Has exploring dilapidated and ransacked Art Deco interiors become cliché? Having finished Close to the Sun, I'm having trouble finding anything to say about it that struck me as original, which is disappointing. I had a bad feeling about the game when the first object I found to pick up was a newspaper that used Lorem ipsum as the text for articles. Not a great sign when one of the first things the player can find sends the message that the various collectibles aren't worth picking up and only show trivial glimpses of lore.
This is made worse by having the collectible hunt as one of three main components of the gameplay, the other two being puzzles and chase sequences. The first puzzle I hit had a similar feeling to the collectibles when I solved it by accident. I turned two odd-looking dials and opened a door, hardly involved or demanding. The rest mostly paired the puzzle with the collectible hunt to find a combination of a lock or device. The simplicity of this type of puzzle doesn't fit its frequency either, and they aren't that satisfying to solve.
Are the chase sequences good enough to redeem the simplistic puzzles? Sort of, I couldn't quite tell, I went in having seen others describe them as frustrating, so perhaps I was expecting worse. I did adjust the gamma slightly and felt I could see the signposts better. The chases suffer from limited movement options. You'll mostly just hold the run key. The aspect I disliked the most about these segments was the long and gory death animations. This slasher horror also detracted from the atmospheric approach to the horror of the rest of the game.
With Close to the Sun, I think the approach to game design helps to understand the story. It's shallow and uninspired, just like the gameplay. The collectibles add some lore, but none of it sticks. At its best, it telegraphs some of the game's pretty obvious twists that feel very familiar if you've played Bioshock. The big difference between the two games is that the developers take an alternate history approach by making Nikola Telsa the Andrew Ryan of the game's universe. The story beats are still mostly the same.
Close to the Sun, unfortunately, fits the derogatory label of walking simulation comfortably. It rides off mimicking the aesthetic and narrative of the previously mentioned Bioshock while adding nothing of its own, unlike Prey (2017). This isn't even the first horror title I've played set on a cruise ship, a setting that's underused and just feels like a collection of rooms that could be anywhere. You don't even go on the top deck until a brief segment towards the conclusion. The end of the game sets up a sequel that suggests you'll be retreading any ground you covered again soon enough, no thank you.
I claimed Close to the Sun through a free giveaway on the Epic Games Store.
This is made worse by having the collectible hunt as one of three main components of the gameplay, the other two being puzzles and chase sequences. The first puzzle I hit had a similar feeling to the collectibles when I solved it by accident. I turned two odd-looking dials and opened a door, hardly involved or demanding. The rest mostly paired the puzzle with the collectible hunt to find a combination of a lock or device. The simplicity of this type of puzzle doesn't fit its frequency either, and they aren't that satisfying to solve.
Are the chase sequences good enough to redeem the simplistic puzzles? Sort of, I couldn't quite tell, I went in having seen others describe them as frustrating, so perhaps I was expecting worse. I did adjust the gamma slightly and felt I could see the signposts better. The chases suffer from limited movement options. You'll mostly just hold the run key. The aspect I disliked the most about these segments was the long and gory death animations. This slasher horror also detracted from the atmospheric approach to the horror of the rest of the game.
With Close to the Sun, I think the approach to game design helps to understand the story. It's shallow and uninspired, just like the gameplay. The collectibles add some lore, but none of it sticks. At its best, it telegraphs some of the game's pretty obvious twists that feel very familiar if you've played Bioshock. The big difference between the two games is that the developers take an alternate history approach by making Nikola Telsa the Andrew Ryan of the game's universe. The story beats are still mostly the same.
Close to the Sun, unfortunately, fits the derogatory label of walking simulation comfortably. It rides off mimicking the aesthetic and narrative of the previously mentioned Bioshock while adding nothing of its own, unlike Prey (2017). This isn't even the first horror title I've played set on a cruise ship, a setting that's underused and just feels like a collection of rooms that could be anywhere. You don't even go on the top deck until a brief segment towards the conclusion. The end of the game sets up a sequel that suggests you'll be retreading any ground you covered again soon enough, no thank you.
I claimed Close to the Sun through a free giveaway on the Epic Games Store.