There's certainly a lot to appreciate and like about this game. The way the UI is implemented within the game itself is a stoke of genius on the part of the developers. The survival horror atmosphere is pretty effective at times. The developers were very clearly aiming for the best kind of immersion at all possible costs...only for it to just kinda give out near the end.
Missions start being repetitive with conveniently out-of-the-game NPCs telling you to go to one part of the ship, fix it, fight random spawns of enemies, and go back to Tram. Rinse and repeat. You're just walking in circles basically, as NPCs keep telling you're making progress...until something happens where it doesn't really matter.
If this was a 5-6 hour long game, then this repetition and backtracking wouldn't be much of a real issue. But for a 9-11 hour game like this? It feels like shallow padding to compensate for what's otherwise weak level and game design.
The last 3-4 Chapters of the game suffer the most from these problems, and really tarnish the experience I was growing into. The enemies start to stop being sparse but scary, into just being annoying enemy swarms to create "difficulty". Which is incredibly disappointing because there's parts of the game, from the well designed boss battles and certain scenes, that are genuine strokes of great game design...only to be wedged between lazy enemy swarms and repetition.
I also...just don't really care much about the story? Like, the premise is basically Alien but as a survival horror experience you get to be a part of...but whenever the game wants to me be emotionally connected it never clicks. This is mostly due to just weird pacing problems, and also just that the story wasn't too interesting to me. There's this level of dissonance the game creates when it comes to its narrative that's hard to explain.
The ending sort of encapsulates my apathy towards it. I really want to care about Isaac Clarke's story, and where it could go next. But something just doesn't make me care enough. Maybe i'll replay it later in the future with a fresher mind to really 'get it'.
Missions start being repetitive with conveniently out-of-the-game NPCs telling you to go to one part of the ship, fix it, fight random spawns of enemies, and go back to Tram. Rinse and repeat. You're just walking in circles basically, as NPCs keep telling you're making progress...until something happens where it doesn't really matter.
If this was a 5-6 hour long game, then this repetition and backtracking wouldn't be much of a real issue. But for a 9-11 hour game like this? It feels like shallow padding to compensate for what's otherwise weak level and game design.
The last 3-4 Chapters of the game suffer the most from these problems, and really tarnish the experience I was growing into. The enemies start to stop being sparse but scary, into just being annoying enemy swarms to create "difficulty". Which is incredibly disappointing because there's parts of the game, from the well designed boss battles and certain scenes, that are genuine strokes of great game design...only to be wedged between lazy enemy swarms and repetition.
I also...just don't really care much about the story? Like, the premise is basically Alien but as a survival horror experience you get to be a part of...but whenever the game wants to me be emotionally connected it never clicks. This is mostly due to just weird pacing problems, and also just that the story wasn't too interesting to me. There's this level of dissonance the game creates when it comes to its narrative that's hard to explain.
The ending sort of encapsulates my apathy towards it. I really want to care about Isaac Clarke's story, and where it could go next. But something just doesn't make me care enough. Maybe i'll replay it later in the future with a fresher mind to really 'get it'.