excellent cinematic sci-fi adventure
the intro of state of mind sets the scene perfectly. we're in berlin, the year is 2048, everything looks crap, neon, chaos and pandemonium everywhere. one of the protagonists, richard, is a journalist for a major publication. he just had an accident, has some memory issues, but his ar chip or whatever remained intact, so no need for a hotspot indicator, everything of interest is highlighted. welcome to the future. richard doesn't come off as somebody to root for, he clearly has family problems, he's anti-robot and pro-side piece.
the other protagonist, adam, was also in an accident, he has a wife and son as well. a much more likeable group, living in a much nicer area called city5, though they have their issues too. it's not all family drama, you'll find the usual themes of robots good or bad, terrorism, etc. sprinkled all over.
great graphics and voice work, it's all very cinematic, lots of cutscenes interrupting the exploration, but there's also less busywork, which I didn't mind. the world is pretty cool, great attention to detail, a bedtime story here, a holo-tv segment there. you can even publish an article by deciding each paragraph's tone, and the more you drink, the more aggressive it gets. most dialog choices don't make a difference and there aren't many puzzles to speak of, they're more like mini-games. I liked or didn't mind most of them, but there were a few annoying ones.
movement can be a bit clunky but controls work well overall and they are rebindable. two sets of keys to walk around, bring up the inventory and navigate menus, plus the mouse for looking around and interacting, though the latter can be done with hotkeys as well. right click to skip dialog sentence by sentence, actual cutscenes can't be skipped. gamepads are also supported, movement speed is decent and there's a sprint button too. I would've liked to zoom out, get the camera off my back, sadly it's not an option.
commendable amount and quality of settings otherwise. separate volume sliders, resolutions, windowed mode, brightness, some graphics settings, optional subtitles and a bunch of languages for them and voiceovers, plus in-game representation of achievements. only autosaving after each scene, but it happens over multiple slots, so much so that not only are 5 autosaves rotated, just in case, but by the end you'll have a bunch of 'story saves', much better than chapter select, which would've meant only 5 jumping-in points. I would've still liked a save & exit option, because without skippable cutscenes continuing the game later meant watching the opening of the current section again.
gotta say, I really enjoyed the whole thing, found it hard to stop playing when I had to, but also didn't want to binge it in two sittings. just enough exploration and fluff to mix up an otherwise linear game without becoming overwhelming, plus a decent story presented really well. it reminded me of omikron: the nomad soul and remember me but without too many crappy arcade/combat sequences. I finished it in about 10 hours, took my time, walked around, read everything, that's the whole point, but it should be doable in 8 hours at a steady pace. without any major issues to speak of, it's an easy recommendation if you want a non-challenging near-future experience.
9 gamers found this review helpful