Freedom fighters are battling to rescue countless aliens from slavery at the hands of a tyrannical empire. They plan to do so by stealing a planet-killing bioweapon and holding entire worlds hostage. Billions of lives are at stake. There's a dog. In this harrowing point-and-click adventure game, there's no good or evil, just decisions, with only you and the gods as a judge to your actions. But if the dog dies fuck you.
No seriously. This game's been on my radar for a while and I finally got it now that it's out. Where it gets it right, it's amazing, where it misses it's still pretty good. It's an episodic adventure game told in six standalone chapters (standalone meaning the details of your decisions in one chapter have limited bearing on later chapters) each one telling one segment of the story I mentioned above.
Each chapter puts the main character, the, uh,
heavy handedly named Sergeant Burden, in a tense situation of some sort. Lives hang in the balance. Gods will be watching. I don't want to spoil much about them. They range from extremely intense and harrowing to sort of gamey. There are systems to manage and juggle, and in some cases the chore of dealing with everything can wear on your immersion. I still like all of them though, even at its worst the game is great.
In chapter 1 I had to kill the woman and the head scientists and kept the other two in line with occasional pep talks and liberal doses of gunfire.
Chapter 2 is my favorite. I don't want to spoil anything about this one, you should go into it completely blind. The first run-through of this chapter is fucking intense.
Chapter 3 is my least favorite. I feel like this is the gamiest of them all and also the easiest. There's a lot to do and it's kind of tedious to micromanage but as long as you keep your eye on the prize there's no substantial risk, really. Nobody died, we won with plenty of time to spare.
Chapter 4, hahaha. I dunno. On one hand this one probably has the most potential for emotional investment and some harrowing decisions, but it's also pretty hard and that can detract from it a bit since you end up doing it several times and the impact wears off. I ended up making enough antidotes to last until rescue came, then killed the science team. Me and Jack and the dog and the robot had a fun camping trip in the woods with plenty of food and no real danger.
Who else has this awesome game? What kinds of decisions did you make? What was your favorite mission?
Also, this is personal speculation. Burden has a sequence where he mentions that he feels like he's been fighting forever, not for a cause or for survival or even personal glory, but just because it's all he can do.
Like he's meant to fight.
And Burden seems to be aware on some level of the multithreadedness of the plot. If you fail one mission and start over, he says "Let's get it right this time!" then realizes he has no idea what he means by "this time."
Burden fights across space and time, in multiple parallel realities, for no other reason than he exists to fight.
Burden is the Eternal Champion and Jack is his Companion. Michael Moorcock you sneaky bastard.
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Topic: Gods Will Be Watching - Out Now on Steam! (Read 1344 times)