Sunset (2015)

 PC
User Score
3.0

Generally unfavorable reviews- based on 68 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 14 out of 68
  2. Mixed: 8 out of 68
  3. Negative: 46 out of 68

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  1. Zachatastic117
    Aug 1, 2015
    1
    First of all; Don't buy this game. Why? Because the developers had the thought that because it didn't get much sales, that gamers should, and I quote this directly from their Twitter "...May you die in the same agony that you caused to thousands of defenceless virtual animals.". So they are saying that if you are a gamer, they hope you die a horrible death. 1/10 Don't buy it.
  2. WaterMelon88
    Jul 14, 2015
    0
    Trying to find the game here but it's just a **** walking simulator with pretentious story made from a dev that hates gamers and wants "the bad guys to be exterminated".

    There's walking simulators with interesting puzzles like Penumbra, that actually have tension and then there's Sunset.

    I'd rather watch a real sunset than waste my time with this for more than 3 minutes.
  3. sausageparty
    Jan 31, 2016
    1
    I really wanted to like this game, but the condescending protagonist made it impossible for me to empathize with her to any degree. Also the animations are pretty janky, the walk speed is unbelievably slow, and the how-to-play section patronizingly encourages me to "roleplay" as a poorly-written character, basically requesting players to somehow forcibly immerse themselves. Shouldn't theI really wanted to like this game, but the condescending protagonist made it impossible for me to empathize with her to any degree. Also the animations are pretty janky, the walk speed is unbelievably slow, and the how-to-play section patronizingly encourages me to "roleplay" as a poorly-written character, basically requesting players to somehow forcibly immerse themselves. Shouldn't the gameplay be what draws me in? Why do you have to tell me to invest in the character?

    Oh yeah, because she's horrible.

    The game has an interesting concept, great aesthetics, and a tight scope, but it's one of the most boring and pretentious games I've ever played, and I've played Dear Esther. Skip it unless you want to screengrab some cool color palettes.    … Expand
  4. CiAnObAh
    Jun 16, 2015
    1
    Absolutely rubbish. I did like the look of the game however Game play is what matters and I took some peoples advice on wait till you're a good bit into the game like about 12 -15 days and I believe it's the worst advice. Just don't get it.
  5. Marmosette
    Feb 14, 2016
    3
    Really strong premise, and a bold subject, but sadly the mechanics really seem to fall short of what the game seems to be trying to do.

    There simply isn't enough to do in the game. You find the objects that you can click on in the apartment, and decide to do A or B, with the knowledge that you will A: increase romance, or B: increase neutrality. For a game trying to handle political    Really strong premise, and a bold subject, but sadly the mechanics really seem to fall short of what the game seems to be trying to do.

    There simply isn't enough to do in the game. You find the objects that you can click on in the apartment, and decide to do A or B, with the knowledge that you will A: increase romance, or B: increase neutrality. For a game trying to handle political upheaval and socioeconomic injustices between classes and nations, this really isn't enough. There's a little to explore in the environment to drive the narrative deeper,and there are a few events that occur, but overall it just comes off empty.

    If the goal was to create an abstracted sense of isolation from real life in a penthouse stronghold, then the monologueing from the player character throws it off, being too righteous and full of revolutionary potential. Additionally, if you go the romance route, it throws this whole narrative out of whack.

    If the goal was to show the power of one person to make a difference, or for the individual lives of disparate groups to intertwine, then the lack of gameplay choices really suffocates this narrative. And the monologuing again has a tendency to not fit, throwing revolutionary ideals around while you post cutesy notes around.

    It's a powerful game for about half an hour, or until the first instance of violence happens. After that, it's pretty lame.    … Expand
  6. coustoe
    Jun 23, 2015
    1
    Not sure why anyone would give this positive reviews, this has to be one of the most meaningless pretensions boring games created, the are no gameplay mechanics no reason why you would want to play, this is like someone give you asbestos or lead paint and saying its a game
  7. HIV
    Jun 27, 2015
    0
    Haha always love to see people that live to push propaganda fail. In the USSR they called you "useful idiots". Keep making meaningless computer games, nerds. Or don't.
  8. Stormwatch
    Dec 27, 2015
    1
    Let me tell you about the thing that truly breaks Sunset.

    It's not just that it is a walking simulator with barely any gameplay. It's not the lack of optimization that gives it a terrible framerate, either. Put that aside for a second, and consider the story that they tried to tell: a housemaid getting tangentially connected to the political turmoils of a fictional Latin American    Let me tell you about the thing that truly breaks Sunset.

    It's not just that it is a walking simulator with barely any gameplay. It's not the lack of optimization that gives it a terrible framerate, either. Put that aside for a second, and consider the story that they tried to tell: a housemaid getting tangentially connected to the political turmoils of a fictional Latin American country.

    Wait, that's actually an interesting idea. How could that go completely wrong? Here's how: they made the protagonist a North American college student / tourist that just happens to be temporarily forced to take this job. It's like they are saying: What, a poor Latina, making insightful comments about her country's politics? Preposterous! Let's make the protagonist an enlightened 'murican like us, bringing culture and civilization to the ignorant cucarachas. (Let's make her black, though, we still have to meet the progressiveness quota.)

    Thus, not only it fails as a game, it also happens to be condescending and offensive to Latin Americans.    … Expand
  9. Sjalka
    Jun 6, 2015
    5
    Hm - the idea of the game, the topic is mature, creative and really great. Its execution however is lackluster. While many other games focus a little too much on visuals at the cost of gameplay - this game should have focused a little more on those. The main aspect of Sunset is to take the player in a certain mood-set ... and the fairly ugly visuals simply do not do the trick. This is notHm - the idea of the game, the topic is mature, creative and really great. Its execution however is lackluster. While many other games focus a little too much on visuals at the cost of gameplay - this game should have focused a little more on those. The main aspect of Sunset is to take the player in a certain mood-set ... and the fairly ugly visuals simply do not do the trick. This is not an issue of artistic execution or "its mature, so one can use ones imagination more.."

    So lets be clear about it - this game looks worse than "the Sims 2" in terms of proportions, detail and design.

    It is a rightful shame that such a great idea fails (fails in my opinion) because of the technical execution.

    a 8/10 for creativity - it is awesome to see novel ideas in such a saturated industry like the computer games industry
    but a 2/10 for execution - none of the enviroments (penthouses) feel remotely real in any aspect and rather remind me to very early computer graphics (like 90s - in terms of enviromental architecture - that is 3d modelling)    … Expand
  10. Irenerys
    Jul 3, 2015
    9
    I think people usually play other kind of game and it´s the reason because they don´t understand this game.
    Sunset is a narrative game, more like a graphic adventure game. You immerse yourself in a story, a atmosphere. The details are that discover to you more about the characters. It is not a game for thrill seekers, no doubt, BUT the atmosphere is very successful, and makes you feel    I think people usually play other kind of game and it´s the reason because they don´t understand this game.
    Sunset is a narrative game, more like a graphic adventure game. You immerse yourself in a story, a atmosphere. The details are that discover to you more about the characters. It is not a game for thrill seekers, no doubt, BUT the atmosphere is very successful, and makes you feel distress in many times.. You're a woman living in a country in conflict. A war about to start. Soldiers break into the house. Bombs explode around you... The atmosphere in the seventies is wonderful and it have a lot of references to history, music, books, famous people... There are a really big and good job of environment and game history.
    It´s a very good recommendation for the video-game lovers. Not for the only-one-or-two-type-of-video-game lovers. ;)    … Expand
  11. PublicNuisance
    Sep 13, 2018
    6
    Sunset has a great story to it. The problem is that is all that it has. It doesn’t even have a good way to tell that story and it doesn’t make up for it in any other way. It is very rough around the edges in that it has poor performance and some bugs even years after it’s launch. I enjoy walking sims myself, I loved Gone Home, Tacoma, The Station, etc but I couldn’t bring myself to enjoySunset has a great story to it. The problem is that is all that it has. It doesn’t even have a good way to tell that story and it doesn’t make up for it in any other way. It is very rough around the edges in that it has poor performance and some bugs even years after it’s launch. I enjoy walking sims myself, I loved Gone Home, Tacoma, The Station, etc but I couldn’t bring myself to enjoy Sunset.

    You start the game as an American engineer who is trapped in a foreign country during the start of a dictatorship. You have to take a job as a housekeeper for a wealthy man to make ends meet. As you perform your daily tasks the story unfolds from notes you find from your employer, radio broadcasts, hearing gunfire and bombs on the street below and your characters own voice as she goes over recent events. You can choose to either perform your tasks coldly to your employer or warmly and begin to grow as more than just an employee/employer to each other. This all sounds great but the tasks you are given take about 5-6 real world minutes to finish for each in game day and your option then is to end the day, which means you may miss some even on the street, radio or from your character or you can literally sit around letting the day play out for another 10-15 real world minutes. You can try to speed it up by sitting down or lying down but it still drags on. I think this game could have worked better as a visual novel rather than a first person game. It would have still had the great story but you could of bypassed the boring part of the days.

    Coupling the boring parts of the in game days is terrible performance drops and bugs. Once in a while the game would run at 50-70 FPS but it would usually be 15-20 which is downright terrible for my system. I also had the issue of falling through the world once. The game has had multiple patches since launch yet these issues still persist.

    The game lacks manual saves opting to save at the beginning of each day but each day is so short it wasn’t much of an issue. There were 9 graphics options to choose from and an FOV slider that went up to 90. The game wouldn’t save my resolution though. Every time I launched the game it would default me to 1280-720 and I would have to choose 1920*1080 each time. Alt-Tab also didn’t work for me.

    I played version 1.06 of the game that I got from the Humble Store and I played on Linux. I got the game on sale for $4.99 USD and I think even that was a tad high. I want to try to keep mentioning that the story was fantastic. The arc you see the main character, her boss, and just the spiral you can see the city go through was great but the game just lacked in so many other areas.

    My score: 6/10

    My system:

    AMD Ryzen 5 2600X | 16GB DDR4-3000 CL15 | MSI RX 580 8GB Gaming X | Mesa 18.1.6 | Samsung 850 Evo 250GB | Solus 3 | Kernel 4.18.5-90.current    … Expand

Critic Reviews

All reviews »
Metascore
66

Mixed or average reviews - based on 34 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 15 out of 34
  2. Mixed: 13 out of 34
  3. Negative: 6 out of 34
  1. Pelit (Finland)
    Sep 9, 2015
    85
    A flawed, but hugely intriguing experiment in interactive storytelling. Despite the somewhat clunky writing and binary choices, what Sunset does in terms of atmosphere, world-building and theming is very much worth exploring. [Sept 2015]
  2. Game World Navigator Magazine
    Aug 21, 2015
    42
    While everything of interest is taking place on the streets, we stay indoors and clean up stuff. [Sept 2015, p.83]
  3. Games Master UK
    Aug 18, 2015
    43
    An interesting idea lacking the interaction or writing to make it anything other than a labour to get through. [Summer 2015, p.69]
See all critic reviews »