Coming from "Untold Stories" I didn't know what to expect from Observation, No Code was able to masterfully craft a perfect atmosphere to what was one of the most unique experiences I had with gaming, but that game was a lot more "static" than Observation, most of the gameplay was akin to an adventure game, clicking on stuff and typing on terminals.
Observation, has you controlling SAM, an A.I. controlling a space station that is misteriously teleported to the orbit of Saturn. While I found the story to be intrguing, i dont know if it pays off that well, the ending feels a bit non-sensical, but the journey is what matters, right?
Then in that case, the journey is a mix of more of that high quality atmosphere that we saw in Untold Stories, an intriguing mistery, high quality voice acting and unexpected ammounts of jank.
More than just a handfull of times character models glitched, clipped through walls, had their animation not match their location, teleport around a room and have overall unatural movements. For the most part they work fine but it happened enough times and agregiously enough that it took me out of the experience.
The gameplay, feels a lot more like busywork this time around too, instructions are not always clear, objectives are sometimes incoherent and feel a lot more like the game is just keeping you busy for the sake of it in order to extend gameplay time.
Don't get me wrong, I really like Observation, I love the atmosphere, I like the characters and impecable line delivery, I like the story beats that feel a lot like 2001: A Space Odyssey, and I mean A LOT.
but the GAME part of this game isnt as good as it could be, as Untold Stories was, so I find myself wanting to give this game a higher score but I can't because even if the positives outweight the negatives, there too much wrong for me to ignore it.
Observation is not a game for everyone, i think most people will be bored before its over or won't be interested enough to see it through.
But if you like Sci-fi or liked Stories Untold like me, definitivelly go for this, I bet it'll be worth your time.
Observation, has you controlling SAM, an A.I. controlling a space station that is misteriously teleported to the orbit of Saturn. While I found the story to be intrguing, i dont know if it pays off that well, the ending feels a bit non-sensical, but the journey is what matters, right?
Then in that case, the journey is a mix of more of that high quality atmosphere that we saw in Untold Stories, an intriguing mistery, high quality voice acting and unexpected ammounts of jank.
More than just a handfull of times character models glitched, clipped through walls, had their animation not match their location, teleport around a room and have overall unatural movements. For the most part they work fine but it happened enough times and agregiously enough that it took me out of the experience.
The gameplay, feels a lot more like busywork this time around too, instructions are not always clear, objectives are sometimes incoherent and feel a lot more like the game is just keeping you busy for the sake of it in order to extend gameplay time.
Don't get me wrong, I really like Observation, I love the atmosphere, I like the characters and impecable line delivery, I like the story beats that feel a lot like 2001: A Space Odyssey, and I mean A LOT.
but the GAME part of this game isnt as good as it could be, as Untold Stories was, so I find myself wanting to give this game a higher score but I can't because even if the positives outweight the negatives, there too much wrong for me to ignore it.
Observation is not a game for everyone, i think most people will be bored before its over or won't be interested enough to see it through.
But if you like Sci-fi or liked Stories Untold like me, definitivelly go for this, I bet it'll be worth your time.
srm
6 months ago