I found myself inside a prison cell with a convict enduring withdrawal, only to jump to his apartment, where he lies dying.
#Observer video game full#
In harrowing segments full of fragmented hallucinations and broken spaces, Observer pulls you through entire life stories as they flash through collapsing minds. The memories of a dying person aren't pleasant. The world is already unstable, dotted with holographic augmented-reality displays that warp space with a mixture of advertisements and propaganda-but once you jack in, everything changes. As you jack into the implants of the dead or dying to determine what's going on and where your son might be, reality gets fuzzy. What's really important here isn't the plot, but the presentation. But Observer, a cyberpunk meditation on the frailty of perception and the tenuous bonds that tie people together, made me question my own eyes. After all, it's not real the difference between hallucination and objectivity isn't an essential one. Normally, I happily let games go where they want to without stressing over the integrity of the world they inhabit. The first-person experience by Polish studio Bloober Team features one of the most convincing realities I've seen in some time-and the devs build it for the express purpose of breaking it apart.
That's not the kind of question I often ask myself in videogames, but Observer is something special. I find myself wondering if it's even real. "I need to talk to you for a moment." The voice that responds is incoherent, rambling, paranoid. "KPD," says the visitor, meaning Krakow Police Department. My voice comes out frail, disappointed, all age and regret. I press a buzzer on a dingy apartment door, and a single pulsing eye appears on the intercom screen.
0 kommentar(er)
