The Sinking City - Xbox One (Xbox One)

If you are a fan of the mythos or of the old call of Cthulhu dark corners of the earth then you will love this game.It can be a bit slow to get started but it’s a breath of fresh air to have to investigate clues and mark your own objective on the map (no handholding going on here)Ultimately your own taste will vary but i think this is a hidden gem of a game.

Two Eldritch horror games came out recently - Call of Cthulhu, and this. And while Call of Cthulhu may have the advantage in marketing, this is easily the superior product. Right out of the gate, you're there - a city plagued by Eldritch nightmares, with paranormal crimes to solve and freaky ass monsters running around. There's no pretension, there's no preamble, you're just there. And that's amazing. The game has such confidence in its premise that it just throws you in, and honestly, it's a super cool premise - if you played Sherlock Holmes: Crimes and Punishments, the game is mechanically identical to that (with the addition of some clunky third person shooting and crafting), but with the added flair of the people you're solving crimes for being weird Innsmouthers or ape-men who find your insinuations about their appearance quite rude. Really great game - can't recommend a better time SINK than this. :)

A disclaimer to begin with. I am not overly familiar with the writings of Lovecraft; I am merely aware of the underlining concepts portrayed in their work. This review of the title will therefore be predominantly based on game's merits alone.To summarise this review, a highly intriguing atmosphere and captivating narrative bludgeoned by a stagnant, and overwhelmingly frustrating open word design, that is poorly executed and somewhat tedious. There are flaws aplenty – but – I urge you to see past these basic points to a potential gem.I shall spare no time in this review to explain the characters or their backstory. I personally feel with titles of this genre the less you know going in, the better. Rather I shall jump in and commend Frogware games (developers of the relatively successful Sherlock Holmes series) on the incredible atmosphere they have delivered in this title: The Sinking City.First, I feel it is wrong to describe this game as a horror title. A more accurate term to define this game is dread-survival. I say this as there is not a lot of emphasis on unbeatable bosses or jump scares. Combat can, by and large, be avoided in most scenarios should the player wish. A unique, yet, balanced score of music, combined with some truly original sound effects for the twisted-monster-like-creations abundant in this world really captivate you from the opening cut scenes.This, combined with the investigation aspects of the game are almost perfect (as to be expected from a system pivotal to the success of the Sherlock Holmes games). It is a delight to loose yourself in the moment to search for clues, and, piece together a series of events to come to a conclusion that could very well be unique to yourself depending on your success in finding clues and evidence.Voice acting and graphics certainly meet with expectations of a title this size, although I did find the lead protagonist to be somewhat tired and drone in delivery.And so where does this game fall down? Critically the open world design and the combat. Firstly to the open world, and, I can’t help but feel, why was this necessary? A camouflage of bland greys and copy-and-paste building models do little to inspire the player as you meander the endless and convoluted mashup of river meets road. Granted, it is original, but, I cannot help but wonder how many countless hours were spent backtracking along these seemingly chaotic roads (littered with cars, marshland and the occasional carcass of a whale), in order to progress the story. In, short, I feel the open-world model could have been condensed into a far more manageable size. There is a fast-travel system, yet this is not unlocked by default and requires tremendous patience in tedious task to track down all the fast markers, one at a time.Movement in the game is slow and clunky and nowhere else is this more evident that the combat system. There is no real feedback to the user to indicate if gunfire was having any real impact; truth be told I often resorted to melee attacks and grenades on all but the largest enemies. Monsters are quite agile and able to quickly out manoeuvre the protagonist who acts as though a couple of coffees could do them some good. This leads to a lot of sluggish running around and frustrating gunfights which detract from the atmosphere the game attempts to generate.And yet, is it all that bad?Absolutely not - from the opening prologue mission, the wonderment that is Oakmont, the brilliant crime scene investigation process and complementary sanity mechanics see you lost in hours enjoyable if not dreary gameplay. There is still something refreshing about this game, and, whilst some bugs are present (I refer to T-posing NPCs) and the aforementioned criticism with the combat and traversal system, I certainly have to praise Frogware on their delivery of this game. Moreover, with DLC (three additional in-game cases to solve) accompanied by promises from the developer that further tweaks and updates would be made available to address the criticisms published by the gaming community, and this I feel is certainly a game worthy of a playthrough. A vote of 3.5/5 if you have the time to see past the speedhumps present in this new IP.

Story:Have you ready, watched or heard anything related to the fiction of H.P. Lovecraft or any of his spiritual successors and contemporaries? Then you’ll not find much to surprise you with the Sinking City. Now, let me first establish that this in of itself is not a bad thing; I happen to enjoy the strange and compelling works of fiction produced by Lovecraft and the others who have followed in his unique footsteps, and as such, I have to admit that I did indeed like this game. However, if like me your familiar with the some of the source material (having either read yourself or by osmosis), then you’ll find little here to surprise you. It follows the path you expect it to, introduces characters you’d expected to encounter in such a tale and stays very, very true its source material with some very minor diversions here and there. In fact, it takes some much inspiration from the various tales of Lovecraft that it can’t seem to stop itself from casting more lines and more hints into the mix – even if they make no sense and have no place in the overall narrative. For me personally, the story was a fine addition to the Lovecraftian lore, if not a bit well-worn by this point.Gameplay:This is a very rare thing for me. Firstly, I have almost never encountered a game were the number of bugs, glitches and random pop-ins and pop-outs actually in a weird sort of way add to the atmosphere of the game. Don’t get me wrong the game has quite a few faults; from NPC all spawning on the same spot, to things not loading correctly to entire environments having what can only be described as a digital seize. Yet despite this, at times (more time than it should have in fact) the bugs actually complemented the story quite well. Just for the record, none of the glitches I encountered were game breaking; just annoying. The controls, the world and the various interactions worked as they should have for the most part and didn’t hinder me too much as I progressed through the games rather meaty main story and its side quests.The World:The actual environment that you’ll be traversing through is as the name on the box suggests: it’s a sinking city. And oh boy are you going to be doing a lot of traversing by boat and foot before you reach the end of this tale. One good thing however, is the addition of fast travel points dotted quite liberally around the city which once unlocked certainly makes traversal far, far easier. But this is a Lovecraftian game, and as such, it lives or dies on the feel of its world, which I’m happy to say dose indeed capture that feeling you get when you ready stories of eldritch gods and monsters that exist beyond our comprehension. Some of the environments are quite stunning and steeped and coated in the essence of H. P. Lovecraft. I won’t spoil any such environments by describing them here, but I did find myself at times lost in wonder at otherness of certain sections of the game.Conclusion:I’ll be honest, this is not a great game, but I don’t think ever set out to be the definitive Lovecraftian experience, although it is a good entry into the genre. Despite its many, many bugs, copy-paste city environments and a story that follows a very predictable path, I can’t in all honesty say that didn’t like this game. I was actually quite charmed by it in fact. I enjoyed my time with the game and if you happen enjoy the works of authors like Lovecraft and you want to dip a toe in that strange world, then this is certainly an admirable place to start with.

Brilliant game haven’t enjoyed a game so much since Bioshock, more like this please PS4!!! Lots of puzzles, detective & killing monsters GREAT 😺

Great game well worth the money and would recommend

Bought this for my son. He loves it, he likes the storyline.

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