The Fall (2014)

I'd recommend watching a walkthrough instead of playing it.
The story got me interested, because I like the topics of AI and morality.

But everything else is just plain bad:

• The shooting parts are boring.
• The controls are weird.
• Many of the "puzzles" made me wish I'd read the walkthrough sooner.

Reminded me of those old-school point and click games, where you pixel hunt for object and then try to use every item on everything that's clickable, because the solution often makes no sense. I hated those games.

Playtime: 1h24m (quit halfway through)

Review

In The Fall you play a robot suit who seeks help for their human contents. Most of the game involves looking around for microscopic nodes to interact with. There are also puzzles and combat. The puzzles are often very counterintuitive, requiring you to nearly die to unlock powers, send away a lift without being able to get it back and interact in weird ways with nodes. The combat is uninteresting, you just wait for the enemy to shoot while taking cover, then shoot them.

The game does have its merits. The atmosphere is great and really creepy. The worldbuilding is nice. The more sensible puzzles are clever. And with help of this walkthrough i enjoyed it reasonably well. Until you meet the caretaker again.

At some point you face an upgraded enemy bot. You unlock a new power and then you have to shoot it while it's coming at you. You can't go down the ladder, even though earlier you could go down ladders. You can't hide in stealth, unlike with all earlier enemies. Only headshots count and you can't miss a single shot. And when you fail the game sets you back way too far. I managed to kill it on the third try, then died while trying to hide from the second superbot. The game does make a new checkpoint after beating the first one, but i'd completely lost interest.

I almost gave this game 3 stars, but then i remembered the clumsy controls and how the game expects you to notice stuff like tiny sparks on the surface. A highlight button would've done wonders. It's a shame because it's actually kinda neat in its own way.

I never hear this game talked about, but it really is something special. You play an AI suit in an abandoned facility, solving puzzles to try to get your owner medical attention.

The gameplay is totally unique, slightly clunky but still really fun. The puzzles are great. The atmosphere is also really really good.

The game is very short, but there’s a sequel out. It definitely left me wanting more! Would recommend if you like the atmosphere of Inside or Dead Space, and the gameplay of a point and click adventure.

I was lured in to try this game due to its very nice and atmospheric visual style and the premise. However, the nature of its puzzles is way too ambiguous and makes no logical sense whatsoever. You end up resorting to walking around the area and trying to interact with everything to see if it works, and when you've had enough of that, you start digging through the walkthroughs. The progression of most things you do doesn't make sense. For example, I was told I had to do a series of tests. However, my character was unable to accept it until I walked into a nearby room and looked at a human corpse. No idea why it wasn't possible to just accept the test without having to do something as pointless and obscure as that.

There are some gun fights present too, which I enjoyed. The cover system is cool and some special abilities, like the cloak, is pretty neat too. These sections are too spaced apart, however, and majority of the game just consists of silly puzzles, so if you're after something faster-paced, best to look elsewhere.

I am weak for any and all kind of scifi stories, specially with AI involved. The Portal games are with difference my favorite games of all time, I loved Nier Automata, and I've really liked this one.

There's not a lot to say about gameplay, as most of the time it consists on walking from here to there pointing a flashlight to things, but the story is interesting enough, with a bit of again that Portal-like kind of dark humor, and A.R.I.D. is a likable character.

My only "but": some puzzles have solutions that aren't definitely clear at all, involving quite a bit of backtracking and just trying to combine everything with everything just to see what happens, and I had to check a walkthrough at least once to discover that I had to point the flashlight to a very specific point on the floor that didn't look any different from its surroundings. However, even that is very "80's point and click adventure game", and some people will like it.

It's a short game but fun to play, and I do intend to buy the sequel at some point.