Narcosis Full Game Review for PC

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Narcosis is what happens when someone combines Dexter and Soma. It's a horror game/walking simulator where you're trapped at the bottom of the ocean and trying to desperately reach the surface before your air and more importantly your sanity runs out.
Developed by Honor Code Inc. it was released recently on Steam and it hasn't made all that much of a splash with gamers no pun intended, which I think's a bit of a shame because despite its short length, Narcosis is a frightening, eerie, beautiful and engrossing experience.

GAME PLAY

Right from the beginning of the game, you’re already submerged and locked away in your diving suit for a short tutorial sequence to get you up to speed on the game's mechanics. From there you dropped right into things quite literally at the bottom of the ocean as an earthquake hitting the mid 80s on the Richter scale causes everything to go to hell. Campus space which was formerly your base of operations has been destroyed in the process and all of the inhabitants have been killed in various ways.

Throughout the game you're constantly coming across the bodies of your former co-workers in the game isn't shy about detailing how they met their watery demise. Every now and then a game alludes to there being other survivors but you never actually meet up with any of them and throughout the game there's just this constant sense of loneliness is your fate kind of hangs in the balance.

Like I said before, the game I think is a bit of a mix of Dexter and Soma. I said as being very Dexter in the sense that you're just moving in mostly a singular direction as a narration between two characters plays alongside the events unfolding. The Soma element comes from the setting obviously and the sort of creatures I guess act as the enemies of the game.

Being at the bottom of the ocean, you can expect to see all manner of sea life most of which are Placid and will outright avoid you but some of them are quite aggressive and hostile actively seeking out the player. These vary from cuttlefish and angler fish to even giant crabs that look more like huge spiders than anything else something arachnophobias are going to love. There's a basic combat system in place here with basic really being the keyword because there's not that much to it.

What I think you're supposed to be doing is timing your blows with the diving knife to connect with an enemy before they can latch on to your hopefully knocking them back. If you can do this two or three times, the creatures usually going to die. Bigger enemies like the crabs for instance can't be killed at all and you've simply got to either avoid them by staying out of their reach or ducking out of their way they happen to be moving towards you. U.S supplies the equivalent of your health and throughout the game you're constantly having to keep it stocked up.

I've never been deep-sea diving before but if my air supply ran out as quickly as it does in this game I think I'd rather strap my nuts to the side of a roman candle than ever be in that situation. Your air supply runs out pretty damn quick in case my horrible analogy didn't make it obvious, when you're attacked by something will happen to be staring at the many corpses of the former employees of compass station it runs out even quicker as your heart rate goes up.

Having said that, though it does run out quickly it's not ever really all that urgent I mean I think there's only one or two times where I run out of there and that was because I was screwing around and exploring off the beaten track. If you stick to where the game wants you to go you're generally in pretty good shape. The other thing you've got to worry about is your suits thruster which is used about the multiple platforming sections in the game.

I know what you're thinking but surprisingly these moments aren't all that bad they're even quite challenging at times I mean it's the last thing you'd expect to see in a game where you're moving around in a diving suit that I assume weighs a ton.

Then there's the horror aspect of the game and holy shit is this game freaky at times; not sure if I'd say it's outright horror I mean there's not any kind of monsters or demons chasing you down but game is chock-full of these really unsettling hallucinations that your characters experiencing. The most common one is when you complete a task and turn around and something happens to be just right there in your face and yet despite having lots of these kind of moments which I guess you'd call jump scares, the game never rapes your eardrums with high-pitched distorted screaming or other obnoxious sound effects.

Like another Essen horror game like layers of fear it's common for the environment to often be warped and distorted to mirror your characters withering mental state and quite often once you've got a hold of your bearings again after these sequences you're able to then see the environment from a mentally healthy standpoint and realize just how out of touch you were with reality.
I did find it confusing though how some of these hallucinations you're simply meant to stand there and let something happen and yet other times you're supposed to actively avoid whatever it is you're seeing or else you get killed.

There's never any indication from the game as to which of these situations you're in which can lead to a few unintended deaths. Objectives in general can often be a bit obtuse as well but this might have been intentional. The only downside I can see the narcosis is that I could see a few people getting a little bit bored with the whole thing mainly because your character really does walk infuriatingly slow atimes.

You also can't look the anti-static ground beneath you which can make some platforming sections trickier than they should be. Movement controls feel more like they're designed around VR than playing it normally, you use the mouse to control your head and the keyboard to control your movement. If you've played VR games, this setup is going to feel right at home but it does feel out of place if you just as I said playing it normally. On that note, I couldn't even get the VR working properly on my oculus rift so hopefully they can patch this in future updates. Combat as I said earlier is kind of crappy too but it's not a major focus of the game so I don't see it as a huge dilemma.

GRAPHICS AND SOUND

Part of what I think makes narcosis such an engrossing experience is the presentation, It's not really a powerhouse visually by any means but the way they've crafted the environments particularly some of the areas you visit that have been overwhelmed by the ocean just all feels very believable.
As you'd really hope for a horror game, the sound design is just flawless and I couldn't say a bad word about it if I tried. From the various atmospheric effects and the ambience through to the music and the voice acting which in particular really stands out.

Good or bad voice acting can really make or break a game especially a horror game and thankfully now the dialogue is cheesy or forced it just all feels very natural and really helps to suck you into this depressing game world.

MINIMUM SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS

OS: Windows 7 (64 bits)
Processor: Intel i5 or better
Memory: 4 GB RAM
Graphics: Nvidia GTX 560 or better
DirectX: Version 11
Storage: 8 GB available space
Sound Card: Any sound card

RECOMMENDED SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS

OS: Windows 7 (64 bits)
Processor: Intel i5/7 second generation or better
Memory: 8 GB RAM
Graphics: Nvidia GTX 970 / AMD R9 290
DirectX: Version 11
Storage: 8 GB available space
Sound Card: Any sound card

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REVIEW/RATING

Graphics 7/10
Sound 7/10
Gameplay 7/10
Controls 7/10
Effect 7/10

OVERALL REVIEW/RATING

7\10

DEVELOPER

Honor Code, Inc.

PUBLISHER

Honor Code, Inc.

GENRE

Adventure, Indie

MODE(S)

Single-player

RELEASE DATE

28 Mar, 2017

CONCLUSION

Lastly, Narcosis is kind of draining mentally because it's really relentless in the way it starts off with this dark and gritty tone and never really gives up throughout the entire campaign. By the end of the whole thing I just felt really drained and not in a bad way but because the mood and the atmosphere throughout doesn't ever really lighten up. There's a bit of a twist ending that I genuinely doubt anyone's going to see coming and it's just utterly depressing.

The whole thing's only going to last about two or three hours but that entire time you're sitting there with white knuckles waiting for the game to throw another curveball at you and overall it's just this really unique experience you don't get all that much in gaming.

At 20 bucks, the price might be a bit steep considering you're not getting all that much game time out of it but people who do pick it up are really going to enjoy what's on offer and if nothing else, the game just reinforced my crippling fear of dark open water so thanks for that I guess.

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Kindly checkout my previous reviews:

Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Wildlands Full Game Review for PC

Far Cry [FPS] Full Game Review for PC

Call of Duty® 4: Modern Warfare [FPS] Full Game Review for PC

Call of Duty®: Modern Warfare 2 [FPS] Full Game Review for PC

Resident Evil 7: Biohazard Full Game Review for PC

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_{Images were gotten from store.steampowered.com}

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