Corpse of Discovery Review

Corpse of Discovery does not aim to be the longest experience out there. Or even wow you with combat with waist high walls. It simply puts you into large living and breathing locations and tests you against the surreal landscapes of embarking danger. Corpse of Discovery is a first-person surrealistic exploration game located on a myriad of procedural generated planetary landscapes. As the astronaut searching for answers while completing missions on uncharted worlds, players will work to uncover the truth about what’s happened and why they are there. While working for the Corps to complete the various objectives at-hand, players must remain determined, motivated, and resilient while working towards their ultimate goal: to get back home to their family and make them proud. Corpse of Discovery dissects and examines themes of loss, identity, time, and priorities, and ultimately culminates in the crucial question, “What sacrifices will we make to be successful?”Or something like that.

The gameplay is pretty darn awesome. Not every ones experience will be the same kind twice. Sure the objectives are the same, but how you do those goals are new, and fresh per experience. Sure you have plenty of exploration narrative games out there, a few setting a standard like Dear Esther. How much did you really do in those making it said are they really considered a game? Always debatable, never indelible that they are unique and refreshing experiences. This provides a great narrative plus testing you at points, without losing total focus. It is a challenge sometimes to really get a game who makes the game play add up to any kind of plot. “Oh look a ton of flying hippos with bazookas are rushing in. I hope that Greg ‘o Hipster can make it to the hall of pancakes before the world starts to sell news ads.” See that would make no sense for a plot at all. Corpse of Discovery keeps the pace going, as you move about the planets/missions. You have a “helping” robot called A.V.A. who is always nearby telling you how great you are as a assist to the corps. Then over time degrades your worth and the family you have back home. The game never felt dull at all because of that constant narration. Here and there you do get some text-only narration. This is when you transition from planet to planet or find a off the trail item.

You can get hurt in the game by losing radiation shielding, then your health bar degrades. Dying in the game is more forgiving as you do re-spawn at a random spot around or near the objective you are moving towards. The game itself is mostly a move from point A to point B. It does vary from planet to planet, keeping it all vibrant and fresh for the explorer at large. You can see enemies in the distance looking around for you or whatever. The game plays simple in nature. With Gamepad support I choose to play with keyboard and mouse this time around. I can say the game does handle pretty well. Shift to run, AWSD for movement, and E to touch objects to interact with them. Then mouse to move the camera. Basic as basic can be here. Exploring around the planets is really fun. Finding new life, and a few illusions. These illusions stand in as collectibles if you are into that sort of thing. Otherwise you just move about trying to reach every objective under certain conditions, like lava, radiation from a baking sun (the intro stage), down to just trekking to find new life. On the surface its a alright and passable exploring game. On the inside is one deep, dark tale of humanity. You walk about, or hop, and listen to A.V.A. describe the glory you will gain from the missions you do. How people who are alone tend to gain more out of life then those with others. Like Family. It is gritting say the least. I was drawn in by the dialog like a lost puppy looking for his meal. You ask me “why on earth are you mentioning plot on the gameplay section of this chicken scratch?” Simple the game is a interactive story. Duh!

In Closing:

The only bad thing I could talk about the game was how short it was. Other then that I can say random clipping whenever landscapes loaded in was another issue, sure you have games like Minecraft who do this as well. No biggie right? For me, it did take away from the exploration whenever I clip through the ground and have to manually restart the game at times when ever I assume the world is generated for me to move forward. Otherwise Corpse of Discovery is a great experience from start and finish. If you love games with a great plot and never truly feels the same twice through, then pick up this game. “Ya’ freakin’ bookworms!~”

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