Played through the demo, had to use the hint system (aka built in walkthrough!) once though because I missed an object in the environment.
Overall it seems very exploration heavy, you do a lot of wandering of the environment hunting for stuff, but the actual puzzling itself is pretty light. There's a slider puzzle thrown in because casual gamers like that kind of direct puzzle stuff, but the smartest actual adventure game puzzle was
using the C4 gum on the locked cabinet to open it, which is very basic but did require a few seconds of actual lateral thinking
.
I have to admit, I was expecting cringy-bad acting and it was actually quite serviceable. The environment on the other hand... yeesh. It can get away with it because it is styled like its predecessors but there really are not that many polys being pushed here. The UI is well-designed but visually looks very rough.
The star of the demo is the FMV sequences, though. The game flips a switch and goes from being something that, for all intents and purposes, looks and feels like the work of a couple of voice actors and a 3D modeller to a really nice production with good post-production and practical effects.
The C4 gum and reaching your hand into the toxic water movies were both funny. I also liked the IQ test, even if it was there for no real reason.
It has to be said though - you are paying £15-£20 for what seems like a lot of solid FMV and a game that's not really more advanced than realMYST.
Loved the experience but I have to mention that wandering in the dark to find five scattered wood planks was not a great way to start off a modern adventure game demo...
But yeah, can't wait to play the full thing. The cut scenes are blowing my mind. I could watch Tex riding his speeder through New San Francisco's skies forever.
Loved the experience but I have to mention that wandering in the dark to find five scattered wood planks was not a great way to start off a modern adventure game demo...
I stuck at that for a moment because when you pick one plank, the icon in the inventory shows you few planks and the description of the item indicates that you indeed have few planks instead of only one. I haven't noticed other planks at first (as I've said before, the demo is pretty dark) and when I couldn't use that single plank on the ladder, nor combine it with already picked up nails and hammer, I thought that there is some kind of bug in the demo. :lol