Developer: Storm in a Teacup
Rrp: £15.99 (Gog.com, Humblebundle, Steam and Epic)
This is one of those games that I would call ‘Mid tier’ or ‘AA’ too big and flashy to be considered an indie game but not polished enough to come under the banner of ’ triple A’ (although in recent years there have been so many terribly made and unpolished triple A games that I may have to reconsider the way I classify those games). It’s a bit of a shame really as there is some potential buried inside the game but its just so marred with terrible design choices and to be honest some very dull gameplay.
You play as Rose Archer, an investigative reporter who has been invited to board a ship called the Helios. This ship was built by Nikola Tesla and is a place where scientists can go to research and create without the constraints of government interference. But when Rose arrives she finds that the ship is in terrible shape and something terrible has occurred. If this sounds familiar then you’ve likely played, have watched gameplay of or have heard of Bioshock. Sadly the similarities don’t end there, the ship has a art deco design to it, making it very reminiscent of Bioshock’s Rapture and as you play Nikola Tesla will speak to you in a manner similar to Andrew Ryan.
All of this wouldn’t be so bad in itself. But the games controls are stiff, I used a mouse and keyboard and even when I cranked the in game settings for the mouse to maximum turning still felt sluggish. Your character can’t jump worth a damn and when she does jump she often stops moving for a second which just feels odd.
I wanted to like this game I really did but everything it did was just not as good as a game that was released in 2007 (and has had a remaster since then) and that is only £9.99 compared to the £15.99 being asked for by Close to the Sun. To top it all off the game only lasts about 6 hours and without wishing to spoil anything, has quite an unsatisfying conclusion.
There is one thing I can say about it though, its very pretty. But that is the most positive thing I can say.
