“Immense and immersive… It was breathtaking… something that feels magical.” - UploadVR As you bask in the otherworldly beauty and explore the enigmatic landscapes, remember that the choices you make will have substantial consequences. The strange worlds of Obduction reveal their secrets only as you explore, discover, coax, and consider their clues. You’ve been abducted from your cozy existence and added into an alien landscape with pieces of Earth from unexpected times and places. Playing in VR takes full advantage of higher-end systems - please refer to its minimum and recommended specs.įrom Cyan, the indie studio that brought you Myst, comes a new sci-fi adventure.Īs you walk beside the lake on a cloudy night, a curious, organic artifact falls from the starry sky and inexplicably, without asking permission, transports you across the universe. Myst fans and anyone else who loves the exploration-and-puzzle genre will find Obduction worth the wait, both for the game, and occasionally within it.Note: This is a visually lush and detailed game. Obduction’s artistic triumphs made up for its technical trials, and its so-so story couldn’t eclipse the real joy of exploring and understanding its fascinating alternate worlds. Cyanįiguring out how to get around in each of the game’s three main worlds is one of the most fun parts of Obduction. ![]() One level’s even built like a sly joke, with subtle details setting you up for a well-placed, legitimately funny “punchline” when you round the right corner. And another gauntlet of multiple, interlocking challenges late in the game ranks among Cyan’s most delightfully fiendish brain-busters- hard enough to be fun, but never frustrating. I only got completely stumped on one puzzle, which may be more my fault than the designers’. The story most effectively plays on your emotions when it’s told through the environments themselves, rather than the texts you find within them. Obduction even makes it fun to decipher a geometric base 4 number system. Lead designer Rand Miller and the Cyan team once again create fully realized places that look and feel alive, and integrate puzzles into the rules that govern those worlds in ways that rarely feel forced. The game’s story works better when it’s told through the strange environments you traverse, rather than the notes and journals you find along the way.īut oh, those worlds are gorgeous, brimming with real awe and wonder. And load times for levels range from “lengthy” to “seriously, go make a sandwich.” Leaping between different worlds sometimes took so long, with little or no indication of loading, that I thought the game had crashed. ![]() The game occasionally crashed when I replayed its opening minutes. But distant objects still jarringly pop into view as you draw closer. You can tell that delays and budget cuts during the game’s lengthy development curtailed what Obduction might otherwise have been.Īfter months of glitchy pre-release Mac versions, the final version runs smoothly on a late 2012 Mac mini, albeit at the lowest settings. And somewhere in a pile of journals and notebooks, I must have missed the clues that would’ve helped me figure out how to choose between the game’s good and bad endings, both of which are short and anticlimactic. Reveals that ought to be spine-tingling fall flat. But Obduction’s story lacks suspense and urgency. The few characters you meet prove endearing, despite their somewhat hokey acting and old-fashioned full-motion-video appearances. You’ll stumble into a strange new world in Obduction-and then try your best to get home.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |