Neither walking simulator, nor horror game, nor conventional adventure in the first person. I find it hard to encorse this work in any of these three categories because it has a little of all of them but, also, suffers from some of the main ingredients that are nor
mally part of each of these genres. And in my opinion that speaks very well of the magnificent personality with which this absorbing and disturbing story offered by this small Polish studio, which bases a large part of its interest on its strong narrative and on the character of the central protagonist, has been graced .
Our job is to take on the role of Daniel Lazarski , a policeman who must investigate a really tricky case (to say the least ). The action takes place in a tremendously peculiar apartment building that is a true reflection of the society in which the w
orld in which the protagonist lives, in this case Poland, has become . The rich have more and more money, but the vast majority of society lives in absolute poverty and, worst of all, they live in fear. Fear to fail. Fear of suffering some type of physical or psychological violence. Fear of establishing contact with other people outside your circle of acquaintances. Fear of … practically everything.
Your story is as absorbing as it is disturbing
However, the most imminent and terrible threat facing this society has a name: nanofagy . A virus that has its germ in defective and low-quality implants or enhancements that many people are forced to install in their bodies and that, in fact, has been responsible for many deaths. But it seems that this nano-pharynx is not responsible, much less, the murder tha
As you can see I have bothered enough to present the plot on which the game turns because, clearly, it is the strong point of the game. In fact if you do not notice what I have told you so far in this analysis, it is not worthwhile to approach the title because the rest of its ingredients will not convince either as they become secondary in comparison. And with that I mean the gameplay itself, which in the end is quite simple and easy to explain.
Turbulent research
From a subjective perspective we have to go investigating all the grotesque scenes with which we are finding ourselves, some of them really impressive. The way to do it is another of the differential notes that the video game hoards, since the protagonist is endowed with certain increases or ocular implantsthat allow you to analyze the scenarios in several differ
The action gives way to oppression and constant anguish in this first-person adventure created by the designers of Layers of Fear.
The only problem we have to deal with is the desynchrony that our protagonist may suffer or experience when using so much technology. But to solve it we can use a kind of drugs that are called syncrozineand are scattered around the scenarios, which allow us to placate these symptoms.
And what else should we do in Observer? Well talk to the characters that have been scattered by the funds … although many times we will do it through a door, wall or any other similar obstacle, since it is not that they are very social for the reasons that
I have mentioned at the beginning. The talks are quite interesting and are developed in English with subtitles in Spanish (although the translation is not the most perfect I have ever seen), often being able to choose between two or three different questions and answers as is usually the case in this type of adventure.
It’s one of those adventures that keeps you tense constantly
There are also no puzzles, which are as scarce as they are easy to solve, as well as a curious mini-game called Fire and Steel: Spiders that we can play at different levels as we access the different computers that are found distributed by the apartm
Examining the scenes of the crimes is one of our main tasks to carry out, a work of investigation in CSI plan but of the future.
Even so, despite all that I have already mentioned about Observer, the most interesting of all that it proposes to us in playable matters are the neural connections that we must establish with certain characters. That is, when we get into their mind
s to try to revive in an incredibly distorted, paranoid and tremendously curious the memories of each subject, many of them really unstable. These sequences are tremendous, sometimes very visceral and offer us continuous visions of which it is difficult to distinguish between reality and fiction, dream and deception, lucidity and lack of control …
All this that I have just explained is combined in a very accurate way to shape a very striking and tense game experience . And is that in my opinion, more than a horror game as many have cataloged, it is rather an adventure of those that make you uneasy and keep you constantly tense. Yes, some scare you take from time to time, but they are rather sporadic. Wh
at prevails is the atmosphere of oppression, the feeling of loneliness and the fact of not knowing well what we are facing or, even worse, what awaits us behind every door or every thought or memory in which we must submerge A permanent anguish that becomes a drug that is hard to resist during the four or five hours of the adventure.
A durationsomething small but, believe me, is one that you enjoy a lot while it lasts, at least if you are interested in its plot and you know what to expect from this type of games where the action shines by its absence. To put a few buts, in my opinion it is so
mewhat annoying to have to use up to three different buttons to use each type of specific vision. It’s kind of tiring and I think they could have merged, or at least more than one at a time. I do not know, I think that with a kind of detective mode similar to that
enjoyed in titles like the Batman Arkham saga would have been enough. Constantly changing from one to the other has tired me even visually, since the color filter varies greatly from one type of vision to another. But come on, it’s not a serious defect either, much less.
Another virtue of Observer is found in its aesthetics. Designers give us an incredibly well-designed staging and nothing between various waters. The cyberpunk touch intermingles with a dark, dirty and turbulent alternative reality to unsuspected limits.
Some of the most praiseworthy artistic works that I remember in an independent game that, moreover, is not without enough technical quality thanks to the use of Unreal Engine 4. Yes, some characters are somewhat crude and the title suffers from cert
ain drops in the frame rate at specific moments, but in a leisurely adventure, none of these problems reaches any significance. And to finish, the sound is not bad either, with a very good dubbing and purely environmental melodies that give life to a very special atmosphere.
