[b]ourea[/b] calls itself a cinematic puzzle game and sure enough, cutscenes with cinematic shots happen very often. too often, as a matter of fact, disturbing what little gameplay there is without providing anything substantial for the most part.
you're controlling a floating stone thing that comes to life at the beginning and goes through area after area, trying to figure out what's what and why most of the place is in such a bad shape. there is no text in the game, no characters to talk to either, it's more about environmental puzzle solving to proceed to the next area and eventually reach the beam of light in the distance.
there are [b]4 levels and no mid-level saving, nor checkpoints[/b]. rotating gears only indicate loading, so [b]be on the lookout for a floppy disk icon to find out when it's safe to quit without losing progress[/b]. this got patched in right before release, until then it was only the gears and I thought the game saved after every location, as it should.
the graphics are colorful and varied, but texture quality isn't that great. I was playing on a pc around minimum requirements and performance was often horrible, especially during cutscenes and in a few other locations (e.g. after the elevator ride), but I'm more tolerant of lower framerates and turning vsync off helped a bit, plus everybody has to have a better pc than my paperweight from olden times, so it most likely won't be an issue for anyone. still, [b]some graphics settings, including resolution options, would be necessary to tweak the experience a bit[/b].
speaking of settings, there are separate volume sliders, but positions aren't saved between sessions. brightness works as it should, and level selection is only available after finishing the game. that's it. for something described as cinematic, [b]camera angles are more often in the way than not and controls aren't that great either[/b], you can get stuck on nothing and pushing boulders around is tedious.
keyboard and controller both work, mouse only in the menu, [b]can't rebind anything[/b]. space is to interact, wasd is for movement, arrows are used to pan the camera but it barely does anything, completely useless. it would've been better to offer arrow movement as an alternative instead, especially with no key rebinding, or actual camera controls to have a look around the environments.
[b]it's a 2-hour game with only a few very easy puzzles[/b], sometimes drawings help you out with the next step (other times they fill you in on some of the story), but there aren't many things to interact with, so it shouldn't be hard to figure things out. [b]cutscenes are unskippable[/b], always a pain, as you have to replay the annoying final level to get the other ending.
it's a [b]very cautious recommendation on sale[/b], nothing to write home or get excited about, but okay for a younger audience or people not looking for too much of a challenge (or any, really).
