The Sinking City is... odd in an interesting way.
 |
| Your eyes are not playing tricks on you... things are moving in the image. |
The Sinking City is an action adventure... horror game, placing you firmly into the drenched shoes of a detective by the name of... Charles Reed. In a (BioShock'sh + Silent Hill-like) world full of all types of crazy looking monsters, it doesn't hurt to have a character with special abilities and a Sherlock Holmes "Mind Palace" way of collecting evidence.
While interesting enough in terms of doing detective work, The Sinking City has moments of frustration (for me) that seem to drag on and on at times. I can't lie... I was bored and annoyed, but part of the challenge is to seek out and gather evidence (which should be more interesting to those with a major interest in detective related games, shows, and this H.P. Lovecraft story).
The detective work isn't always intriguing, until you start to build up the clues. When you start to gather those clues (look out)... that's when the game really starts to come to life and puts you hot on the trail of completing an objective.
The visuals in this game are fantastic, including the crazy looking monsters. This game also reminds me that Audio should be added in to the Visual category (Audio+Visuals) because it did a good job of delivering both (visuals more so)... and I love the way it sounds when you're onto something getting ready to solve it. You know something's getting ready to go down based on the build up. The sounds of the guns sound the best, followed by the voice overs.
One thing i'm not crazy about is how things begin to look when using retrocognition is used for too long. The detective feels like he's on one tripped out adventure with those illusions, psychosis and psychological episodes... and with the way it looks at times... i'm not that far behind).
The Sinking City takes place in the 1920s, and looks the part. Venturing into Oakmont... you can definitely tell that the sea is encroaching onto the island. You have dead sea life laying in the street... and it looks really cool in a grim way.The monsters in this game want you as dead as the sea life (or is it sea dead?) that you come across... so beware and use your weapons wisely, bullets are currency too.
That shows how real things are, but... what doesn't help the mood are a lot of NPCs. There are people just walking around casually in this crazy place with friggin monsters running around (monsters!)... and few seem concerned that they could become a meal while going for a stroll. This takes away from the tension, which can be cool at times if you need a break from it... but i'd rather the NPCs make a mad dash for shelter or something. Even the NPCs ran in Crazy Taxi from almost two decades ago.
Replay value definitely arises with the various side quests, because it could have merely delivered the main story and left the game feeling super linear. So i'm glad they did their game justice in that regard... and did the Lovecraft fan base justice by giving more missions to serve up additional lore.
You get around 18 to 22 hours of main story, and about 35 to 40 hours of full game play if you complete all the side quests.
Another thing that adds to the replay value, are the types of... skills.
You get three different categories, which are... combat proficiency, vigor, and... mind.
Combat Proficiency... helps you improve the effectiveness of your traps, firebombs, grenades, (good old) accuracy, damage, and... guns' capacity.
Vigor skills deliver... the ability to hold more ammo, first aid, grenades, and more in your inventory. You also get reduced damage, increased melee damage, and increased health.
Mind skills deliver... increase the XP earning, increased sanity, double the rewards, and efficiency in crafting.
Tip: Start with Unnatural Recovery!
The Sinking City comes in at full retail price... which is an ambition price, but... it feels better at $49.99 to compete with some of the more polished titles.
Fun Factor 3.5
Replay Value 5
Visuals 5
Price 5
4.6 out of 5 Cool Points
