Hey guys!
Yesterday I was sitting in my room, in front of my computer. Behind me, 4 friends of mine were sitting on the bed, watching me, as i played through the final days of "The Void" / Tension / whatever. We kind of start doing this regularly, testing new games that way.
Now, as we sort of beat the game, we wanna give you our personal opinion.
Attention - we will talk about the GERMAN Version of the game. We also watched some of Throdax' youtube videos and we know, that there are some major differences to the russian version.
But before that - lets make clear, that we all are looking forward to new games of Ice Pick Lodge.
To be honest, I'll get the next one as soon as it appears
Still, the ending(s) was quite dissappointing and is one of two main reasons you dont get 10/10 for the game.
Let's have a start.
The Void is a jewel. We absolutely enjoyed it. Because of that we will not rate it as some russian small-budget-product, but will it compare to whatever comes to our mind, even games by blizzard, ea-games or others. You are playing in the same league, thats what i want to say.
When I first started, I hit the game alone. I was sitting in my room, watching the first screen, not expecting anything special. When I started the game for the 12th time, some weeks later, I already had my best friend and my girlfriend sitting in the background, watching my progress. When I finished it for the first time yesterday, our team already had grown to the size of 5 poeple, 3 men, 2 women. I asked them about their opinion in the following categories and asked them to rate it - minimum 1 point, maximum 10 points.
We aren't professional reviewers, I only wanted you to know what we think.
Visuals: 9,2
(8,5 / 8,5 / 9 / 10 / 10)
There sure is a reason for the exhibition in moscow. It sure is art in one way or the other. But what made the most astounding aspect of the atmospheric setting we were thrown in was it's uniqueness. The single chambers formed dreamlike thoughts, the predators not only looked creepy but strangely different to whatever the common gamer is hitting on his journeys through the countless worlds of videogame-history. The flying predator looked like a bag of meat with wings, the jumping one scared the hell out of me although I can't even really explain why.
The third one was known as the terror-potato - speaking seriously and at low voice. The one which looks like colour shocked us so bad, that we refused to pick any more colour after some encounters. The almost unbearable fact that none of the guardians looked like a spider was also hard to take. We discovered soon, that this game really WAS different i more than one aspect!
Sound: 8,4
(7 / 9 / 9 / 10 / 7)
The atmosphere within the game is amazing, you already know that. We didnt. Invisible falling rocks, footsteps where no footsteps should be heard, the screaming of a predator who somehow made it behind us (again). The music is as a matter of fact a piece of art itself, but the thing which is most important (especially about the german version) is the
amazing
voice acting. This game not only has feelings. It has passion.
Gameplay: 6,2
(7 / 6 / 6 / 7 / 5)
The game is the reason I played it. Means: If not for the terrifying playing experience, I probably wouldnt have finished it.
Smaller glitches are okay. Sometimes, the subtitles dont match. Who cares.
Sometimes, the voiceacting wasnt translated, but russian instead. The small object on the back of a mountain in Uta's Hunting grounds which (as google told me) should look like something referring to "portal" has no texture and instead is completely black. Its also mumbling in russian, and at such a low voice, that you wouldnt understand anything anyway.
Those are things which I tolerated without a problem.
Can happen.
Who cares.
Ha, I found another one.
Even when you are at some open location, in a garden for example, and suddenly you find yourself being catapulted about 50 meters into the air without any possible reason, that is okay. Whatever.
But when you enter a garden, and suddenly you start wondering if your keyboard is still working, as you cant either use glyphs, nor pause the game, or even leave the chamber again.... Then things get annoying. Really annoying.
Not to speak of the state of turgor. I still dont know how to reach it. Even after watching Throdax do it in the longplay video.
Story: 8
(6 / 8,5 / 9 / 8,5 / 8)
There you are, nearly dead, standing somewhere in a dream with a female whisper in you ear. No idea of anything.
"Who are we? Where are we? What the hell? Okay, let's go."
Now we know what it means to discover a story step by step. Are the brothers the same guys, that are called the guardians? Who the fuck is "he"? Why doesnt anybody realize that I have no idea what all these strange voices are talking about? Hell, yeah, this game is on, no matter if you want to be in it or not. You simply have to move on, trying to find out on your own. Need a tutorial? Ask the girl in the tree who has no idea on her own and is still lying! Or is she really not to know on her own what to tell you?
The story is getting on quite slowly. Without patience this game will look like boring flowerpicking crap.
For a challenging and satisfiying gaming experience, you need a lot of endurance. But after a specific point, your caught. You got me and my friends, on the long run at least. Congratulation.
Ending: 1,4
(1 / 2 / 1 / 2 / 1)
Because we really liked the story we decided to separate it into "Story" and "Ending" to give a fair score.
I guess I'm not the best player. I restarted the game from the very beginning about 12 times, before i really... kind of... beat it. I got the "You didnt make it and stay here"-end, as I failed to figure out how to reach Turgor.
"This couldn't be it", I thought. I took it as some different "You die, game over"-Screen. So i watched some other endings on youtube.
...
Now... what to say?
I really adore your work, guys, but the ending sequence... let's face it, it sucked. I know, you are a small team,
you worked really hard, and - like I said earlier - I am really looking forward to your next game. Maybe I will play this one again in some months. Maybe not. You see - there we sat, feeling that the end was near, that we only had to figure out somehow how to arrange our colors to get turgor done. There was no nice chatting in the background anymore, we were discussing harshly about how to solve this last mistranslated puzzle and our minds were concentrated on this last step, we knew the end was near. We all were thrilled, excited, this thing was almost done, it was 2.00 am and we wanted to DO THIS!
And we really excepted some reward. Seriously. We wanted to see it. We wanted to see Imas world. We already were dreaming of it. Speed and defence, azure and emerald. We wanted to know what we had created.
We were used to long steaming ending sequences, we wanted to understand so much of the things we still thought would be explained in the end.
You disappointed us. Im sorry.
I am sure, you will do better next time.
And I wish you the highest possible budget for your next project.
Concept: 9,6
(10 / 9,5 / 9,5 / 10 / 9)
Getting thrown into this dreamlike THING was one of the most amazing experiences of all time I ever received through a game.
Thank you for that.
Not telling the player what to do, can be a big mistake. You showed me, that it can also be a feature.
I was thrown in there, believing what I was told just to figure out that this was kind of... wrong?
Whats the point in a tutorial that lies to you? Well, we found out.
Just getting into the main mechanisms of the game was a journey of trust, betrayal and shocking discovery.
The colour told us, that this was the last area before the nightmares, which is the lowest area of all. The brothers told us, this area was the paradise and the highest possible location in the whole... system? Im still not sure, which of all these guys were lying, who told the truth and which of them believed that they were telling the truth while simply being wrong.
The most impressive thing about the Void is, that you made me believe, that every single action I do, every drop of colour, affected the gameplay. Can this really be true? I dont know. I dont know nothing anymore. Somehow it feels like I'm still dreaming.
What a crazy game.
All in all, my calculator tells me to give the game a score of 7,13, almost only because of the ending score.
I really want to give it more on the one hand. On the other hand, the ending really was what kicked this game of the '1 place of all time in my heart. I just want you to know that it stood there for at least a month.
Yes, it sent "Zelda - Ocarina of time" to #2.
If not for the ending, it would have stayed there.
Still I really enjoyed it. Hope to see more from you guys in the future.
cheers
Matt Gambler
)
The bug is fixed in the English release.