Primordia (2012)

I've not been in the review writing mood lately, but I like Primordia too much to not at least leave something short here.

Priomordia is now the second point and click to make its way to my All Time Favorites shelf alongside the Blackwell series. It's not quite as emotionally hard hitting as the later Blackwell titles, but it's more thematically up my alley -- I work in machine learning/computer vision and Primordia touches on quite a few of the topics my grad school friends and I would riff on to avoid actually doing our work. The writing, music, art, voice acting, etc. are all also absolutely on point. My only complaint is a little bit of frustrating pixel hunting here and there. One instance almost lead to me missing a really nice touch in my preferred ending, but I caught it while checking out the other endings. Still, a minor problem compared to how much Primordia got right.

Artistic Value: The futuristic and post-apocalyptic style in this game is simply fantastic. The drawings and music achieve an ambience that can be mysterious, sad, thrilling or ominous as needed. I think the graphics could be higher resolution, and that can sometimes be detrimental when trying to understand the details of small objects in the game world. The music is great and fitting to every situation; there is even an original record embedded in the game that I had to lookup and buy because it is amazing. But the sound effects are not plenty and sometimes seem a bit out of sync with the animations. Even better than visuals or audio is the writing, never have I ever come across a more thought provoking videogame, addressing subjects like individualism vs common-good, creationism, communism vs democracy, justice and mercy, and what makes humans 'human'? The dark writing is sprinkled here and there with genuinely funny dialogue courtesy of the main character's sidekick: Crispin. Just from an artistic point of view, you will find in this videogame some incredible paintings, incredible music and an incredible essay on anthropology. Rating = 9/10 for amazing.

Gameplay: The controls are that of modern graphic adventure games: two mouse buttons to interact with everything, very easy and intuitive. The puzzles are sometimes difficult but very logical, perhaps since most of the puzzles are so logical, when something doesn't work like in real life (probably because the developers didn't think of that specific combination of actions) the player might get frustrated easily. But for those moments in which one is stumped by a puzzle, the developers placed many hints all over, these hints can be obtained in four ways: looking at things with the right-mouse-button, talking to other robots, searching the notes automatically taken by the game in our 'Datapouch', or asking our best friend Crispin. And these are generally very good hints because they don't reveal everything in one go, so that the player feels a sense of accomplishment once the hint is deciphered/understood and executed. That said, the game keeps track of how much time we have been stuck without making progress, and after some time (an hour or so?) our friend Crispin will blurt out the exact action necessary to move forward; and now no one has an excuse to look up a guide (just the way I like it). One of the few real flaws I can see in this game, is that Primordia considers using 'thing A' on 'thing B' different than using 'thing B' on 'thing A'; so when you're frustrated because a combination of items doesn't work the way you want it, reverse the order. Also I noticed that a couple of descriptions and names for items don't match. I think these problems should have been addressed in the patches already released, but weren't. Rating = 9/10 for amazing.

Fun Factor: The story of the game is developed in two large areas with several rooms/scenes, the puzzles in these areas are mostly non-linear which gives a sense of freedom that I personally like. The background story begins shrouded in mystery and is revealed only to the more clever players little by little throughout the whole game and until the very end. On the other hand the starting premise is simple and allows the player to jump into puzzle solving right away. There are several ways to solve many puzzles and some will reveal more of the story (or other curiosities) to recurring players, increasing the replaying value. The characters in this game are diverse and some of the most interesting characters I've seen in video games. I applaud the originality of the developers to touch such thought provoking themes in such a unique manner; even if the overall story is derived from the classic "sentient machine gone crazy" (clearly inspired by Beneath A Steel Sky), the way the story is presented and maneuvered is deep and philosophical. As soon as I got to the second third of this game I got hooked and didn't let go of it until the very end; then, after getting all the multiple endings, I watched several 'Let's Play' videos to peek at the thoughts of other people; I got obsessed with this game probably for a month. The only problem is that it ends. Rating = 10/10 for flawless.

Final Verdict: Beautiful and thought provoking adventure game. Rating = 9.3/10 for Amazing.

Awesome point-and-click futuristic (post-apocalyptic?) robot game from the same group that made Blackwell Legacy. This game had a lot more of those "Why would I EVER think to do that" moments that can make adventure games really annoying (At one point, we were apparently supposed to dip a bomb in a random puddle of grease. For some reason.) But I loved the mystery, the choices, the various endings, and of course, Crispin. Crispin is what makes this entire game. He is your sarcastic, silly side-kick who is obsessed with finally having arms. He's adorable, charming, and his comments are the perfect counterpoint to the game's dark, grungy feel.

While playing this game, my husband and I referred to it as "Crispin," to the point that I had to search for the name on steam because I didn't know it. Haha.