Developer: Allen Trivette, Lee Williams
Publisher: Night Dive Studios
Genre: FPS, Horror, Adventure, Indie
Price: $14.99
Where to buy: Steam
In the world of gaming, the wheel is usually reinvented and repackaged as something new. Back when System Stock 2 came out, it was a big thing. Mixes in surreal fear into the player, setting them up for survival, and depth in their environment. Spirits of Xanadu feels like spiritual successor to the System Shock series. Holding you down, toying with you, giving you a chance to overcome odds that you are given, to simply toy with you and take it away. The game itself is challenging, where trial and error comes into effect. The game itself is a puzzle, where every moment is one you must solve almost on your own. The story itself is vague at first, unless you locate audio logs explaining scenarios among the crew members who were once there. Other then the introduction where a man on a radio tells you to take the ship, and bring it among earths atmosphere. Supposedly some sort of alien virus crept aboard and made the crew go crazy. The rest I will leave to you to witness if you so inclined to purchase this game.
Audio logs, and heartless robots are your only real company aboard this vesicle. Sent on a mission to repair items among the ship, you expect open arms on this ship however it feels completely desolated. Darkness, your flash light, and a Nerf gun are your field of view. Graphically the game is simple, but in terms of detail is amazing. You may push a chair, mess with some toilet seat, or even mess around with computers mounted on the walls. A compelling experience was something taken away from the voyage. Game play is pretty simple in which you work your legs with A-W-S-D. To hug around corners you press Q+E. Which is pretty handy to peak to see if any sort of life form is going to gun you down or jump out. Puzzles are not as traditional as other games. In Spirits pf Xamadu, you basically walk among it. Yeah, you flip a switch here, pull out a screw driver there, but they are mostly blended in rather then expose themselves off the bat. At points I scratched my head along the way in terms of “Ok how do I fix this”, or “how can I make the ride home to earth?”
The game itself is really well crafted. I enjoyed the art style greatly. Very basic, but also very pretty. Among the three endings, I was very involved with what was going on the whole time. The game itself does not use cheap scare tactics. Things are practically there and if they see you “zap-zap” Dead. If you do die, which you perhaps will as I did a few many times you usually re-spawn inside of a cell after your tumble to the ground. After awhile I managed to get some new super soakers, then I began to feel a bit more at ease. Studying every ounce of the ship is completely necessary. Most of the time things are very dark in the beginning, making it tricky to navigate through rooms which kept the unnerving feeling across my back hoping I did not see a red light moving about. The games save feature is in form of a computer in the way where you move your mouse cursor around to click save. Which at first I never realized existed in the game, logging out afterward losing all of my progress. So be sure to look for the things for goodness sake.
Now while I did not come across this often, I did get some sound issues along with some laggy bits. Now when I did play the game through I only encountered this then. Hopefully this is addressed in a patch of some kind. Another part of the game that was sort of a bummer was that I was hoping for more enemies then just four or so. The game itself is a catalyst for more potential games with this idea in mind. So if the few issues I had could be ironed out, I would hope to see more games like this maybe as a Metroid-vania style to it? After figuring out most of the puzzles I began to explore, seeing what I missed for pages. Plus audio logs. I stumbled on a room that was once owned by Lt Cornell Johns. Let me tell you in theory when I originally was trying to enter the room I would constantly keep free falling through the floor clipping to the planet below. So shrugging it off, I restarted the game. Retried entering the room, same issue. A annoying bug, but after the second reboot everything was right in the world, I entered the room did my thing, and then left.
In closing Spirits of Xanadu is a stellar game stuffing in a unique gaming experience with an overwhelmingly good story. Game play is simple in nature and is easy to control. For the length of the game being just over two hours, it is a slight gamble at 15 dollars. Yes, it does have a decent chunk to do, but it is on the short side. With that in mind, this does not discredit the game, as the game itself is pretty fun. Otherwise the game is a blast, Get it!
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