Beholder

I played through Conductor and Beholder 2, even though this game is the first one that started the whole series I have to say that it's the worst of the 3 games. The biggest issues I have are protagonist and ending requirements. In Conductor and Beholder 2 I managed to achieve best ending on my very first playthrough. But in this game it's impossible to achieve that during your first playthrough. Game will throw random ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ at you that you have no protection from if it's your first time playing the game. Game will give you a quest that's like "Hey, you need to give us a ♥♥♥♥ ton of money, you have 1 ingame day to get it. What's that? You weren't saving money from begining of the game to complete this quest that just randomly poped up? Well ♥♥♥♥ you now your whole family will die". There are multiple instances of this crap in the game and the only way to not ♥♥♥♥ this up is by holding onto specific items that you got from quests for a very long time. Or go buy items that are cheap and legal before they become expensive and illegal. How is someone that is playing this game for the first time suppossed to know all of that? Enough of me complaining about hostility towards player's freedom. (SPOILERS FOR STORY) I really dislike our protagonist in this game. From the begining cutscene you can see he lacks empathy when he looks with hostility towards Hector when he gets taken away by the police. He is a bad father to his children, he never spends time with his 6 year old daughter and thinks job at mines is suitable place for his 17 year old son. He is also very dismissive towards his wife even when she is right about being concerned about their family. If that wasn't bad let's look at his canon version. He forgot to buy his daughter a birthday gift, neighbour gifted him book for his son's studies and he reported them for it (books are illegal in this game). He let his daughter die, he didn't pay for his son's studies which resulted in him dying in accident at his mining job. He willingly became slave for the authorities showing no mercy or empathy for other people that he had met. Which resulted in him being taken away by authorities so they could clone him so they have more obediant slaves like him. This also resulted in his wife being left alone with no children, no husband, no money and no future which resulted in her basically doing suicide by cop by shooting Carl's boss. Hector from Blissfull Sleep DLC is much better character (SPOILERS END HERE) Gameplay loop is cool and something unique but it's hard to have fun from playing when game gives you a middle finger by throwing impossible quests at your way that can only be completed when you prepare for them in advance. Same goes for DLC, even though protagonist is more likeable it suffers from same issues main game has. I would only recommend buying this on sale. I would also recommend buying Conductor or Beholder 2 if you want something that is more rewarding and fair towards the player. 4/10

norm

Game is good, great even, but certainly overly popular for what it's worth. Gameplay is simple and fun and the same can be said for the story. In 2026, a decade later, games have surpassed what Beholder has to offer: modern stories in games can be just as good as in some of the best books or movies. In Beholder, which is technically a story game, there is no philosophical questions or characters that make you think too much about them. With that said, it succeeds at being one of very few games that successfully implement a 1984-like vibe. The choices in the game have long lasting consequences and are all interesting, even if not particularly deep. The characters are again, even if not super deep, at least charming, and follow tropes that allow the player to easily relate to them, which further makes the moral dilemmas interesting. The art style is great. There are occasional hiccups with bugs. Nothing too major but a bit embarassing considering the game's huge success.

напоминает мне некую страну Z

I wouldn't consider buying it outside of a sale. The concept is nice, but the gameplay itself is painful sometimes. This is further worsened but a number of bugs

im madly in love with george danton im not okay