This is such a beautiful game that really channels the book. The Soviet retro futurism in the art style really sells it and the bleak mystery behind it makes you think in the best "classic scifi" way.
Yeah, from the trailer at least the canyons exactly mirrored my image of the book. It's actually eerie how close the whole world and tech looks to how I pictured them.
Kind of off-topic, but I always find it weird to see people's hands and arms in first person games like this. Like, if I think about it, I know my hands are almost always in view, but they almost always fade away and I ignore them.
Whereas whenever I see a first person game, it's almost all I can focus on and it breaks the illusion.
I still remember the awful Trespasser, which was rightfully called an "arm simulator". You were supposed to be some adventurer gal, bur in reality you were a disembodied arm. Terrible controls, too!
And it is honestly incredible. The Invincible is my favourite book of all time, and I remember thinking as a 14 year old whether someone could make a game out of it - and concluding that no, there's not enough "action" to make an interesting video game around the story. Boy, was I wrong - the game not only portrays the setting perfectly, the necessary creative liberties it takes to engage the player are "worth it" and I can only imagine S. Lem would have agreed to them(well, other than one of the endings....but it can't be perfect I guess).
I'd write a lot about what I enjoyed, but nearly all of it would be spoilers. Go, play the game - or better yet, read the book, it has recently received a modern English translation, much better than the previous English-translated-from-German-Translated-from-Polish edition. And there is a fantastic audiobook on audible.
Unfortunately it seems like the audiobook has been pulled from Audible! (Unless I'm just searching for it incorrectly?) I saw this book recommended in another thread and have been checking over the last several months in hopes that it has been restored, but no luck yet. Tempted to just buy it from another platform.
How bizzare, I expect this from streaming services, but I suppose I never considered Audiobook distribution "gatekeeping"... Delisting from Audible must be a massive hit to any audiobook's sales numbers
Heads up, the game's EULA[1] has some objectionable terms. They collect your story decisions and system information ("technical requirements of User's hardware and software"). There's also an indemnity clause (though not the worst I've seen). Can't anyone anywhere just let us have nice things?
For those wondering, it should work on Windows 7 with the -dx11 switch.
Can’t really see anything objectionable there… it’s a video game, they want to log game events and user config to reproduce errors, nothing new or concerning really.
It's pretty normal to do both those things in order to reflect on game design, monitor quality, and provide support.
We don't have to like that it's the norm now, but it's a bummer to see a small studio singled out for something the whole industry is doing, especially when their game is being shared as something especially interesting
Great book. Great game. I treasured the time I spent reading it and playing it. Head's up: the game does not follow the same characters as the book. It's sort of a different story that's taking place at the same time and very nearby.
Indeed. Bioshock 1 remains my favourite game - even after all these years, the parallels in the story between Rapture and our modern world remain as relevant as ever.
tl,dr: It looks incredible, like no other game you'll see today, and it grapples with deeply interesting themes – but it's extremely annoying to play and suffers from a serious lack of editing. There's just too much friction to become truly immersed. Still, other games can only wish their failures were this daring.
Out of curiosity - did you read the book before playing the game?
I'm asking because as I said in my comment - I really loved the game, but I do wonder if knowing the secret of Regis, The Invincible and its sister ship made it easier to play and overlook some of the mechanical problems(which in my opinion really weren't that much of a deal, I think I got lost driving the rover once but like, meh).
I didn't, no. I've read a lot of Stanislaw Lem but The Invincible never quite hit my radar. I can see how knowing the story would've made it a bit easier to get on with, though.
I loved my time with this.