Close to the Sun was clearly inspired by two games, Bioshock and Outlast. It has the visual aesthetics and environment of Bioshock, with the chase sequences and horror elements from Outlast. Despite mixing some of the art and gameplay together from these two series with the intent to create something new, Close to the Sun comes off as nothing more than a cheap Dollar General knockoff.

Well to be fair, the art design wasn’t too bad at times because there were some really cool locations like the opera house and the garden section towards the end of the game. Actually, it was the only marginally good thing about this game. Everything else is pretty terrible.

Like I mentioned before, Close to the sun tries to come off as a horror game by having enemies such as these stupid looking electrical monsters, and some poorly written stab happy lunatic. Every time you encounter either of them, your only option is to run. These sequences may seem like you have options by giving you different places or routes to go, but you don’t. These sections of gameplay are very scripted and if you make one wrong mistake you instantly die because unlike Jack in Bioshock, Rose in Close to the Sun isn’t provide with any weapons.

So that’s a good segue to mention to dig into the fact that there is no combat at all in this game. It’s actually a walking sim, which in and of itself doesn’t bother me. The lack of exploration and any actual creative gameplay is what bothers me. The game gives you some interesting locations to look at, but exploration is boring because as large as the Helios is made to be in the story, the areas are actually kind of small and there isn’t really anything to discover. The game does toss a few puzzles at you, but they’re really easy to solve which honestly makes it feel like the developers put in the puzzles just to pad out the game.

Sadly, the story in Close to the Sun doesn’t balance out the awful gameplay either because the narrative is just as bad, if not worse. It’s a complete mess. The game is written to be a mystery where nothing is explained and it’s clear that you’re meant to get all the answers in a direct sequel. Questions like; who is Ludwig and what made him so psychotic? Who sent Rose the letter to go to the Helios if it wasn’t Ada? Well, you never get those answers because there is currently no sequel or DLC to answer those questions and to make matters worse the game ends on a cliff hanger.

In all honesty though, I don’t know if I’d care enough to get those answers if there was a sequel. I didn’t really like or care about any of the characters after playing Close to the Sun. None of them were that interesting. I found the main character, Rose to be more grating than compelling if anything. Her motivation wasn’t bad, but her dialogue, just like the rest of the characters, was written really poorly and just made me cringe. I might as well say it now, the voice acting is some of the worst I’ve ever heard in a video game.

Rose’s sister, Ada, is a complete Mary Sue in the fact that she’s the smartest and the best at everything. Almost all the dialogue referring to or involving her pretty much boils down to “Ada is the greatest, Ada is the best. No other scientist on Helios is smarted than her.” Other than that Ada has no other defining traits just like Rose, or any other character in this god awful story.

I don’t know much about Tesla as a person because I’ve never read up on his history, but with the way he’s written I almost feel like he was written with the a clear attempt at character assassination. From what little I know of Telsa, I don’t think he was really that big into capitalism so for the writers to make him the richest and greediest person in the world just felt that they didn’t really understand him and felt more like a pro-Edison campaign. Or maybe they took out their feelings on Elon Musk onto their fictional Nikola Tesla. Either way, it just felt very strange to take Tesla and turn him into this character… who also still isn’t as smart as Ada.

Now let’s talk about some of the main antagonists, Aubrey and Ludwig. Honestly there’s not much to say about either. Aubrey is just your poor man’s version of Frank Fontaine whose only sole motive is to impress Tesla, I guess so that’s why he does bad stuff? Ludwig comes off as a lame Outlast killer who got rejected from the final version of the game and then went over to Close to the Sun because no one wanted him. His motive for killing people is never explained and is one of those mysteries that I talk about earlier that was never answered.


Overall:
Close to the Sun is an awful game and an awful horror game to boot. This game fails at almost everything it tries to do and little good can be said about it. If it was on sale for a dollar, I would tell you to skip it, because it’s really that bad.


Pros:
+Decent art design at times

*Cons:
-bad and frustrating gameplay
-no combat
-awful story
-bad voice acting
-poorly written characters
-pointless narrative that goes nowhere due to no sequel, making the whole experience a waste of time

Venba is definitely one of those games that you shouldn't judge based on the cover. When you look at the picture it displays a small happy family that perhaps bonds over cooking a meal together, not a poor immigrant family that deals with racism and the struggles of adapting to an entirely different culture.

This game's story is touching and often times very sad, but speaking for myself only, I'm getting a little tired of the indie template in these kinds of games. It's like the only thing they want you to feel is sadness. I think it's okay to want the audience to feel a little heartache when seeing the characters struggle or when they mourn the loss of something or someone. Sadness can make us relate and empathize with others. In a way it makes us feel human and that's not necessarily a bad thing, but it's not the only emotion I want to experience when playing a game of this genre.

The cooking portion of the game was alright, but it could have been a lot better. It felt more like a puzzle game than a cooking simulator which isn't a problem, it's the design. You have to piece parts of the recipe together through what little information the game gives you, kind of like trial and error. Sometimes the recipes are easy and other times just annoying. The game does give you the option to receive hints if you're stuck so that's a bit of a plus.

Overall:
Venba is a perfect fit for Gamepass, but it's not a game that I'd own or ever replay. I will say, this game did make me want to try Indian food though.

Pros:
+interesting art style
+catchy music

Cons:
-story could have been better
-puzzles for the cooking segments were annoying at times

Haunt the House: Terrortown is a such a cute game both in concept and in art design. The gameplay is exactly what it says in the title. You play an adorable ghost who just wants some good old peace and quiet from the living, and so your objective is to possess various objects in order to scare people and get them to leave. The more you terrorize them, the more interaction you can do with the objects that you can possess. It's very simple, but this gameplay loop gets really old very fast and outside of achievements there isn't any unlockables, so there isn't much replay value unless you're bored and looking to waste time.

Pros:
+cute art style
+fun concept

Cons:
-repetitive gameplay
-little replay value