An odd experience to be sure, but a welcome one.
Cyberpunk is not really a theme I am usually too interested in, but Observer's heavy dystopian take on it was honestly really cool. Being stuck in a lockdown of an apartment complex trying to solve a mystery (or a few) is a good concept, and I appreciate the freedom that is given to explore the environment. Using the bio and tech scanners along with some intuition to figure things out was a familiar but welcome concept.
Of course, the title also hints toward another way the game lets you discover things which is exploring people's minds. This is definitely an interesting component, but it leans far too heavy into the abstract for my personal tastes. It is usually not too difficult to understand the point of what is being shown, but it's surrounded by a ton of shit that is just weird for the sake of being weird. Also, you could repeat that exact same sentence replacing "weird" with "scary" because this is also a horror game I guess? I think it could have done without both of those things and stood even higher, but I still enjoyed my time.
Cyberpunk is not really a theme I am usually too interested in, but Observer's heavy dystopian take on it was honestly really cool. Being stuck in a lockdown of an apartment complex trying to solve a mystery (or a few) is a good concept, and I appreciate the freedom that is given to explore the environment. Using the bio and tech scanners along with some intuition to figure things out was a familiar but welcome concept.
Of course, the title also hints toward another way the game lets you discover things which is exploring people's minds. This is definitely an interesting component, but it leans far too heavy into the abstract for my personal tastes. It is usually not too difficult to understand the point of what is being shown, but it's surrounded by a ton of shit that is just weird for the sake of being weird. Also, you could repeat that exact same sentence replacing "weird" with "scary" because this is also a horror game I guess? I think it could have done without both of those things and stood even higher, but I still enjoyed my time.
Didn't love this game but got through it. It was just too strange for me.
Was extremely surprised on how much I enjoyed this game
I find it has a pacing problem as the game kind of dumps the most important details of the story literally nearing the end of the game. Furthermore, while the game does remind you that it has a lot of flashing lights, I think it's still a little too much for my eyes to handle.
The highlight is definitely the side quests as they explain enough of the time and place settings.
My feeling overall is neutral. It's a good cyberpunk thriller with horror elements, but has pacing problem. Would not recommend this at all to anyone who has photosensitivity and epilepsy/seizure, though.
The highlight is definitely the side quests as they explain enough of the time and place settings.
My feeling overall is neutral. It's a good cyberpunk thriller with horror elements, but has pacing problem. Would not recommend this at all to anyone who has photosensitivity and epilepsy/seizure, though.
the best of bloobers work, still not amazing
A pretty good sci-fi horror experience. It's got tons of body and existential horror, with some genuinely disturbing imagery and ideas at play, and some actually terrifying sequences - mostly due to excellent sound design. I really enjoyed the investigative elements in the beginning and then the slow descent into madness that occurs over the course of the game.
The only downside is the forced stealth sections, which reminded me quite unfondly of the demon sequences from Murdered: Soul Suspect (for the five people who actually played and remember that game). I get that there has to be some kind of stakes, but those sections just felt very lazy and tacked on. Even the monster's visual cone is a lie as sometimes they spot you poking 1cm out of a corner and other times they can walk right past you without a care in the world.
Overall though, I had a good experience with this. It's a blend of different cyberpunk stories and ideas, but it was well executed. We got some Bladerunner, we got some Cyberpunk, it was a nice grab bag of references and technologies. I haven't played Layers of Fear, just because it looked like a pretty generic PT-inspired horror experience, but after going through this game, I might just have to check those out as well.
The only downside is the forced stealth sections, which reminded me quite unfondly of the demon sequences from Murdered: Soul Suspect (for the five people who actually played and remember that game). I get that there has to be some kind of stakes, but those sections just felt very lazy and tacked on. Even the monster's visual cone is a lie as sometimes they spot you poking 1cm out of a corner and other times they can walk right past you without a care in the world.
Overall though, I had a good experience with this. It's a blend of different cyberpunk stories and ideas, but it was well executed. We got some Bladerunner, we got some Cyberpunk, it was a nice grab bag of references and technologies. I haven't played Layers of Fear, just because it looked like a pretty generic PT-inspired horror experience, but after going through this game, I might just have to check those out as well.
Platform: PlayStation 5
Date Started: October 23rd, 2023
Date Finished: October 25th, 2023
Time Played: 4 Hours
"This is hopeless."
In the grand scheme of things, isn't all that often that I play a game that I actively really dislike, and it's even more infrequent that I play a game that I actively hate - sadly, Observer: System Redux is one of those few.
I've had this one sitting on my shelf for a couple of years, always meaning to get round to it, and I thought that now would be a perfect time - a short horror game to fit in right before the Halloween season ends. Unfortunately, though, it just didn't resonate with me on any level, and an hour in I couldn't wait for it to end.
The premise seemed interesting initially, but the story quickly became completely uninteresting to me with its pretentious and tiring execution and boring characters, and I found the exhausting, laborious game-play to be a true chore.
There isn't all that much I have to say about this one beyond the fact that I just didn't like it at all, though, and I'm glad to have finished it so quickly!
Date Started: October 23rd, 2023
Date Finished: October 25th, 2023
Time Played: 4 Hours
"This is hopeless."
In the grand scheme of things, isn't all that often that I play a game that I actively really dislike, and it's even more infrequent that I play a game that I actively hate - sadly, Observer: System Redux is one of those few.
I've had this one sitting on my shelf for a couple of years, always meaning to get round to it, and I thought that now would be a perfect time - a short horror game to fit in right before the Halloween season ends. Unfortunately, though, it just didn't resonate with me on any level, and an hour in I couldn't wait for it to end.
The premise seemed interesting initially, but the story quickly became completely uninteresting to me with its pretentious and tiring execution and boring characters, and I found the exhausting, laborious game-play to be a true chore.
There isn't all that much I have to say about this one beyond the fact that I just didn't like it at all, though, and I'm glad to have finished it so quickly!
If I had a nickel for every time I played a horror game made by bloober team in october 2023 that had a fairly good story but awful gameplay where you play as a male police officer where you try to find a kid, I would have two nickels, which isn't much but it's weird it happened twice.
Observer, generally lauded as Bloober team's best game is a great example of Bloober team's style over substance approach. This game has great visual and audio design, and overall in terms of presentation the game is quite stellar, albeit with a lot of repetition in boring corridors and hallways.
The story starts off ok, with a fairly interesting premise and gets quite interesting around 2 hours in, and completely falls apart towards the end. It's quite ambitious thematically, dealing with trauma, addiction, domestic abuse, poverty, capitalism, with a sort of shotgun method, hoping one theme will stick. However this spreads the story thin with every theme approached being quite shallow, and the game has nothing new to say about any of these. The worst offender though is the overplayed, annoying "humans are the real monsters" point, with the monsters being robots, this being alluded to in the cover of the game too. Without spoiling the ending(whichever one you get) suggests this quite heavily, and not only was it a twist without real meaning or sense to it, but also one for purely shock value. The themes are also quite heavy handed, for example the theme of authoritarianism, one of the keypad puzzles is literally 1984, you cannot make this shit up.
The two strong points of the story are the world and the characters. First off, the world is very very interesting. Out of all the pessimistic cyberpunk worlds, this one seems to be the most realistic. Many of the technology's here are believable, and the history and lore behind a 5 hour game is quite mind blowing. There is a fair amount of attention to detail, and as overused as this word is, the atmosphere is immersive. The characters are all kind of an asshole. There's the protagonist, which is a fairly generic, albeit well-acted police dad character who hates technology and whatnot. There's the son, who thinks he's better than everyone, but has a compelling motive for what he does. The janitor is quite funny, and overall the dialogue and writing is strong, making for quite a cohesive narrative for the middle portion of the game.
The gameplay however is where this game truly fails. I hold the same opinion for blair witch, but they should have just made this a walking sim. The stealth and puzzles are terrible, and make the game flow so much worse. Overall the game design shown here is quite terrible, with certain items/objectives not being in where you would logically think they would be. The game also fails in it's weak attempt at being scary. Blair witch was quite creepy, but observer just jumps in your face occasionally and even with the good sound design has way too much going on to be scary, which it's clearly trying to do.
Despite the narrative being somewhat decent in the middle, this game has little to offer in terms of new stuff. I would recommend to play this if you want a depressing cyberpunk view of the future with a fairly compelling murder mystery plot, but other than that I would not recommend this to anyone, and this makes me nervous for what they're gonna do with silent hill
Observer, generally lauded as Bloober team's best game is a great example of Bloober team's style over substance approach. This game has great visual and audio design, and overall in terms of presentation the game is quite stellar, albeit with a lot of repetition in boring corridors and hallways.
The story starts off ok, with a fairly interesting premise and gets quite interesting around 2 hours in, and completely falls apart towards the end. It's quite ambitious thematically, dealing with trauma, addiction, domestic abuse, poverty, capitalism, with a sort of shotgun method, hoping one theme will stick. However this spreads the story thin with every theme approached being quite shallow, and the game has nothing new to say about any of these. The worst offender though is the overplayed, annoying "humans are the real monsters" point, with the monsters being robots, this being alluded to in the cover of the game too. Without spoiling the ending(whichever one you get) suggests this quite heavily, and not only was it a twist without real meaning or sense to it, but also one for purely shock value. The themes are also quite heavy handed, for example the theme of authoritarianism, one of the keypad puzzles is literally 1984, you cannot make this shit up.
The two strong points of the story are the world and the characters. First off, the world is very very interesting. Out of all the pessimistic cyberpunk worlds, this one seems to be the most realistic. Many of the technology's here are believable, and the history and lore behind a 5 hour game is quite mind blowing. There is a fair amount of attention to detail, and as overused as this word is, the atmosphere is immersive. The characters are all kind of an asshole. There's the protagonist, which is a fairly generic, albeit well-acted police dad character who hates technology and whatnot. There's the son, who thinks he's better than everyone, but has a compelling motive for what he does. The janitor is quite funny, and overall the dialogue and writing is strong, making for quite a cohesive narrative for the middle portion of the game.
The gameplay however is where this game truly fails. I hold the same opinion for blair witch, but they should have just made this a walking sim. The stealth and puzzles are terrible, and make the game flow so much worse. Overall the game design shown here is quite terrible, with certain items/objectives not being in where you would logically think they would be. The game also fails in it's weak attempt at being scary. Blair witch was quite creepy, but observer just jumps in your face occasionally and even with the good sound design has way too much going on to be scary, which it's clearly trying to do.
Despite the narrative being somewhat decent in the middle, this game has little to offer in terms of new stuff. I would recommend to play this if you want a depressing cyberpunk view of the future with a fairly compelling murder mystery plot, but other than that I would not recommend this to anyone, and this makes me nervous for what they're gonna do with silent hill
So I got into this game expecting a philosophical game about a cyberpunk dystopia, similar to Blade Runner. Instead I got a psychological thriller that takes place in a shitty neighborhood of the future.
Instead of a fun cyberpunk experience, this game gave me a headache, motion sickness, epilepsy, fear of the future, fear of tech, fear of cyberwerewolves and probably a reason to have nightmares today, all while staying true to the roots of the cyberpunk genre. In case you haven't noticed, yes, I'm talking about the good parts.
The art direction in this game is incredible and more creative than I could ever expect. It's definitely the best I've ever seen in a horror game, and might be one of the best in general.
It's also the slowest game I have ever played, yet the lack of distinctive chapters, parts, objectives or any loading screens made it hard to quit the game at any point. Without realizing it, I spent 5 hours in the game in one sitting. Which is good, but then again, it also did give me a serious headache. Which is the only thing about this game that truly did not appeal to me.
Instead of a fun cyberpunk experience, this game gave me a headache, motion sickness, epilepsy, fear of the future, fear of tech, fear of cyberwerewolves and probably a reason to have nightmares today, all while staying true to the roots of the cyberpunk genre. In case you haven't noticed, yes, I'm talking about the good parts.
The art direction in this game is incredible and more creative than I could ever expect. It's definitely the best I've ever seen in a horror game, and might be one of the best in general.
It's also the slowest game I have ever played, yet the lack of distinctive chapters, parts, objectives or any loading screens made it hard to quit the game at any point. Without realizing it, I spent 5 hours in the game in one sitting. Which is good, but then again, it also did give me a serious headache. Which is the only thing about this game that truly did not appeal to me.
i'm blown away by all the setpieces and visual effects in this game, still trying to wrap my head around how they did it. this game was pretty dope. i liked all the puzzles and the environments. the best parts are when you're investigating crime scenes and doing all the little side stories, it's so immersive. the story isn't half bad either, it's a spooky little cyberpunk story with a nice twist.
In an effort to understand the development team responsible for creating the SH2 remake, I gave Bloober’s highest-praised release a shot. It’s actually not half-bad, but maybe third-bad. The best parts were exploring the scenes and doing the detective work, as easy as it was. There’s a intriguing unnerving edge and setting throughout the game, and interesting story-telling devices are present such as talking to the concealed residents and more. However, the typical “Bloober” nightmare sequences are quite horrible, and not scary or fun, but given the context I suppose it’s a pass (or an excuse). Overall, glad I experienced it.
que lokurada
Observer_ is a pretty cool take on the cyberpunk genre, hitting on themes you'd expect from similar games like SOMA and Cyberpunk 2077. What does it meant to be human? How far can we augment ourselves before we lose what makes us, us? The side missions of Observer are where the writing and atmosphere really shines. I was never too engaged by the main story.
100% Completion Notes: A decently fun time, only took one playthrough using a guide. A bunch of collectibles to find, but I loved exploring the run down apartment building that serves as the game's setting. The achievements also pushed me towards the side missions, which as stated previously, was my favorite content in the game.
100% Completion Notes: A decently fun time, only took one playthrough using a guide. A bunch of collectibles to find, but I loved exploring the run down apartment building that serves as the game's setting. The achievements also pushed me towards the side missions, which as stated previously, was my favorite content in the game.
Had a good time with this Bloober Team effort. I liked how abstract it could get and also its cyberpunk setting and world. I have enjoyed what I have played from Bloober so far so I'm hoping for the best with their Silent Hill 2 remake.
story is way too mid to justify the poor gameplay and all the bugs the game has
Horrendous performance on base ps4 (I'm detecting a pattern...)
Though the gameplay is fine, the graphics are great and the sound design is excellent, I have to echo the common sentiment that the story starts out engaging and completely disintegrates toward the end. It abandons an interesting cyberpunk murder mystery to poorly explore themes other stories (specifically a certain other, more famous horror walking sim) have done better. Regardless, I'd still actually recommend Observer because the first three quarters or so are done really well, especially considering this is by the same guys that made that absolute snoozefest The Medium. I'm a huge Blade Runner and Rutger Hauer mark so maybe that factors into it, but even so I can't pretend I didn't enjoy it. Does that mean I have faith in Bloober's Silent Hill 2 remake?
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FUCK NO LMAO
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FUCK NO LMAO
Horror Cyberpunk Walking Simulator
Observer is for the most part a boring game to play, but not to experience. Highlights of this game come from the impecable visuals and art direction alone and those scary moments that happen that don't really have to do much with the gameplay itself.
If you are a coward, like me don't worry. This game is as scary as a Silent Hill game can be, mostly psychological horror is present and I counted like 2 or so jumpscares throughout my 7 hour playthrough.
There is a detective mode of sorts that is supossed to be the main mechanic of the game, but is at basic as it gets. Scan a clue, and see what can you do with the information it provides. You won't be using this much, outside of specific occations. But if you liked the detective aspect of this game or want more of this world, there are a lot of side cases to solve.
The story is short, and I feel it's a safe bet for the Cyberpunk genre. But it was sweet.
In reality I'd say it's a walking simulator with a few things added on top. It is what the game want you to focus on, those visual striking moments.
Observer is for the most part a boring game to play, but not to experience. Highlights of this game come from the impecable visuals and art direction alone and those scary moments that happen that don't really have to do much with the gameplay itself.
If you are a coward, like me don't worry. This game is as scary as a Silent Hill game can be, mostly psychological horror is present and I counted like 2 or so jumpscares throughout my 7 hour playthrough.
There is a detective mode of sorts that is supossed to be the main mechanic of the game, but is at basic as it gets. Scan a clue, and see what can you do with the information it provides. You won't be using this much, outside of specific occations. But if you liked the detective aspect of this game or want more of this world, there are a lot of side cases to solve.
The story is short, and I feel it's a safe bet for the Cyberpunk genre. But it was sweet.
In reality I'd say it's a walking simulator with a few things added on top. It is what the game want you to focus on, those visual striking moments.
A story this good and a universe this well thought-out doesn't deserve such boring gameplay.
Plot
🔲 This game has no plot
🔲 Shit
🔲 Well, so-so
✅ Good
🔲 Masterpiece
Gameplay
🔲 What
✅ Usual
🔲 It is impossible to break away
Soundtrack
🔲 Blood from the ears
✅ Usual
🔲 Masterpiece
Graphics
🔲 Blood from the eyes
🔲 Usual
🔲 Beautiful in its style
✅ Couldn't take my eyes off
Characters
🔲 Uninteresting
🔲 Usual
✅ Very interesting
Difficult
✅ Easy
🔲 Medium
🔲 Hard
🔲 I broke the keyboard
The desire to play
🔲 I don't want to play it
🔲 Sometimes I want to play it
✅ I played without stopping
🔲 This game has no plot
🔲 Shit
🔲 Well, so-so
✅ Good
🔲 Masterpiece
Gameplay
🔲 What
✅ Usual
🔲 It is impossible to break away
Soundtrack
🔲 Blood from the ears
✅ Usual
🔲 Masterpiece
Graphics
🔲 Blood from the eyes
🔲 Usual
🔲 Beautiful in its style
✅ Couldn't take my eyes off
Characters
🔲 Uninteresting
🔲 Usual
✅ Very interesting
Difficult
✅ Easy
🔲 Medium
🔲 Hard
🔲 I broke the keyboard
The desire to play
🔲 I don't want to play it
🔲 Sometimes I want to play it
✅ I played without stopping