Your intrepid heroes provide the quality assurance that should have been done in the first place. Conarium faces the ChairQAsition!
Game: Conarium
Webzone: Conarium
Devel: Zoetrope Interactive
Engine: Unreal Engine 4
Price: £14.99 / US$19.99 / CA$21.99
Wazzat: Conarium is a chilling Lovecraftian game, which follows a gripping story involving four scientists and their endeavor to challenge what we normally consider to be the ‘absolute’ limits of nature. Inspired by H.P. Lovecraft’s novella “At the Mountains of Madness”, but largely set after the original story.
Mandatory Disclosure: Devs sent us key
CHAIRQUISITION:
– Nooope
– Not sure if want
– Check it out
– Shutupandtakemymonies
Makes with the working
Venn-
- Looks like I’m playing this in 1080p windowed.
- That said @ 1080p this critter runs well on high.
- No UE4 texture popin.
- Unable to take screenshots.
- Yep, another not tested properly UE4 checklist.
Jordan-
- Like the man says, runs fine in windowed mode
Pedro-
- Some games start on the wrong monitor, but that’s usually a keyboard combo away from a workaround.
- This game starts on the wrong audio device and you can’t change it.
Total-
Shiny / Sounds
Venn-
- That dudes voice “”acting”” is next level bad.
- Is it just me or is everything just a little too shiny in UE4?
- It looks good (albeit a bit plasticy) and the environment sounds get the job done.
Jordan-
- The sound design is pretty good. Sufficiently creepy
- There is a lot of reading
- The indoors do look a little stock UE4 demoy
- The hazy fog of war is a bit annoying
Pedro-
- The voice acting is really bad.
- Everyone sounds so stilted.
- Which is a bit of a mood killer since the rest of the sounds actually create a good atmosphere.
- The outside bits look really nice.
- The insides look… generic. There is very little in way of visual storytelling.
- In fact, most of the storytelling is conveyed through walls of text, but more on that later.
Total-
Control
Venn-
- Nothing to complain about.
Jordan-
- WASD, although space for inventory and right click for journal are really strange
Pedro-
- Sprinting is about as fast as a moderately brisk walk.
- At 7am when I’m sleepy and have to leave the house to catch the bus to work, I walk faster than the main character sprints.
Total-
FUN
Venn-
- Don’t try to Frictional if you aint gonna go full Frictional.
- Interact will all the things or none of the things not this half-arsed depends shite.
- We’ve all played this game before and we’ll play it again.
- Conarium brings nothing new to the table and it’s wicked-buggy to boot.
- It’s not lazley done but the wake up alone and figure shite out genere is played the hell out.
- For $20 you could do better.
Jordan-
- Yeah, it’s another generic oopy spoopy walking simulator
- There are a few “puzzles”, but a lot of them are just find the key or process of elimination
- I like the subject matter, but there’s really not enough game to keep it going
Pedro-
- I expected Penumbra, or at least SOMA.
- I got Layers of Fear, instead.
- I do not like the sequence of locked doors with random interspersing of visual noise to indicate when you should be scared.
- And you’re not really in any danger, either.
- Since the developers had to account for the character being two snails short of standing still when he moves, the “monsters” in the latter parts of the game are all just as slow.
- The puzzles all come down to “find key for door”
- The atmosphere is good until someone talks.
- There’s always so much text to read if you’re hoping to get any kind of story, you have to wonder: Why didn’t the developers write their HP Lovecraft fanfic in an ebook and sold that instead?
- It’s another mediocre puzzle game with a “horror” theme.
Total-
Final –
