My introduction to the work of a small Polish development team Bloober Team started with Layers of Fear, in my opinion, their first game of any significance (Blubers, no offense). It was she who introduced me to such a genre as a walking simulator, and even with horror elements, and I was delighted with it, despite the minimalism of its game mechanics. The authors were able to squeeze out an extremely intriguing story from a small budget, arrange a fascinating psychological drug trip into the mind of a traveling artist, and in the end create such a beautiful shell for all this, despite the engine Unity, which, before the release of Layers of Fear, I considered only as a base for cheap, unsightly crafts of amateurs (I have never been so mistaken in my life). I was looking forward to the new game with great anticipation, and to say that I simply liked it is to say nothing. In this post I invite you to remember how it was Observer and inspire those who have not yet done so to complete it.
As always, I am attaching a video version of the review:
Anything that can be done with a rat can be done with a person.
I was once surprised to learn that Layers of Fear was not the first Bloober game. Founded by two Polish Peters, the company began its activities back in 2008, but their first games were, let’s say, not very good. The developers were just getting their teeth into it, trying to somehow make themselves known, but their debut projects were unremarkably average and, in general, it’s not surprising why they all flew by. But when the developers saw Kojimov’s demo Silent Hills, they suddenly realized that all this time they had been doing the wrong thing. And in 2015, after the release of Brawl, they decided to take on their own P.T.
This decision was quite unexpected, in view of the projects that the Bloober team had been involved in before. But despite the lack of experience in creating games of this genre, the Poles managed to produce a frightening, beautiful and very unusual walking simulator. And Layers of Fear finally brought them success, the guys finally got a tiny ray of glory that they had been trying to achieve for so long. Now it was necessary to consolidate the success, and a year after the release of “Layers of Fear”, in 2017, they showed us Observer.
The spirit with which the game is imbued can be felt already in the opening
The game takes us to Poland in 2084, when cybernetic prosthetics, chips and other augmentations experienced their heyday, the years passed when they became fashionable, until finally they became as integral a part of the surrounding reality as computers, refrigerators or televisions (although by that time, the latter were no longer needed and had long since gone out of use). At the same time, new diseases also appeared, but the objects of infection were no longer living human tissues and organs, but directly the electronic part of a person. This infection, called nanophage, struck down many, and the only way to get rid of it was to destroy the patient. As a result, thousands died..
The political situation at that time was very unstable. The country was divided into west and east, which clashed in a conflict called Great Decimation. Neither side emerged victorious. Both of them were defeated and a corporation rose from the ruins of the former state."Chiron". All power was in her hands and thanks to the corporation it was founded Fifth Polish Republic. The gap between rich and poor became even wider: the former continued to get rich, while the latter rotted in the slums. Trying to escape reality, representatives of the lower strata disappeared into virtual worlds that burned out their brains, or in the old fashioned way they took drugs. Under the strict control of the Chiron dictatorship, any opposition movements were eliminated, and the corporation’s main instrument in this matter was a special corps of police detectives called Observers, people with special augmentations that allowed them to penetrate the minds of victims and read their memories, even if they no longer remembered anything.
Rutger Hauer, who played Roy Batty in Blade Runner, is back in action. 35 years have passed, and the actor has aged noticeably, and yet… Cyberpunk without him is not cyberpunk
The main character of the game acts as such an observer Daniel Lazarski, arrived in the slum area for a routine check, which turned into a new investigation that changed the hero’s life forever. In the middle of a briefing, Daniel is contacted by his son Adam, which he had not seen or heard for a very long time. But instead of something concrete, my son was talking some kind of nonsense, and at some point the connection with him was cut off. The observer decides to find him, however, having calculated the address and arriving at the place, he discovers a headless corpse, and it soon turns out that some unknown creature is at work in that house. And we have to track down the killer, find our son and survive, plunging into nightmares in the heads of the monster’s victims.
The beginning is very intriguing, as is the whole story, but one of the key plot lines related to the relationship between father and son was not particularly impressive for me. Already in the first third of the game everything becomes extremely clear about their relationship and the reasons for the discord, not because the developers reveal it to you, but it was simply very easy to predict. When you, sorry for the pun, watching the way the creators of the game later explain to you the essence of the problem, you do not feel any revelation, and moreover, the story of the Lazarski family seems quite ordinary. And in general, this topic is not accompanied by sufficient emotional impact, and therefore the characters did not grab me. But these are just my personal impressions. In general, I liked the story revolving around the investigation itself, and the ending of the game was truly cyberpunk, and it is presented in two versions, and these are not a good and bad ending, but two difficult choices that in the end will not lead to anything good..
Detective of your nightmares
The basis of the https://richville-casino.co.uk/login/ gameplay is made up of three simple things: go, look and listen. That is, the attributes of a typical walking simulator. But I repeat, this is only warp. In Observer, we also have to conduct simple dialogues in which we select all the options for remarks one by one, listen to the interlocutor’s answers and then continue on our way, that is, the options that we choose do not affect anything at all. Except that sometimes by selecting a script line, we could close the dialogue ahead of time and not receive any additional information (it was impossible to open the same dialogue again). There are practically no contacts with people in the game; perhaps we only get to talk to the concierge Janus in person. We talk with everyone else exclusively through, so to speak, a personal futuristic intercom.
We also have to investigate the crime scene: for this, the hero has two additional vision modes – biological scanner and electronic. With the first, we look at blood, guts, wounds and marks left by claws, and with the second, Daniel can analyze chips, implants and in general everything related to electronics.
It would seem that thanks to such an innovation, of course in comparison with the previous game, it would be possible to take Observer to a new level, turn it from a walking simulator into something more, make something like puzzles or a quest out of ordinary scanning, in which we would have to compare clues and come to a certain conclusion… and it doesn’t have to be too difficult (a la The Darkness Within), it would be enough to force the player to use his brain at least a little. But no. You simply scan this or that highlighted element, Lazarski will comment on it somehow, make a note in the journal and that’s it, move on with the plot. Moreover, it is not even necessary to completely inspect the apartment in which the murder took place. This is such a strange detective story… And yet there are problems in the game, although there are few of them, and they are very simple, unless you are too distracted.
And finally, rare but accurate games of hide and seek with monsters from local nightmares. Such fragments do not occur often, there are few of them and, in general, this is enough to slightly shake up the nerves and not make you hate the game for such a well-worn technique.
Scanning process
After Layers of Fear, Bloober Team developed its own specific style, and when you play Observer, you immediately understand who created this game. What I mainly loved about their previous creation was the constantly changing environment around the player: you enter one room, walk forward, turn around – and the door has disappeared, or a corridor has appeared in its place, or an eerie picture, or generally something unimaginably surreal. So in Observer this happens quite often, especially in the second half of the game. At some point I even got the impression that this was the same Layers of Fear, only with augmentations.
There is an episode in the game in which Daniel finds himself in a luxurious apartment that looks very much like the decoration of a mansion – the setting of the previous Bloober game, and when you explore these rooms and suddenly discover an easel with brushes and paints nearby, you can’t help but think, “is this a reference?”?». If you remember in Layers of fear, a lot of attention was paid to the paintings hung throughout the mansion, and the scenes depicted on them, original or distorted by the authors of the game, were an integral part of the game aesthetics. There are paintings in the Observer, but here they depict a different kind of thing, and they are much less common.
And at that moment I had a feeling of déjà vu.
The main character of the game was based on one of my favorite childhood actors. Although at that time I only watched one film with him, but it doesn’t matter, still “Blind Fury” was more than enough for me to fall in love Rutger Hauer and start waving a wooden saber in the house with his eyes closed… Hearing his aged voice, although sad, was still incredibly pleasant, there is no doubt about it, however, apparently, Rutger did not consider the gaming industry something serious, either the developers simply did not want to pull his grandfather one more time while working, or he was simply not paid enough… In general, the voice of the main character was honestly so-so. The actor’s voice is magnificent, no doubt, but throughout almost the entire game, with the exception of rare moments, he stupidly reads all the texts from a piece of paper, almost without showing any expression, and where he tries to emote, although whether he tries at all… he comes out very unconvincingly. Although in some places his monotonous voice was very on topic and complemented the atmosphere.
The horrors of a Polish communal apartment
And she is incomparable in the Observer. Not many games are capable of immersing players in such a depressing, gloomy mood of a far from bright and not at all wonderful future. This is probably the only cyberpunk horror game I know of. It would seem how you can combine these two genres? I won’t say that Bloobers managed to do it perfectly, but they still did a difficult job, and the results were to the liking of both me and, I think, everyone else who rated this game positively.
And here the office plankton has found its own nightmare
Darkness is an integral attribute of any horror game. But I have to admit that in some places the developers clearly went too far with this. Instead of depressing you, heating up your nerves and preparing you to shit yourself like the last time, this impenetrable darkness is frankly infuriating: you stupidly don’t see where to move, you stumble over objects, you get stuck and don’t understand why. There is a lot of darkness in Observer, and it does not always contribute to the horror component, giving way to irritation. Lazarski has a night vision device as another implanted bonus… but, while in nightmares, you can’t use either it or the scanners, so you can’t rely on NVGs here either.
The horrors themselves represent a psychedelic hell, a surreal bacchanalia and an epileptic nightmare. At some moments I even began to think that I was about to get sick, although I do not suffer from this illness. Reading memories is not so easy. Penetrating into other people’s neural connections, Daniel first finds himself in a parallel reality, in which everything seems to be the same as it really is, and then gradually the environment begins to change before our eyes, distort, teleport, and in general, a full set of jokes from Layers of Fear only at maximum speed. Watching all the game that flashes, flashes and goes out on the screen is not that scary, but creepy, it makes your hair stand on end. There is something primal in this complex of sounds and pictures that appear before our eyes, and this is what makes us feel a certain semblance of fear, but not fear itself. There are also standard screamers, but fortunately there are not many of them in the game. When you play through it again, you look at them with a straight face, but they will force an unprepared player to defecate on the spot.
But in general, be it bacchanalian nightmares or harsh gloomy reality or a hybrid of both that will haunt the hero in the second half of the game, you never tire of admiring it all. Yes, in some places the picture can be too sharp, in others soapy, but this is very rare, and the character models, probably all except for the concierge, leave much to be desired – the game still captivates with its visuals. Of course, a lot of credit for this goes to the style and ambiance – both are maintained at the right level. However, there are absolutely no views, landscapes, or open spaces in the Observer. Throughout the entire investigation, we wander around corridors, rooms, basements, sewers, and so on, in short, it’s very stuffy. This plays into the hands of the atmosphere, but at the same time it was possible to at least sometimes, at least several times during the game, let us admire the Krakow of the future, it would be a joy for the eyes and would create the necessary contrast with the cramped labyrinths of communal apartments. You can spend a couple of minutes looking at the view from the yard, but even here this “view” is quite limited.
Brain. Soul. Car
Observer is interesting to study, look for details, without this the game may seem like a bummer for a couple of times. For all the intimacy and closeness of the game, it hides much more, but all of this is traditionally hidden in text files on computers, environmental objects and optional dialogues with the residents of the house. From here you will learn about the division of society into strata, and about the working classification, about the Great Decimation, about the program of integration into society of veterans who went through the war, and about how these veterans are thrown into the trash heap. For example, the same concierge Janus: a veteran, went through the war, participated in a program of assistance and rehabilitation, but in the end, the government refused to support him with augmentations, as a result of which the prosthetics, of which Janus had quite a few, began to deprive him of his sanity – a man and a machine are literally fighting in him, and the first is clearly inferior to the second… Somewhere you can meet a man who is so accustomed to being in the virtual world that when returning to reality, he does not leave the role of captain spaceship. In general, all the residents of the house represent some of the vices of society, which is why a very unpleasant picture emerges; I won’t go into details, otherwise you won’t want to look for all this yourself.
The only place where you can admire a piece of gloomy Krakow
Those who like to probe every crevice in search of something will be pleased by the opportunity to collect a collection of cards of local repeat offenders with the faces of the developers themselves. I almost forgot to tell you about the capsules synchrosin, which can also be found here and there. Synchrosin is something of a healing pill that Lazarski needs after each deep dive into other people’s brains. Leaving the memories of the victims, he begins to squash very strongly, so it is necessary to inject the drug every time. In addition, over time, if you walk straight for a very long time, search, read, scan, etc.d. Daniel may also need medicine, and the longer you wait, the more distortions and ripples become on the screen, that is, in the eyes of the hero. But throughout the entire game, I personally only had to throw in synchrozine a few times, again only after examining my memory, and there are so many of these tablets scattered around that it would be enough for 40 hours of playthroughs. That is, this is another mechanic that is not entirely clear why was introduced, which could well have been performed purely automatically.
There is another game inside Observer, it’s called With Fire and Sword: Spiders, Moreover, it is so popular in Neokrakow that it can be found on any computer accessible to the player. True, you won’t be able to complete it all at once: only a certain number of levels are available on each computer, and the further you go through the Observer plot, the further you can go through the game within the game. But don’t expect anything grandiose, this is just a simple arcade game in the spirit of slot machines or consoles like SEGA and Dendy, in which you need to collect all the coins and save the princess, without running into spiders. There are fiery swords in the game against these infidels, but you can only use one sword for one blow, so sometimes you have to get creative and force the spiders to weave themselves into a ball on one cell, and then hit them all at once. And with each new level it became more and more difficult, but the game was really addictive.
Most often in the game I came across Rembrandt, but also Bosch and William Blake, although only once.
Finally, there are some references in the Observer: the novel "1984" by Orwell serves as a password to one of the locks, sorry for the spoiler, and some of the design solutions and art depicted on billboards refer to the science fiction culture of the 80s, when cyberpunk was just becoming popular. I already talked about paintings, so here you go "The Anatomy Lesson of Doctor Tulpa" by Rembrandt, which is almost mandatory in cyberpunk (remember, for example Deus Ex: Human Revolution). There were probably other references, especially if you delve into sculptures and architecture, but I’m a lazy guy, so this will be enough 🙂
Observer is still the same walking simulator that Layers of Fear was, although with some additions as part of the overall investigation. However, all these innovations remain in their infancy. At first they may seem like a breath of fresh air, but soon you discover the lack of any depth in them and become slightly disappointed. But for this genre such diversity is already a plus. But the atmosphere of the Observer, so gloomy, depressing and uncomfortable, can boast of depth. The plot in the game is good and makes you closely follow the development of events, and the ambiguity of both endings leaves a pleasant aftertaste. Otherwise, this is an even wilder, surreal and, in some sense, even frantic horror than it was in the developers’ previous game. How scary it is is a controversial and purely individual question, but it is definitely capable of creating horror.
You probably heard how suddenly the Bloobers announced the development of a remaster… I don’t know why the hell they gave in to the remaster, the game is still quite fresh, for such things, as for me. I would be more excited about the announcement of a sequel. However, the developers promised to supplement the story, and now this is interesting. Just hope it turns out to be a Trojan horse, which the cunning Poles decided to sneak into our wallets… Write in the comments whether you are looking forward to the expanded Observer and whether you are ready to pay for the same game again.