Observer

Observer tells a compelling story about people, their mistakes, and man-made nightmares, but I believe that this narrative could have been better if its creators weren’t spreading themselves thin on genre cliches and cheap jump scares.

Before it resorts to some rather cliched horror tropes, Observer is a gritty, oppressive cyberpunk nightmare. [Issue#266, p.60]

Cyberpunk adventure with a horror tinge and great focus on the Bladerunner legacy with Rutger Hauer in the leading role. The game will catch and charm you with a dark, claustrophobic atmosphere. But unfortunately, they will plug you out from its magic virtual reality too soon, what will probably cause you a temporary perception disorder.

Search for clues in the downtrodden districts of the future turns out to be far more captivating than diving into someone’s memories – which is supposed to be Observer’s main course. In the previous game by same studio, Layers of Fear, developers managed to evoke anxiety before the unknown, but here, all their efforts fall flat. Playing this game is just like fiddling with a jammed mechanism: you keep thinking that if you go just a bit further, something will click and the gears will start to turn – but in Observer’s case, that never comes to be. [Issue#223, p.62]

Overall Observer is good at what it does, but it’s not the sort of place I overly enjoyed being in. Rather than pelting headlong down the horror route, it straddles an awkward thriller line that didn’t overly entice me. At no point was I desperate to boot it up and find out what happened next, no doubt partly due to the busy, often dizzying art style that made me feel like I was sat in the back of a hot car on a long journey. For those after a narrative driven, cyberpunk fix Observer certainly fills a hole though, provided you can deal with yet another take on technologies potential impact on humanity.

Unfortunately, even though Observer has its moments, it is nevertheless inferior in almost all aspects when compared with the uniquely horrifying experience offered by Layers of Fear. The decently crafted intrusion of people’s minds cannot overcome the absence of world building as well as the derivative main plot. Worth mentioning that Rutger Hauer may seemed a right choice on paper but in reality its disinterest with his role is almost palpable.

Observer starts out as a quirky cyberpunk thriller that tries to play a lot mindgames with you. But it gets predictable after a while.

Whether or not you suffer from simulator sickness, Observer will make you queasy. For better and worse, that's the point of the game, which uses a cyberpunk detective framework to meditate on augmented reality and consciousness.