I rate this remake of Bottle (the original is called “Bottle” and the remake is also called “Bottle”) : 3/5. OK (and it is a great improvement over the original). I barely recommend this amazingly short game.
This Bottle remake is a very short, highly linear, quiet and somber, first-person perspective walking simulator. Unlike the first version however, this version of Bottle has a far more definite story about, apparently, someone who is struggling to stop being an alcoholic as he wanders around in the snowy mountains while thinking, often metaphorically, about his unhappy past. This version of Bottle greatly benefits from its more defined story and is far more comprehensible and touching as a direct result. On the downside, some slight sense of mystery is lost in this version versus the original.
However, that doesn’t mean Bottle is good. It is merely MEDIOCRE OVERALL. It is a VERY SHORT GAME, taking me only 50 MINUTES to play it in a leisurely manner. This version also has NO REPLAY VALUE. There is, unfortunately, no alternate night-time mode in this version and no alternate endings. But Bottle is still quite touching, has very good wintery, cold, snowy graphics and exudes a strong sense of melancholy atmosphere (with a hint of hopefulness at the game’s end). That said, I wouldn’t mind seeing an actual drunk person play this game.
Good things:
+ Fantastic graphics. Winter scenes are not really my favorite thing to look at but even I cannot deny how beautiful the graphics are in this version of Bottle. The snow, the trees (especially the trees) and the rugged mountains are all fantastic looking. The nearby rocks look a little fake though (sort of like something you’d see in a Star Trek episode (any series) but they still have pretty good textures. The game’s store page recommends having an RTX 3060 but the game ran just fine on my RTX 2060 on a single monitor at 1920 by 1080 with all the game’s graphics settings on “high” except for view distance which I set to “epic.”
+ The walking speed is not too slow for a walking simulator. The walking speed seemed just right and if that is too slow for you, you can have your character run the entire time without him getting out of breath. There are also occasional power ups (they look like extremely out-of-place sparkling lights) which make your character walk and run even faster for a time.
+ There is a bed in your funny little modern, modular cabin this time.
+ Voice acting is good enough. It’s somber, sort of melancholy (and sometimes even slightly hopeful). It’s not bad. It doesn’t convey a huge range of emotions, being pretty uniformly calm and collected but it’s not bad. The voice acting fits the mood of the game perfectly.
+ You can turn off the game’s crosshair. I’m not sure why this game even needs to have any crosshair at all but I am really happy that I could turn it off.
+ The cold and snowy environment is used for great metaphorical and psychological effect, representing what has become of the main character’s life with some locations depicting vague memories (the ice cave) and other locations depicting emotional situations and tragic occurrences (the cathedral, the graveyard) in the character’s past (at least that’s my interpretation). Do not take this game’s environments at face value. Maybe it’s not even actually winter. Bottle is expressionistic and perhaps the environments are just visual depictions of how this alcoholic character feels about what has happened to his life.
I think it is this expressionistic depth which causes so many (perhaps overly emotional people) to claim this is somehow a “great game” when, in fact, it is really quite pretentious and mediocre overall, due mostly to its amazingly short length, general lack of interactivity, lack of replay value and limited content in general. I do appreciate the emotional expressionistic depth that exists in Bottle (it is a good thing) but that alone is not enough to make Bottle “great” any more than merely good graphics can make any game intrinsically “great” either. Once again, this version of Bottle is really little more than a single painting that you can walk around inside.
Now (even if it were far more expensive when not on a special sale) if Bottle had included a whole art gallery of such expressionistic environmental paintings, with different paintings interconnected (in terms of emotional expressionism and meaning) which, as you examine and play through each one, eventually culminate into some greater, deeper understanding of the whole, now THAT would be a “great” game, or at least it would be an actual attempt at one.
Mediocre things:
+/- The controls can be partially rebound. The movement keys cannot be rebound but the key which makes you run and the key allowing you to interact with objects (the very few which can be interacted with) can be changed. The game did recognize the additional mouse buttons on my cheap gaming mouse.
+/- The music is ok overall. Though I think this version uses the same music as in the original, the music in this version is better used and has, I think, slightly better audio quality. Still, I was greatly reminded of Yanni piano music. If you do actually like this kind of music and wish you had more of it I’d recommend Yanni’s piano albums to you (the album “In My Time” from 1993 is probably the best of those (and is far better than any music you will find in Bottle in any event).
Bad Things:
- The greatest weakness of Bottle is that this is an amazingly short game. It lasted me only 50 minutes. Sure, the game only costs 99 cents (at full price) but I’m not sure it’s worth the trouble to install it given how short this game is. The original version, no, definitely not worth it. This version, maybe. I guess it mostly depends on whether you like to wallow in melancholy winter scenes and play through expressionistic, metaphorical short stories about alcoholics.
- The environment lacks interactivity for the most part, with you being unable to affect the environment and the environment unable to affect you (except emotionally). The world is extremely static. Walking through bushes does not even cause them to wiggle. You do not leave footprints behind in the snow. You can wade around in icy water with no ill effects. Your character never gets out of breath. Invisible walls are all around which keep you from committing suicide by falling off cliffs (killing yourself could have been like an alternate ending in this game and it would have been realistic too. There have been many alcoholics who wound up killing themselves, accidentally and otherwise).
- No replay value. No alternate endings. No alternate modes. You get 100% of the game’s steam achievements the first time through.
