Just finished playing the third chapter of this. First things first: it's fucking gorgeous. Seriously, the visuals they're wringing out of the creaky old Source engine are nothing short of electronic voodoo. The rendering of the moody, windswept island and it's surrounding sea is impressive enough but that moment in caves when your view opens out to the
ZOMG Spoiler! Click here to view!
waterfall
is genuinely jaw-dropping. Wandering the caves, and indeed some parts of the island, put me mostly in mind of Skyrim. But with better textures.
As for the gameplay itself; it's patchy. Huge sections of the island are bordering on boring to walk through. You can see the next structure or interesting looking blot on the landscape but it'll take you the sort of age to crawl slowly towards it that has you itching for a 'sprint' function. Once into the caves though the whole thing gets a million times better though as, not only is there more to look at, but the claustrophobic nature of the setting means you're simply not able to see miles ahead of you which keeps you from thinking about the time it'll take to move on. Although I struggled a bit with the earlier episodes, during the caves section I totally lost myself in the exploring and the gorgeouesness of it all.
There are also some issues with the audio clips happening either out of sequence, or even just not matching what you actually do. For example, just before the caves, the narrator tells you about
ZOMG Spoiler! Click here to view!
the shepherd that used to live there and his death and whatnot
. One of the times I played that section I got a clip about
ZOMG Spoiler! Click here to view!
what happened after his death
and shortly afterwards the clip informing me that
ZOMG Spoiler! Click here to view!
he had actually died and how it happened
which were blatantly supposed to play the other way round. Similarly, just before heading into the caves, you get the clip talking about how the narrator has
ZOMG Spoiler! Click here to view!
fallen down the cliff and broken his leg
. The thing is though that there's a nice path leading down the cliff side you can amble down which makes that whole clip into a nonsense. In an environment that's as tightly controlled as this one, you'd think the least they could do is make sure the story follows your actual movements.
The above are nitpicks though to be honest and they only briefly prickle your immersion; in general I'm really enjoying it and about to plunge back in for the final chapter.
I realise I've gone a bit spoiler mental above but as the story and gameplay are so subtle I thought I'd err on the side of caution for anyone reading this.