Calling it a game somehow doesn't feel one hundred percent right. But who cares? Maybe anti-game is a good term. In any case, a very interesting (anti-)game that is only annoying once towards the end.
Absolutely insane game for 1993 - it's no exaggeration that this inspired many well known filmmakers, hell, a sizeable portion of modern sci-fi cinema in general.
It's a game that can be completed in a single afternoon, but this doesn't lessen it's power.
The CG, prerendered 3d spaces, are all just of mind-blowing beauty. This must have absolutely shocked people back then.
The music, while minimal, creates such an atmosphere of impeding dread and doom. The train is like a percussion instrument, setting the beat for a song of death.
It's effortlessly cinematic. I can see how a lot of those late 90's early 2000's, "trippy" sci-fi flicks were inspired by this (a la the Matrix).
It's interesting: the developers, Synergy, are not really what I would consider to be high profile. At least not in the West. They've made waves before, but with only one other game: "Alice: an Interactive Museum".
They've made some incredibly strange games over the years, such as a a series of Wizard of Oz RPGs (not the one for the DS). Those were this developers final games, IIRC.
It surprises me, because this game just feels like a switch went off in the developers mind, and they decided they were going to knock it out of the park. Not that this developers other games are bad in any respect, in fact I'd say they are all hidden diamonds; just that this game feels like such a culmination of energy and themes that they've worked on in other games. Large, art deco institutions. A weird steampunk/cyberpunk mix with themes of: alienation, the viewing of technology as salvation, and the meaning of huge, kaleidoscopic temples of steel. Haruhiko Shono, and his team are genius for this.
It's a game that can be completed in a single afternoon, but this doesn't lessen it's power.
The CG, prerendered 3d spaces, are all just of mind-blowing beauty. This must have absolutely shocked people back then.
The music, while minimal, creates such an atmosphere of impeding dread and doom. The train is like a percussion instrument, setting the beat for a song of death.
It's effortlessly cinematic. I can see how a lot of those late 90's early 2000's, "trippy" sci-fi flicks were inspired by this (a la the Matrix).
It's interesting: the developers, Synergy, are not really what I would consider to be high profile. At least not in the West. They've made waves before, but with only one other game: "Alice: an Interactive Museum".
They've made some incredibly strange games over the years, such as a a series of Wizard of Oz RPGs (not the one for the DS). Those were this developers final games, IIRC.
It surprises me, because this game just feels like a switch went off in the developers mind, and they decided they were going to knock it out of the park. Not that this developers other games are bad in any respect, in fact I'd say they are all hidden diamonds; just that this game feels like such a culmination of energy and themes that they've worked on in other games. Large, art deco institutions. A weird steampunk/cyberpunk mix with themes of: alienation, the viewing of technology as salvation, and the meaning of huge, kaleidoscopic temples of steel. Haruhiko Shono, and his team are genius for this.
Totally awesome. You hear about this in the same breath as "Guillermo Del Toro" and "The Wachowskis" a lot, in terms of it having an influence on them, and I'm sure that it did - but I'm left with the question: Why aren't there like 1000 games like this? Why can't I get lost down a hole of Gadget-likes? Myst and GARAGE are pretty similar, I suppose. But I want, like... Gadget 2.
There's a dude in this named horselover and every time he was mentioned i could only think of this fucking image
Anyway this game owns! I ❤️Crusty Pre-render's!
Anyway this game owns! I ❤️Crusty Pre-render's!
i was really caught off guard by the amount of biblical references in this, but it's a really cool direction for the sparse dialogue to go in when the rest of the game is so rusted and cold
thank you so much for these human graphics minoru kusakabe, they are so good
thank you so much for these human graphics minoru kusakabe, they are so good
If I ever knew about this back in the '90s, I must have suffered complete amnesia in the interim because I swear, this is brand new to me. (At least this version of me, to clarify the possibilities.) So far I'm 20+ minutes in and I'm already plenty amazed.
Incredible in many ways, and I mean that sincerely despite my rating. A bit fuckin' befuddling that a game released in '93 existed that was anywhere near this level of focused and austere (there's only a single-digit list of games I can think of off the top of my head to call seniors of this). The cacophonous polyrhythms of the industrial soundtrack mixed with the mind-puttying repetition and paranoiac structure to be genuinely as sharp as things that'd arrive Years afterwards (I'm insufferable so Grasshopper's work came to mind. But there's other things, too!!)
However, I didn't find myself engaged in the substance beyond that, unfortunately. There's a through-line of religious allusions, child apparitions, and increasingly bizarre spaces that don't really meld into anything coherently (or incoherently, for that matter) interesting. At the risk of sounding like a philistine, I'm not sure that I even think this game is really trying to be "about" anything in the traditional narrative sense? It's a clever adventure game inversion released in an era that lends it an UBER-evocativeness... sort of perfectly uncanny the whole way down. But, man, it's a bit too slight and unlasting to really be more than a virtual tchotchke. A very, very well crafted one - but one nonetheless.
However, I didn't find myself engaged in the substance beyond that, unfortunately. There's a through-line of religious allusions, child apparitions, and increasingly bizarre spaces that don't really meld into anything coherently (or incoherently, for that matter) interesting. At the risk of sounding like a philistine, I'm not sure that I even think this game is really trying to be "about" anything in the traditional narrative sense? It's a clever adventure game inversion released in an era that lends it an UBER-evocativeness... sort of perfectly uncanny the whole way down. But, man, it's a bit too slight and unlasting to really be more than a virtual tchotchke. A very, very well crafted one - but one nonetheless.
A terrifying anti-adventure game that rips your agency away in front of you. Rather than give you the illusion of freedom, the game drags you unwillingly through suspicious doors and unnatural conversations, deep into an abyss of conspiracy where you're the target. Artfully nightmarish and hostile to the player in a way few games will commit to.
This review contains spoilers
Excellent atmosphere, at times it feels like a dream, love the dialogues and the whole sense of uncertainty that the story has. If we rate this for what it is- an art / interactive media type project, it really nails it.
However the game is really short and I felt it couldn't explore/finish all of its themes and ideas, also I didn't really care for the final sci-fi spaceship sequence, it feels more like something from L-ZONE than Gadget, also it goes on and on for too long, it's like listening to a kid rambling about transfomers.
However the game is really short and I felt it couldn't explore/finish all of its themes and ideas, also I didn't really care for the final sci-fi spaceship sequence, it feels more like something from L-ZONE than Gadget, also it goes on and on for too long, it's like listening to a kid rambling about transfomers.
You can see after beating this why Synergy Interactive had so much cred in the western film scene. Definitely a capital A "Art game," forgoing most gameplay mechanics in favor of surreal atmosphere and storytelling around two decades before it was cool to do so.
The game was never quite as engaging as I wanted it to be story wise and a lot of its threads never quite came together in a way I found satisfying, but I think this game's true strength is faring surprisingly well in the moment to moment. Being in these locations just soaking up the eerie, ambient noise mixed in with brutal industrial music and architecture. Beautiful use of the limitations of computer graphics at the time as well, every human character is just about as uncanny as can be and they knew just how to lean into it.
At only around 2 hours, this is definitely something I'd recommend to anyone willing to give it a try! While I don't think the story ultimately will stick with me much, the tone it sets definitely will.
The game was never quite as engaging as I wanted it to be story wise and a lot of its threads never quite came together in a way I found satisfying, but I think this game's true strength is faring surprisingly well in the moment to moment. Being in these locations just soaking up the eerie, ambient noise mixed in with brutal industrial music and architecture. Beautiful use of the limitations of computer graphics at the time as well, every human character is just about as uncanny as can be and they knew just how to lean into it.
At only around 2 hours, this is definitely something I'd recommend to anyone willing to give it a try! While I don't think the story ultimately will stick with me much, the tone it sets definitely will.