Downward Spiral: Horus Station
Downward Spiral: Horus Station is a game that lets you experience zero gravity first hand, where its from needing to grab on to ledges to push yourself off or using a specific tool that shoots a suction cup to a surface within reach to pull yourself in a specific direction and in this aspect the game is incredibly fun. Now for the main aspect of the game the story. Ill be honest it doesn’t do it that well in my opinion. For a game that prides itself on being a story telling type of game, I was incredibly let down, it gives you no reason to be doing what you are doing.
The game starts you off on some remote planet with you floating along towards these mysterious stuctures in front of you, which in all honestly isn’t such a bad start. It sets up for multiple types of storys that the developers can play off of. After about 30 seconds though you are shown a white screen, and then you start of in a room on board Horus Station. I dont know if I was a crewman on this station prior or if I am on some sort of distress call to help. Unfortunately that was a big bother for me, if I dont know what I am doing here in the first place how am i supposed to know how to proceed, whats my motivation. While I can understand the reasoning behind the developers doing this, they want you to find the story and discover what happened for yourself but I have no personal motivation in the story. Why is my character even here in the first place. Normally with story telling games it gives you that motivation, even in open world games when people make up they’re own characters. They still make up some back story just so that their character has the motivation or the reasoning to be doing what they are doing, and in their case the story comes second. For a game that prides itself on the story this is a bad start.
Where I did enjoy the game the fullest however was the movement. When you first start the game you are given a zip line type of gun. This is the highlight, the zip line gun and the type of movements it opens up. Normally in a game you can jump or climb of some sort, however in this game you cant! Your in zero gravity and you have to move accordingly. If you are not pulling/pushing yourself in a specfic direction you are just floating in place, and again this does take some getting used too however once you get it down it is incredibly fun. I enjoyed myself to the fullest just zooming around a room, shooting from one surface to another trying to cut corners or not touch any walls, which isn’t easy their are ALOT of walls. Now combat wasn’t anything to spectacular, you have a gun and you need to shoot the things that are trying to shoot you. The combat did have one aspect that I did enjoy and that was the complexity of it, you cant just stand their and attempt to shoot the drones you have to move around however in zero gravity that can be very diffcult, especially if one is not used to how it works. But again once you get it down it is extremely fun. When you can just zipline across the room to snipe one drone, then turn shoot at the ceiling and start moving and just snipe the other security drones on the next floor above you. But again I dont know why they are attacking me? Did i invade the ship or did something trigger them turning on? I just dont know and again i can understand what they are trying to do but it just doesnt grip me, it doesnt make me want to keep playing it too the wee hours of the night which is unfortunate because i truly feel like this game can have awesome potential!
When you first start the game it will ask how you want to play, do you just want to explore and figure out what heppend or do you want to include a combat aspect. I would recommend including the combat aspect as it helps the game move along and keeps you entertainted as you run around trying to turn the station back on and doing other fetch type activities. They also let you select a difficulty for combat, which basically determines how much health and damage the enemies will do. I would recommend easy for starting out as the movement will make the game extremely challenging in the beggining. Once again this game impresses me with amount of cusomization it allows. It can appeal to soo many different gamers, wether if you just want to enjoy a story or if you like puzzles with some challenging combat. Now this game does support VR and I unfortunetly did not have the opportunity to expreince this, however i can believe that it would absolutely add to the atmosphere of the game as the music and the ambience sounds were awesome and very creepy. This game also has a team deathmatch and horde mode with only adds to the game, if you dont wanna play the story then play horde, however i was unable to find any people in lobbys to play TDM.
Downward Sprial: Horus Station is an okay game, its not amazing however its not terrible either. If you want a game were you are required to discover every inch of the story yourself and discover why you are there, then this is the game for you. If you want a game that lets you experience zero gravity in the best possible way, then absolutely this game is for you. If you want an action packed game or a fast paced shooter, then maybe look elsewhere. This game takes its time and while I can see the diamond in the rough and the potential this game has, it just doesnt stack up to other games out there.
Review done by Dragon
