Nobody Wants to Die

Looks gorgeous, but if you wanted more for gameplay than the braindance mini-game from Cyberpunk, you're going to be disappointed.

[b]Blade Runner influence[/b] If you look at the pictures and the trailer, you can clearly see what the main inspiration was for this game. To tell you the truth, it was enough for me to make a purchase. I also liked the screenshots people on my friends list were taking. What could go wrong, right? [b]Lore[/b] Now this is something that surpassed my expectations. It isn't just a future with advanced tech that we see in this game. It is a world where people can get new bodies (or shells) and by doing so, they can essentially live forever. A new body comes with side effects, though. Plus, it isn't one without any illnesses if you don't have enough credits to purchase the most expensive one. During our investigation you should pay attention to the dialogue especially the ones concerning this tech and certain, important, past events. [b]Detective story[/b] As James Karra we are entrusted to carry out an investigation and we get a liaison for that via remote communication. What turns out to be a homicide is something the board wants to consider only as a suicide. James and Sara decide to continue the investigation on their own. And why is it interesting? Because when the rich and famous are targeted, those with an influence on the city, you know there is an interesting plot to uncover. [b]Gameplay[/b] Normally, I would say this looks like a walking sim. But the crime scene investigations are pretty interesting. We have a device called reconstructor that allows us to rewind (and fast-forward) time and by doing so we can see what happened. Augmented reality? As you reassemble the pieces, more and more clues can be found / interacted with. Other gadgets allow us to look for fuseboxes or follow stains on the ground to their sources. When all the clues, pieces of evidence have been found, you can start the evaluation at home by using a board to connect the pieces. It's a puzzle-like part of the game that you really can't mess up. It is needed to advance the plot. Every piece of evidence looks like a chess piece. [b]But is it good?[/b] Initially, yes! The art design is fantastic. The neo-noir approach is very much "in your face" as in the cars look like directly taken from the 1930s. But, of course, they can all fly. At the beginning of the game we are watching a movie - all in black and white. James's home has its own things to marvel at - from its old, typewriter-like computer to the shower that is also used by the neighbouring tenant. You can also go outside and have a smoke while looking at the huge ads and the traffic of future New York. Dialogues are great. There is good chemistry between Sara and James. The latter makes some references to various IPs of the entertainment industry. Both have a past we get to know and both have stories they don't want to resurface. We have dialogue choices to choose from - they can unlock additional options later. When you do your first walkthrough, you think a 2nd playthrough will be a must and for that you will just pick the other option which is clearly a text where you have a different attitude. You go from nice James to rude Mr Karra or vica versa. [b]The letdown[/b] Choices actually do not really matter. One or two options will affect the endgame. That's it. We have 2 different endings (they are both pretty neat, a good and a bad one), but there is no chapter selection, so a full replay is a must (or tampering with the save files instead) if you want to see the other conclusion. The investigation part I liked, but at later crime scenes you have so many bodies to look at and reconstructions to do that at some point you forget what it is that you are looking for. These sequences become unnecessarily long at later stages. And while the story is great, I would have expected a longer game with some more chapters. Everything comes to an end so abruptly. Budget limitations, perhaps? The game looks fantastic and it is well-optimised. Too bad the crosshair cannot be turned off, only the size reduction is a possibility (or colour change). If you are a screenshot aficionado like myself, you'll consider this an issue. Other than that this is a neat little game. Given its lore I would love to see a sequel or just another story taking place in the same New York.

[b]Questionable faith in my investigative skills.[/b] The worldbuilding is fantastic, the visuals are gorgeous, and the atmosphere had me wanting to stop every five minutes just to admire the scenery. Unfortunately, the detective gameplay doesn't trust you to be... well, a detective. Spot blood on the floor? Too bad. Want to use your UV lamp to follow a trail? Nice try. The game basically says, "Not yet, Sherlock," until it's ready for you to find the clue. It gives you all these cool gadgets, then puts invisible "Do Not Cross" tape around the evidence until the script allows it. It's a beautiful game with a great story, but if you're hoping to solve crimes through your own deduction, prepare to have your detective license temporarily suspended. 3/5 for amazing vibes.

Short and sweet, easy to get the good ending. Don't come expecting a lot of shooter action, is a story driven game where you are a detective, as in, actual investigation detective. The graphic side is just freaking stunning and the music was amazing, the overall setting was ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ awesome and the first 10 minutes of the game hooked me immediately.

Pros: - Great Worldbuilding and Visual Design. The vibes are immaculate. - Moody soundtrack and suitably noir tone to everything. - Gameplay is [b] mostly[/b] satisfying - Story and dialogue are well written, [b] for the first two thirds of the game. [/b] Cons: - The game will only let you see clues in the order it wants you to. Noticed some blood in the environment, and you want to inspect it or use the uv lamp to see if theres a trail? The game either won't let you or will only make any trail or forensic evidence visible when they want you to see it. This happened to me several times, and it was annoying every time. You gave me these gadgets and you put me in the role of a detective, LET ME DEDUCE STUFF ON MY OWN. - The story and the writing has some pretty fundamentally fatal flaws: 1. Often, your partner will tell you to do or not do something, which made it feel like you might have a choice between doing what she wanted, or what the protagonist wanted. Sometimes this was the case. Other times it was not. For instance, at one point she straight up tells you to stop what you're doing, and go somewhere else for something urgent. I ran out of the area I was in to where the car had been outside when the level started, and it had de-spawned. From what I can tell online, this is intentional, as the devs seemingly needed you to ignore her to progress the story the way they wrote it. You cannot choose to do what is arguably the sane and non-self-destructive thing to do in that moment despite an NPC explicitly drawing attention to it and asking you to. Absoloutely baffling as a writing decision in a game that highlights player choice as a mechanic. 2. There were several times where a dialogue option appeared, and the tone that it ended up being read in, or the apparent intent behind the line was completely different to what I read it as. Thankfully, this never seemed to happen in any dialogue that actually mattered or changed anything, so thats something. 3. As someone who loves choice-based games, I was appalled to see that both: a. the choices seemed to be largely pointless, and b. the ones that did matter, [b]seem to be actively detrimental to the experience of the narrative being satisfyingly told.[/b] The biggest issue with the story: [spoiler]the "murderer" or "stranger" as he is subtitled is in your head and is actually just some weird symptom of jumping bodies too often that everyone eventually experiences[/spoiler], and you only learn this, if you choose one of two options in the third last section/level of the game, and even then it's not super clear in that moment, and doesn't become so until closer to the end. This means if you choose the wrong option, like I did, you play the game for another hour to an hour and a half, become baffled at wtf was going on in the ending, and the mystery isn't resolved. In an investigation, is that a conceivable consequence for getting the deduction wrong? Yes absolutely. Is that confusion and bafflement an acceptable ending for a game of this length that has no way of rewinding to earlier scenes without restarting the entire game? [b]Absolutely not.[/b] Especially when said information leans on one of the worst writing tropes they could have possibly chosen. You don't have to make all the endings happy if you're going to have multiple endings, but at minimum it should be satisfying. As much as Silent Hill F was annoying for [spoiler]forcing you to get a bad ending on the first playthrough even if you knew from the start to not take the pills[/spoiler], it was satisfying on it's own, and it is possible to be content with leaving the game there. Here, from the ending I got and reading about the other three, it seems there's only one satisfying ending to the game and it only depends on two choices. One you make an hour prior, and one you make one minute before credits roll. [b]And I cannot stress this enough, there is no chapter replay, or manual saving.[/b] I'm not about to spend another 5 hours playing this when I know around four of them don't matter, and I've already solved those crime scenes before.

TL,DR: Great visuals, setting and atmosphere, *almost*, but not quite, ruined by undercooked mechanics and apparent lack of proper QA testing. Got this game at random, had no expectations. The ambience and visuals are great, especially the cityscapes. Some late-game scenes are very cinematic. The story is technically solid, but ruined by the broken presentation. Unfortunately, to get there, you have to slog through the first half of the game, which becomes more boring and less polished the further you advance. I got so annoyed at one point, that I started making a list of issues I have with this game. It's a wall of text, but nearly EVERY issue could have been caught and fixed if QA did a proper job. 1. More than half the secondary NPCs all share the same face across crime scenes. 2. Some controls are uneditable. If you edit the ones which aren't locked, in-game messages still mention the outdated controls. 3. Very early in the game, you see very obviously AI-generated stickers on the walls of the corridor leading to your apartment. Instant points off, sorry. 4. Half-baked UI. Inoperable scroll bars on some messages. Inconsistent tool prompt approach: early in the game, you are prompted to take out your tools manually and use them, but from the second scene on, you just click the prompt to start using what you need. Plus, you never, ever need to use any tools where a prompt doesn't ask you to. 5. Reconstructor automatically jumps to the beginning of a new segment once it's revealed. Which interrupts the flow immensely. It gets better for a minute in late game where the UI changes for one scene, but that's it. Cyberpunk 2077 had this much better implemented. 6. Transitions between locations are abrupt. One minute I'm at my apartment, the other I'm inside Icarus. This gets better in the late game, but why the lack of attention in the first half? 7. Cause and effect are often jumbled or miss-able. During Icarus investigation, I was getting remarks from Sara about stuff "we found" on Kovalev before I even started analyzing his clues. And as I found Salma's scarf, the protagonist mentioned seeing it on a photo while Sara confirmed it, but the photograph of Salma is super easy to miss during the evidence stage. 8. Many of the conclusions the protagonist jumps to make no sense to the player - it's almost as if a portion of the scenes were intended to be in the game but got cut out, with nothing added to fill in the gaps. 9. Annoying inconsistencies like, a few scenes after grabbing a special bottle from a safe, the protagonist sees another one like that and says that he "saw" one like it before. You didn't "see" it, you took it and you ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ drank it. In a notebook, the visual representation has one text, and the UI text has something else. Protagonist's reactions to names of people who apparently mean something to him but were never introduced in the game. Out-of-line remarks like "THAT's what you were hiding!" before the player even interacts with the prompt that makes "that" appear, whatever it is. Pointless prompts that do nothing. 10. Repeated VO lines. 11. There's no real "investigating" happening, to be honest. All you do is use the magic-wand "reconstructor" and look for prompts to click. You can't fail or make a mistake. If you can't find something, there's a "hint mode" which tells you what to do at a push of a button. On top of that, the "investigation" process feels disjointed: there is one instance where you find a bootprint on a flyer while investigating a victim using a UV lamp. The logical thing would be to check the victim's boot to see if it's the same distinctive pattern. Nope, just gotta keep reconstructing with your magic gadget. Cherry on top: the thing doesn't just simulate events - it literally, physically rebuilds stuff, apparently. Which raises a million questions and completely destroys any suspension of disbelief you may have started with. Also, unfortunately, it just plain gets boring by the third crime scene. 12. No journal. Unless you're playing through the game in one sitting, good luck remembering who's who the next day. Because let's face it, the story isn't that gripping. 13. The writing seems good, but I get the feeling the English translation is lacking and doesn't really help connecting the dots. 14. In at least one major scene, a character explicitly tells the protagonist what to NOT do. But the player is not presented with an option not to. It's not a cutscene or anything, the new objective just pops up and you can't not do it. And your car which you could've taken to leave, just disappears magically. 15. The "grand reveal" reconstruction in the early endgame is pretty damn misleading due to the suspect's model.

This game I have enjoyed quite well except for the ending. It just feels that some parts are not flushed out properly in the end. Visual wise absolute masterpiece, the atmosphere is great, the music and voice acting. The game is on sale so why not pick it up and play for yourself.

Great story and atmosphere, but the controls are absolutely terrible. That almost ruins the whole experience. Since the setting is so good, I'm still giving it a positive review—you just have to be very patient so you don't lose your temper because of the lousy controls.

I really like the story and concept, its very interesting, but the issue is its a bit boring, it needed a bit more action

Game great, performance is the worse the more you go into the game. In one of the chapters it started going to single digit FPS, and then the problem persisted thru the rest of the game. lowering graphics makes it even worse (???) Recommended Spec is 3070 TI, I have 3070, I shoudn't have these types of problems