A Sci-Fi adventure that renews the space genre: Observation
For me space has always been one of the most interesting locations when telling stories, not for nothing one of my favorite sagas has always been Star Wars, and is that space and the universe have that mystery that brings out the best of the creative when it comes to put concepts like aliens or the dominance of artificial intelligence in the middle, something similar I try to do one of the most recent games I could play, Observation from the young studio No Code, got on my radar thanks to some Steam offers last month, I bought it simply because I have a weakness for space adventures but I had not played it until recently that I completed the first two zones of the game, and so far I must say that the setting and its story is its strongest point and while it has some good ideas with its gameplay I think some will find it generic in many respects.
The plot puts us in a space station that has lost control after an explosion and where Dr. Emma Fisher is located, but calmly we will not control a standard character in this adventure, but for a little more than 7 hours that lasts the title we will be behind the AI S.A. M (Systems and Administration Maintenance)... and we will be the guides of the doctor throughout the facilities to discover why the ship stopped and we will help the survivors of the ship to escape from the facilities, the point is that throughout the adventure we will be behind this artificial intelligence performing simple tasks to help the crew members, Things like reestablishing electricity in some area or check if communications are still active are some of these tasks in a fairly varied range that does not allow monotony at any time, all this taking into account that we can only do some actions because we are also damaged by the "event" that has happened on the ship, so even the simplest tasks for artificial intelligence become a constant struggle with the elements of the space station and the emptiness of space.
The thing is that the artificial intelligence of the ship works based on surveillance cameras that we can take possession of to solve most of the puzzles with a style similar to the hacking system of Watch Dogs, we can even alert about fires on the ship, objects outside the station and generally connect to everything that has a network to solve the problems in the special station, although we will always have the company and support of the doctor if we are not sure what we have to do next.
Most of the "problems" that the game proposes to solve are mostly very original and we will have to use all our ability and our ingenuity to find solutions and improvise with what we find, remember that the functions of the AI are not 100% operational and that will limit us and force us to think outside the box to make way for our survivor through the ship, All this without neglecting the dialogues that make us feel a kind of connection between the two crew members of the space station, each area has surprises at the plot level and a rewarding gameplay that most of the time is interesting to complete, there are some sections where there are so many options at our disposal that it becomes a little confusing to know how we can move forward but they are small problems here and there that do not harm the work as a whole.
The setting and in general the graphics in this game are excellent, they transmit in a very accurate way all the tension of being lost in space and with a potential disaster on the way, the game has that air of a movie and the performances add extra credit to all the technical deployment of the indie studio, every detail of the ship hides a surprise and all that dark atmosphere works perfectly to convey the feeling of loneliness in the space station.
Observation is one of those titles that surprise, space adventures I think that today they do not get all the potential they have but this game is a good start to publicize the plot section of this Sci-Fi genre, the game has a fair resemblance to the film Gravity and that inspiration takes the game to new levels in terms of design and atmosphere without sacrificing at any time at the gameplay level, is an experience that many indie studios would surely like to have in their portfolios and certainly one of the indies that has better production values.