2/5 ★ – jake84's review of Narcosis.

I'm so sad to find out that this isn't better than it actually is, because I was looking forward to a new deep sea Lovecraftian terror game in the same vein as the masterpiece Soma. I'd put this on my wishlist some time ago. I WAS ROOTING FOR YOU! Sadly, Narcosis is a let-down. I liked the beginning a bit. The opening scene with the training in the pool and the cross-cutting to the ocean floor is fine. The premise is excellent. But the execution isn't. The voice acting is okay, but the actors seem a little robotic. A little rehearsed and drained of life. They're not bad. Voice acting in games can be atrocious, but this is just fine. The gameplay is Narcosis' downfall. First off, there are NO clear goals. Just you wandering around the ocean floor. The level design is sort of linear, but not linear enough to not let you stumble about, especially during one of the later levels where I got turned around more than once. It would have been so nice and simple to have a waypoint or something to at least let you know that you're going in the right direction. Because everything in the game is so dark that you have no way of knowing if you're on the right path, and then it just seems like the game deliberately wastes your time. And I can't stand that. Secondly, you can't pause the game. There's a display, but it doesn't actually *pause* the game. If you're getting attacked and accidentally hit the display menu, it doesn't pause (even though it takes a good couple of seconds to come up). By the time you've managed to remove it, you are surely dead in the water, and the game will be reloading. Thirdly, and most annoyingly, there are no real checkpoints. This is a little difficult for me to explain or even comprehend why in poo-perfect hell they did so, but let me try: I mean, there are "real" checkpoints, and it's each time there's a loading screen to a new area - which is about every 20 minutes or so. But in the levels there are "fake" checkpoints, where you'll start up again if you die. But - and here's the kicker - NOT if you quit the game. Then you'll risk starting up at the beginning of the area a good 20 minutes back. Nothing in the game tells you this. It's just a giant "FUCK YOU FOR PLAYING OUR GAME". It's so bad that it must be an oversight in programming. It can't be intentional. It doesn't make sense. It's only there to annoy you. I think there's a real disconnect between what a psychological, scary story it tries to tell you, and what it shows. It's an underwater horror game with giant sea creatures and the occasional, obligatory walking simulator jump-scare. The problem is that they use the same tricks over and over again. Every time you boot up a computer in the game and you turn around there's a dead person in a diving suit standing in front of you. Every time. It actually becomes unintentionally funny after a while. I was also confused by this because they seemed like they should be ghostly apparitions, but at the same time, you can physically bump into them, so I don't know what they're supposed to be. Then there are the enemies. And just: SIGH. Enemies in walking simulators are the worst. They don't belong there, and they ruin the gameplay every time they're there. From "Observer" to "Soma". From "The Vanishing of Ethan Carter" to "Mundaun". From "Close to the Sun" to "Conarium". From... you get the point. Here, there are giant squids, giant spider-crabs, giant lantern-fishes. On paper, this would at least be a bit scary if the designers didn't use them ALL THE TIME. If they could sort of hold back their load instead of just bombarding the player with constant physical enemy threats. I think the paranoia of expecting something and then it not being there, is way more effective than it constantly being there. Narcosis has a real problem with signposting or telegraphing what the player is supposed to do. Within the first two minutes I came across a giant spider-crab. And it killed me instantly. I tried to swim over it, around it, died again and again. I had to look up on a Steam board what you're supposed to do. You have to see it, then go back and move a little out the way and then let it go past you. This game could have told me tons of times. It didn't. Almost no game mechanic is explained, besides oxygen levels, flares and thrusters. Another note is that the game's controls made me queasy. It's not a good idea to let the player look within the suit with one control stick and then move the character with the other. It creates a different kind of disconnect. And apropos disconnect, which I've mentioned a lot in this review, I think the game has no real sense of urgency and doesn't connect you with the characters or even the main character. I felt no investment. And it's two hours long. And it's not often that I find myself bored during a two-hour long walking simulator. I love those. This one really let me d(r)own.