Atmospheric horror can be effective but the team has to know how to harness that gift and then piecemeal it to the viewer. There's plenty of chilling atmosphere aboard the Helios, if there's one selling point for Close to the Sun, its how the setting is simultaneously awe inspiring but constantly eerie. Its this big ship but you can't help but feel how isolated and empty the location is. This decision to set the game here gives the player the scope of the situation and an idea about what kind of danger Rose has entered into. There are plenty of jump scares, which work, but I found the game to be more tense than scary. When traversing the ship, there are plenty of opportunities to get lost but you slowly uncover more and more of the story through the collectibles you pick up. The enemies that you're introduced to our frightening in a way but with the so-so graphics and how little you can actually do (you can't fight, you have to run), it took rendered my interactions with them more aggravating than scary (more on the chase scenes later).
Close to the Sun also has a solid premise for a story to grow from. You are Rose Archer, she's a journalist who receives a letter from her estranged sister Ada who works as a scientist aboard Tesla's gigantic ship The Helios. Ada writes Rose asking for her help, she's deliberately vague but she beckons Rose to come to the Helios and to help her investigate a rapidly deteriorating series of experiments that may be challenging the notions we have about time and space. Having read a little about Tesla and his battles/rivalries with Edison and even Westinghouse, this piqued my interest. There's a lot of potential there and while its not a tale for the ages, I think they handled the story well. The inherent tension and mistrust of both Tesla and his crew builds slowly but surely and when the surprise antagonist reveals themselves, it worked for me.
I liked most of the characters the story presented me with, I just wish we got more time with them (the game is just too short period but more on that later). Rose's struggle to get to Ada is relatable, that she would risk so much for someone who essentially abandoned her is heartwarming. But we could have also used more information about their relationship prior to these events, it would have helped further define what kind of rift existed between the two of them and how hard they had to work to be reunited. Rose is a decent protagonist on her own and with Ada, they make up a believable if difficult family dynamic. My favourite character was actually Aubrey, the scientist trapped in the engine bays that Rose must go rescue. He has funny moments and his back and forth with Rose isn't too cloying or cliché. His turn was also a nice choice, it added a little more to the game. Nikola Tesla is fine, again I wish we had gotten more time with him but his motivations are acceptably murky and the game does capture the sense of wonder he was famous for. The biggest disappointment was Ludwig, he could have been an actual antagonist if we understood what he had been through or we had gotten more about why he was doing what he was doing but he's reduced to some knife wielding lunatic that we have to run away from.
I was ready to spot Close to the Sun extra points because of what I viewed as unfair criticism from reviewers and players alike. One of the common ones is that its too much like Bioshock, I have never played Bioshock (its on the to do list) so I wasn't burdened with that comparison. But now having played Close to the Sun..... those criticisms weren't wrong either. The run/hide dynamic really limits the gameplay, I'm not saying Rose should have carried a gun and fought them off but there's so little direction in the chase sequences with the enemies, the margin for error was almost nil. I got stuck in a part of Chapter 8 that required a PERFECT evasion and I had to keep repeating the section until I was lucky enough to save a second or 2 and was able to get through the obstacle. That decision makes those bits of gameplay so frustrating and while they were needed, they also needed to be tweaked. I thought the creature design for the Anamolies was good but with the Sun's graphics, they didn't add any dread, in fact, I found the opposite. Whenever I died, I didn't wince, I just shrugged my shoulders and waited for gameplay to resume at the checkpoint. The game is also unbelievably short for that price point. A short playthrough can last about 3 hrs. Even if it was the best game I'd ever played, I couldn't recommend paying $40 for only a few hours of gameplay.
I wanted to like this game more than I actually did. I don't think its bad, in fact the word I would use is SOLID. It's a fine game for what it is, the requisite tension is there, they present you with an interesting environment and a compelling story that made me want to keep going to see what would happen next. But the limited gameplay, the mediocre graphics and just how short a playthrough takes (I was somewhere between 5-6 hours but the game can be completed in less than 3) helps bring Close to the Sun's value down. I paid $40 for it and I can't justify it at that number. I would recommend picking it up but at a lower price. I'm giving it a 7/10, it's a nice release from a smaller developer that gets the job done if expectations aren't too high.
Close to the Sun also has a solid premise for a story to grow from. You are Rose Archer, she's a journalist who receives a letter from her estranged sister Ada who works as a scientist aboard Tesla's gigantic ship The Helios. Ada writes Rose asking for her help, she's deliberately vague but she beckons Rose to come to the Helios and to help her investigate a rapidly deteriorating series of experiments that may be challenging the notions we have about time and space. Having read a little about Tesla and his battles/rivalries with Edison and even Westinghouse, this piqued my interest. There's a lot of potential there and while its not a tale for the ages, I think they handled the story well. The inherent tension and mistrust of both Tesla and his crew builds slowly but surely and when the surprise antagonist reveals themselves, it worked for me.
I liked most of the characters the story presented me with, I just wish we got more time with them (the game is just too short period but more on that later). Rose's struggle to get to Ada is relatable, that she would risk so much for someone who essentially abandoned her is heartwarming. But we could have also used more information about their relationship prior to these events, it would have helped further define what kind of rift existed between the two of them and how hard they had to work to be reunited. Rose is a decent protagonist on her own and with Ada, they make up a believable if difficult family dynamic. My favourite character was actually Aubrey, the scientist trapped in the engine bays that Rose must go rescue. He has funny moments and his back and forth with Rose isn't too cloying or cliché. His turn was also a nice choice, it added a little more to the game. Nikola Tesla is fine, again I wish we had gotten more time with him but his motivations are acceptably murky and the game does capture the sense of wonder he was famous for. The biggest disappointment was Ludwig, he could have been an actual antagonist if we understood what he had been through or we had gotten more about why he was doing what he was doing but he's reduced to some knife wielding lunatic that we have to run away from.
I was ready to spot Close to the Sun extra points because of what I viewed as unfair criticism from reviewers and players alike. One of the common ones is that its too much like Bioshock, I have never played Bioshock (its on the to do list) so I wasn't burdened with that comparison. But now having played Close to the Sun..... those criticisms weren't wrong either. The run/hide dynamic really limits the gameplay, I'm not saying Rose should have carried a gun and fought them off but there's so little direction in the chase sequences with the enemies, the margin for error was almost nil. I got stuck in a part of Chapter 8 that required a PERFECT evasion and I had to keep repeating the section until I was lucky enough to save a second or 2 and was able to get through the obstacle. That decision makes those bits of gameplay so frustrating and while they were needed, they also needed to be tweaked. I thought the creature design for the Anamolies was good but with the Sun's graphics, they didn't add any dread, in fact, I found the opposite. Whenever I died, I didn't wince, I just shrugged my shoulders and waited for gameplay to resume at the checkpoint. The game is also unbelievably short for that price point. A short playthrough can last about 3 hrs. Even if it was the best game I'd ever played, I couldn't recommend paying $40 for only a few hours of gameplay.
I wanted to like this game more than I actually did. I don't think its bad, in fact the word I would use is SOLID. It's a fine game for what it is, the requisite tension is there, they present you with an interesting environment and a compelling story that made me want to keep going to see what would happen next. But the limited gameplay, the mediocre graphics and just how short a playthrough takes (I was somewhere between 5-6 hours but the game can be completed in less than 3) helps bring Close to the Sun's value down. I paid $40 for it and I can't justify it at that number. I would recommend picking it up but at a lower price. I'm giving it a 7/10, it's a nice release from a smaller developer that gets the job done if expectations aren't too high.
