They’re narratively static, built like movies, moving from scene to scene in precisely the same manner every time. For example, how I play this sort of platforming adventure game has changed over the years.
And the solution may fall as much on the player (read: me) as the designer. To counter myself, the problems may just be inevitable side effects of this style of game. These flaws held back Inside and Limbo, and it’s disappointing to see them now span three games over 12 years, presumably following creative talent from one studio to another. We’ve seen this level of detail in mega-budget projects like The Last of Us Part 2, but rarely in a game this size We’ve seen this level of detail - in which characters engage with the world and the people around them - in mega-budget projects like The Last of Us Part 2, but rarely in a game this size, where prioritizing animation means deprioritizing something else. You can tell that an animator had greater-than-usual control, because every character and creature and catastrophe has been granted so much time and care. When he evades the spotlights of a behemoth alien ship, the camera pulls back until he’s a spot on the screen. When the guy leaves his demolished home, he leans on the door frame and cranes his neck, looking for his dog. What do I mean by that? Basically, the game works best when it’s not being much of a game at all. So while the game presents at first blush as another Limbo or Inside, as its journey continues, the similarities chafe off like a snake shedding its skin. Somerville’s director and writer, Chris Olsen, came from the world of animation, and from that, he brings a more acute interest in the cinematic - not just in blockbuster set-pieces, but the little things, too: the wide shot and the close-up. Following the release of Inside, Playdead co-founder and executive producer Dino Patti left the studio and founded Jumpship, where he hired new talent. You walk left or right across a more or less 2D space, solving puzzles, hiding from unstoppable enemies, and piecing together a story performed with pantomime rather than dialogue.īut this isn’t a Playdead game. In this way, the game looks and plays an awful lot like the games of Playdead. Most of Somerville’s puzzles involve the dissolving and restoring of materials, liquefying stones to fill a gap with melted other-world sludge, then hardening its surface so that the guy and his dog can hobble across the crust.Īnd so the dad sets out on a journey across a world that looks a bit like our own, but moodier and utterly demolished. Not much later, he acquires a red energy that, with a concussive pulse, solidifies the alien goop, like lava instantly hardening into rock. When he touches a desk lamp or a ceiling fan or a spotlight, he can channel blue energy through the current, converting the natural white light into a seafoam glow that melts alien materials into a sort-of-living goop. With a tap of fingers and a period of unconsciousness, he receives the gift to transmogrify light into a world-bending tool. In the moments after the invasion, but before the family gets yanked apart, the dad has a close encounter with an alien soldier.
An outdoor festival is abandoned, as if its partygoers had been raptured.īecause this is a video game, our guy gets to hike into the night with a superhuman power. Survivors hide in sewer drains or gather at impromptu evac centers.
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Cars zip erratically along a highway, fleeing in a direction where things are probably just as bad - maybe worse. Of all War of the Worlds adaptations, Somerville has most in common with Steven Spielberg’s Tom Cruise vehicle, released a few years after the 9/11 attacks. He’s like a particularly clever and/or lucky ant skittering to stay alive during a family picnic. The guy has no knack for violence, and no talent for survival beyond a slightly elevated ability to problem-solve on the fly. This time, rather than follow the president or the world’s sexiest scientist, we get a guy who just wants to see his wife and kid again. If you want curated lists of our favorite media, check out What to Play and What to Watch. When we award the Polygon Recommends badge, it’s because we believe the recipient is uniquely thought-provoking, entertaining, inventive, or fun - and worth fitting into your schedule.
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