by ChevRage » 13 Jul 2019 18:26
Finished this game the other day, and I have to say that this is really nice, well-written review apart from the final few paragraphs where the author suddenly seems like he has no idea what he is talking about.
I've no idea how you have to "repeat a lot of boring tasks very quickly to exploit your 22-minute shot at finding something new" when the next time you are navigating the treacherous environment you are closer to "effortlessly jump[ing]/fly[ing] across valleys, gorges", etc. as the review says earlier. You can find shortcuts nearly all the time, especially once you get better at the platforming. Adding to which if you have read or found something important it gets recorded in the ship's log (with large unmissable writing on the spacesuit's UI), and you can check the ship's on-board computer to see how it might relate to anything else you've found in a large, easily navigable, information web. Like, how the fuck is the user interface "underexplained" anyway? Does the guy not know what O2 means or something? It doesn't take a genius to figure out the entire UI within a few minutes of dicking around with a spacesuit on. Maybe when the spacesuit literally tells me in block letters that it's started using oxygen as propellant that means that if I keep using my booster that I'll run out of breathable air? Maybe there was an update since the dude played or something, but at no point was I ever confused about what to do or what there was to "move the story forward". Especially with the information web the computer has.
And that last "particularly offensive" sequence is absolutely amazing. An especially climactic trial that perfectly befits the setting, on top of being particularly visually breathtaking. I think the guy that has been quoted for the last few paragraphs is just a moron or something. Only way that I can explain how he ran to guides to find solutions to problems that are clear and logical only if you actually pay attention.