Somerville

Somerville can safely be called the winner in the nomination "hell knows of the year." There are so many controversial points in the game that I definitely can’t recommend it, but I can’t not recommend it either, because there is still something in the game. Here, the “doubt recommend” category is most suitable. Okay, now about everything in order:

I'll start with the art direction, which I can moderately praise. Although the 3D models in the game are low-poly, the locations look stylish in the composition, they did a good job on the design of the environment. But what spoils it all is a rather pale and fuzzy picture. All the colors on the screen seem to be faded and all this is seasoned on top with a weak VHS filter, plus the picture is cut off at the top and bottom with black stripes. All this emphasis on cinematography does not really give anything, in my opinion. I would stretch the image to fill the screen and make the colors more saturated. One gets the feeling that they were trying to cover up just the same imperfections in the schedule due to the limited budget, but in the end they spoiled it even more.

I have no complaints about the sound, it is good here, but not outstanding. I liked the sound design more and the original soundtrack of the main theme, which plays at the beginning of the game and in the credits.

The gameplay is bad. Firstly, I immediately want to scold the tight and uncomfortable walking of the character: he almost always walks very slowly, as if he is too lazy to move. In the first half of the game, I just got tired of constantly pressing my finger on the left stick. Secondly, the puzzles in the game are sometimes not very obvious and you are often stupid and don't know what to do. In many ways, this is directly related to poorly readable or completely absent level design code. Interactive objects or directions of movement are marked in orange (paint), but it blends in with the general background and colors of non-interactive objects and does not stand out properly. The situation is aggravated by the fact that the character can move not only to the left and right, but to the screen and away from the screen, and interactive objects are at different depths of perception. According to the plot, the protagonist gains the ability to control the state of an alien substance with the help of directional light: he can turn it into a liquid or stone. Almost all the puzzles in the game are based on this mechanic (sometimes, of course, you still have to push objects or connect wires) and the idea is actually interesting, but for some reason solving puzzles is always incredibly boring.

The plot is connected with the attack of aliens, the narrative is rather weak, after passing the game there are many questions left, to which there is no particular desire to look for answers. Empathy for the characters does not arise, they look like faceless dolls and you don’t particularly feel sorry for them. The game has several endings, and to watch them, you just need to press certain buttons in the last chapter, and without a guide, it’s simply impossible to figure out how to do this.

The game has serious technical problems: constant freezes and FPS drawdowns, no VSync in the settings, no anti-aliasing, and because of this, terrible pixel ladders on the models. Once my game crashed due to the fact that the link to some sound was simply reset in memory. The game began to feel more or less comfortable after I manually set VSync, limited it to 60 FPS, and set all kinds of anti-aliasing in the Nvidia control panel. And so, of course, this is no good, a couple of months the game needed to be optimized and polished, but Jumpship seemed to be urged to release their brainchild as soon as possible.

The game does not stand up to criticism with past Playdead games (if you were waiting for the next INSIDE, I want to disappoint you). Somerville in their background is not polished, not optimized and does not work in many key things. It can be described as a good streaming product with an adventure for one evening and no more, after which you will simply forget about it the next day.