truly innovative games and are forced to fail due to not having good exposure to the masses.
