Note: This is a heavily-truncated version of the original post, as per the new rules.

• Original post
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observer_ is Rutger Hauer’s first role in a videogame, and also serves as one of his final performances. Developed by the Polish Bloober Team, who are responsible for the new Blair Witch game and Layers of Fear, it is a work of both science fiction and horror, and serves as a fine starting point for our annual “Horror Month” marathon.

observer_ immediately calls Blade Runner to mind. Lines of white text crawl over the screen, narrated by Rutger Hauer. Once we wake up in the world of the game, we are treated to a little more set up. We are playing the game through the eyes of Daniel Lazarski (Rutger Hauer) — the eponymous Observer — for the most part. Observers are police officers of high status, who are equipped with cybernetic implants which help them “observe” things. Daniel comes equipped with EM vision and a bio-scanner (of sorts) to help him comb the field, an enhanced mind, a hacking tool, and a machine known as the Dream Eater. Lazarski is an ageing man who requires frequent medication due to his use of the Dream Eater. Mr Hauer plays the character in a jaded fashion; so jaded, that his tiredness feels quite contagious during the early parts of the game.

And that’s all we are given to work with. There are no weapons, here, nothing else for us to use apart from what environmental aids the game hands us from time to time. And at certain parts of the game, even those tools are taken away from us. Ultimately, our best weapons are partience and intelligence as we work our way through the case we are stumble upon in the opening act. And that’s the main feature of >observer, you are on a journey that Bloober Team have set up for you, with very little actual agency. While the character of Lazarski has agency, and you do get to make choices, there’s not very much for the player to do, here. I’m fine with that — with taking >observer to be a sort of an interactive animated movie — but I suspect that some people would not be as pleased with the gameplay on display.

I feel the story that >observer_ tells could have been better. There’s a lot of potential in the set up. However, it seems like the game falls short of its promise. From very early in the story, there are lines foreshadowing events which do not pay off; lines such as “You’re not in control”, or text scrawled onto a floor (behind a door you can’t quite open) which reads REMOVE YOUR IMPANT put me in the mind of the story taking a darker turn than it does, especially when they drop in a flashback to Lazarski receiving his memory implant.

Overall, however, >observer_ is quite the good-looking game. Almost everything about the aesthetic design is perfect. The monsters may not be the scariest that I’ve seen (or at all), but the character models we do see are very high quality, and the environmental design knocks it out of the park both within the Dream Eater sections and without. The game’s sound is almost a thing of wonder, flipping between Blade Runner‘s motifs and screeching whenever it wants to. One could argue that the soundtrack might seem very “aggressive” on a cursory listen, but once you hear it in the context of the game, it fits in fine. Even the voice acting is top notch, by pretty much all the members of the cast. No complaints on the design front apart from the issue with the brightness.

Before I conclude this review, I should add one feather in >observer’s cap. Playing this game is like existing in the world of Blade Runner. This game reeks of cyberpunk — specifically the world Ridley Scott and his team created back in 1982, and probably is the best cyberpunk product I’ve seen in a long time. While that might not make it original, it does make it worth taking a look at. It really does feel like you’re just another slice of life in that world. And considering that this is a mix of genres which are right up my alley, it feels like >observer is a sort of a present for people like me. And it’s a present I’m only happy to receive.

observer_ may have fallen flat on one or two points, but it’s a thoroughly enjoyable ride. It’s not the best game out there, but it certainly has value as an experience. It’s not for the squeamish, or for those who want instant results, but it comes highly recommended by us at The Corvid Review.

RIP, Rutger Hauer.

Final Rating

7/10