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.

I can't really tell if this title wants to be like DOOM or Call of Duty, because it seems to try both and not quite hit a peak on either front. The two main abilities (cloak and bullet-time) are very fun to use in combat, but the weapons left a lot more to be desired. Every time I tried to use a different weapon I always just gravitated back to the shotgun, and the gap gets even larger on the game's harder (and downright unfair) difficulties.

Trepang2 also has a narrative that was more interesting than I expected, but still nothing to write home about. Some levels even focused more on this than combat, which I found pretty odd. At the end of the day, I'm playing a game like this to feel like a badass.

It's a fun time, but ultimately a missable experience.