INTRODUCTION
No70: Eye of Basir is a first-person exploration game like no other. It features a well-written mystery that doesn’t develop too slowly to become dull, but it doesn’t give anything away too soon. It will keep you interested enough to keep going, if you are brave enough to actually keep going, that is.
No70: Eye of Basir is available on Steam for U.S $9.99
STORY
The game starts with the narrator, Ehran, a 36 years old scholar that goes back to the house in which he and his brother, Aras, grew up living with their grandmother. Ehran narrates that his life was changed one day due to a piece of paper he found lying next to him. Once the game starts, you find yourself in the house, with no power, and you must find a way to restore it, walking back and forth in a big house in which things don’t always stay where you last saw them.
In your inquiries, you’ll find a mystical eyepiece that you’ll use to uncover clues to help you move forward. That eyepiece is the eye of Basin, which holds the power to see between realms. And in order to protect this power, a secret brotherhood rose and appear to be responsible for the pieces of information you’ll find scattered around the property.
How is this brotherhood related to the narrator and his brother? What are the mysteries that lie in the house marked with the No.70? That’s what you’ll set up to discover.
Using the eye of Basir to look through other dimensions, you will uncover hidden clues if you know where to look for them. Or you could simply use the eye all of the time and hope something doesn´t find you first.
GAMEPLAY
As a first-person explorer, No 70: Eye of Basir has pretty straight forward controls: you move your character with the WASD keys and look around with your mouse. Whenever you find something you want to interact with, you’ll use the left mouse button and you’ll use the eye of Basir with the right mouse button to uncover hidden clues.controls: you move your character with the WASD keys and look around with your mouse. Whenever you find something you want to interact with, you’ll use the left mouse button and you’ll use the eye of Basir with the right mouse button to uncover hidden clues.
To move forward in the game you must recover the pieces of information or tools. In some cases, you’ll need to find a sequence of numbers to enter on a keypad, or maybe a wrench or fuse. This type of gameplay reminds me a lot of the classic Silent Hills games.
The game is not particularly long, as it will take approximately 2 or 3 hours to beat, even less if you are keen to the investigation and puzzle games. These two elements are the keys of the game. Although at first glance it may look like a horror game (which it is) it’s not really focused on that direction. It’s not so much a survival game as it is an investigation game. That is not to say that it lacks the ability to scare you from time to time.
Codex
This is something I always appreciate in a game of this genre: every piece of information you find will be stored in your codex for consultation if you need to go back to it. Even if the information is there just to fill the game’s story, I always appreciate being able to have it handy just in case. Gives me a sense of security and that way I don’t waste time writing scattered pieces of information on a piece of paper.
Mouse mechanics
Another element I enjoyed in this game was the mouse mechanics. When you find something you can pick it up and look at it and move it around to search for clues. Since I’m always trying to find hidden clues on reflections or angles, I did spend a lot of time fidgeting with the various items found in the house and its surroundings.
Another point to mention is the blur motion, whenever you move the images don’t get too blurry and it doesn’t move too fast. In fact, the video settings that are selected by default worked perfectly fine to me. I didn’t get dizzy or annoyed by the movement and the dark atmosphere is constant throughout the game, but it doesn’t get in the way of finding the clues. (i.e being extremely dark to the point of not being able to see the items)
GRAPHICS AND AUDIO
No 70: Eye of Basir has great graphics. I don’t think I’ve seen a lot of horror first-person explorer with this quality of render and amount of details. The stone walls, the wooden fences, the furniture, the landscape… everything looks amazing and it bodes well of the dedication of the developers. If anything I just found a little odd the way reflections moved on the mirrors, I felt like I was looking more through a window. But even with that little detail, I fell in love with the atmosphere that this game’s graphics provide.
As far as audio goes, I was very pleased to find out that this, being a horror game, doesn’t have over dramatic sound effects. Even during jump scares. The ones they do have are ad hoc to what you are seeing at the moment and if you haven’t made any real progress in a while, the background music is calm and almost relaxing. I only wish it had more transitional songs. What I mean by this is that every time you finish a chapter, the same guitar music starts playing.
The voice acting is impeccable, since the narration in English is done by David Gasman (Fahrenheit, Alone in the Dark, Rayman…) and it goes very well with the writing.
Also, from time to time the sound effects or the music can overlap the narrator voice, which I found annoying.
CONCLUSION
No 70: Eye of Basir is a game for lovers of first-person exploration games, puzzles and horror games. If you like all three of this genres, then great. The atmosphere is evolving and once you start making progress you’ll want to keep on playing to finish the puzzle and find out the whole story.
if you are looking for a hardcore horror game, then you are in the wrong place. Although No70: Eye of Basir does have that horror element, it revolves more around the mystery and the investigation. Finding the pieces necessary to move forward is what you’ll be doing most of the time, and not running from a monster or going from jump scare to jump scare constantly.
If you are an observant player, you’ll be able to beat the game in a little under two hours, so it’s not a long game. It is, however, an entertaining game. In my case, it was over without even realizing it, and I was left waiting for that extra content that the developer will apparently release further down the road.
You might also like this game if you enjoyed well-written arguments and stories. I enjoyed how the narration came together with what I was doing at any given time or what I had just done before. While in the area of writing, however, I noticed some slight mistakes here and there as far as the written English in the game. (i.e clues or biographies). I don’t recall catching any mistakes on the dialogue, but you might notice some missing words in some paragraphs. A double-checking on the spelling and grammar before release might have corrected the problem. The devil is in the details, after all.
I also consider important to keep in mind that this is a debut game of a new, indie developer. Oldmoustache is just embarking into the industry and whatever areas this game might be lacking in, they are only room for improvement for any future games they might conceive. For an early game of an indie developer, it´s an excellent experience.
