Obduction

 PC
User Score
7.6

Generally favorable reviews- based on 161 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 107 out of 161
  2. Mixed: 29 out of 161
  3. Negative: 25 out of 161

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  1. bancandrei
    May 20, 2020
    4
    I was never really a fan of the old Myst titles, so I thought maybe I'll get into the genre with this one. Big mistake, it's just boring
  2. JohnMalcolm
    Sep 2, 2016
    1
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. I remember Myst, etc, and Obduction is no Myst. The graphics and movement system are much better, but the puzzles are too hard for most of us. You could spend the next year, full-time, moving randomly through this gigantic maze and never find the way out. It comes down to using a cookbook for a fine-print recipe 8 pages long written by somebody on the Internet who's not proficient in English to get through the game. The story is engaging but the puzzle-making is inept. Puzzles should be soluble logically, not through random variation. An example of one of the easier puzzles: There's a locked door with a rotary phone dial and an LED display. Nearby is a hodgepodge room that serves as the mayor's office, but nobody's home. On the mayor's desk is a compass. If you pick it up, it looks just like what I had in Boy Scouts. If you think to turn it over, the name of a US state is inscribed on the back. Suppose it says 'Maine'. You may recall that in the abandoned service station a few blocks away are some license plates nailed to the wall. That's if you've already managed to find your way inside, which is not trivial. You may have 'photographed' that wall, but the game's photo album is buggy so you can't see the one you want. So you go back to the service station and copy down the license plate 'number' -- let's say it's YOU FUL. OK, now it's time to think of the rotary telephone dial you saw yesterday in a distant location. Translate the letters from the license plate into numbers as you would in dialing one of those memorable 800 numbers like 1-800-CALL_TODAY. The door opens and you're ready to figure out what to do next, which will be a random exploration of a puzzling environment. And that was a relatively easy and logical puzzle compared to most in this chaotic maze of old and new technology and unfamiliar cultural references. It was a noble effort but I think you'll find there are better ways to waste your time.… Expand
  3. AuldWolf
    Sep 20, 2016
    0
    Let me paint you a picture of why this is a bad game. One 'puzzle' in this game is remedial, it's essentially just an average board of Pipe-Mania, nothing special. This puzzle, if you had all the tools in front of you to solve it, would be completed in ten minutes. Instead, they purposefully obfuscated it and separated the controls by loading screens. They also separated how you could viewLet me paint you a picture of why this is a bad game. One 'puzzle' in this game is remedial, it's essentially just an average board of Pipe-Mania, nothing special. This puzzle, if you had all the tools in front of you to solve it, would be completed in ten minutes. Instead, they purposefully obfuscated it and separated the controls by loading screens. They also separated how you could view the puzzle by more loading screens. On top of that, you're forced to take pointlessly long walks (for minutes at a time) and endure more loading screens just to reach more 'pieces' used to solve the same puzzle.

    Whereas a good puzzle game will give you everything you need in the same area, this is more like a point & click. Except that imagine you had to walk for a few minutes to go get multiple objects because your inventory could only hold one at a time, now imagine that this point & click adventure had loading screens that could last for up to ten minutes for every time you had to trek back. That's what it's like.

    So, instead of being able to solve this puzzle in ten minutes (because it really is a remedial puzzle), it'll take you hours of trekking along, going through loading screens, more loading screens, more trekking, more loading screens, more loading screens, more trekking, more loading screens, more trekking, and then it glitches out! Yes, this is a puzzle that's so bad it can glitch out and become unsolvable, and that's lead to some... fiery threads on the forums, that's for sure. You can actually end up in an infinite loop of loading screens and long walks.

    Essentially, they managed to create a first person Skinner box puzzle. It's going to addict people to it to solve it and see what's past it. It's almost Candy Crush Saga but in first person. It's truly remarkable, but also horrifying. If you like grinding, feel free. And the game, in general, is just broken, uninspired, and has many more Skinner box elements to trick the weak minded. I'm not weak minded, so I just let it rest. I have better games to play. I don't appreciate Skinner boxes.    … Expand
  4. CutlassCoffee
    Jun 11, 2021
    1
    I made an account just to write this - Obduction is awful, obtuse, frustrating, and not worth your time or money. Whoever made the cart puzzle should never design a puzzle game ever again. The game has not redeeming quality that you could find in any other puzzle game today. The visuals are just so-so, plenty of backtracking so you'll get bored fast. Character dialogues are one sided evenI made an account just to write this - Obduction is awful, obtuse, frustrating, and not worth your time or money. Whoever made the cart puzzle should never design a puzzle game ever again. The game has not redeeming quality that you could find in any other puzzle game today. The visuals are just so-so, plenty of backtracking so you'll get bored fast. Character dialogues are one sided even when it's not prerecorded voice. Gameplay is great if you like frustrating, obtuse experience and getting bragging rights to say "I fnished Obduction and it's a masterpiece".

    Please, play Myst (the old one, the 3d one, whatever is better than this), Riven, Outcry perhaps. Anything but this awful excuse of a puzzle game.    … Expand

Awards & Rankings

65
#65 Most Discussed PC Game of 2016
83
#83 Most Shared PC Game of 2016

Critic Reviews

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Metascore
76

Generally favorable reviews - based on 31 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 22 out of 31
  2. Mixed: 7 out of 31
  3. Negative: 2 out of 31
  1. Road to VR
    Jul 29, 2017
    85
    Obduction revives the overall feeling of its predecessors 'Myst' and 'Riven' by recreating the familiar brand of visually stunning environments mixed with cerebral puzzles. [Tested with Oculus Touch, HTC Vive]
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  2. CD-Action
    Nov 18, 2016
    65
    Obduction is scant storywise and in contrast to The Witness failed to gradually teach me how to deal with its puzzles, instead forcing me to use the trial and error method. Myst fans, however, should enjoy it. [11/2016, p.46]
  3. Pelit (Finland)
    Nov 9, 2016
    84
    An otherwise excellent successor to the Myst series that is somewhat marred by the frequency of long loading times and some less stellar puzzle design, like the annoying rotating maze. [Oct 2016]
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