![]() ![]() ![]() Aside from the painfully long loading screens, any number of hiccups are bound to crop up, ranging from very minor and forgivable graphical errors to glitches preventing progress in the game. The Sinking City isn’t particularly polished on the technical front either. Perhaps this wouldn’t be as much of a problem if the various crime scenes didn’t suffer an even worse fate as most build interiors feature a literal copy-pasted floor plan. Unfortunately, it isn’t even interesting travel as each of the city’s districts more or less feel identical despite being unique on paper, likely due to the near-universal color palette and public domain horror soundtrack. Players are able to explore across all of Oakmont, but it doesn’t take long to realize that there isn’t a whole lot to do in the city aside moving towards your next objective. A simple menu toggle solved my issues, but a patch to re-balance the difficulty overall would certainly be welcome.Īn area in which The Sinking City lacks is in its open world and presentation. After turning the difficulty down a bit, I found myself swimming in enough ammo and resources that I didn’t die once after the switch. As I only had a sliver of health left, I was so susceptible to one-shots that merely stubbing my toe would mean game over. Speaking of difficulties, it is worth mentioning that the difficulty balancing can be questionable, as my first few hours were punctuated with exploration all over the game world for some alcohol (unlike real life) just so I could craft some basic first aid kits. Beyond the respectable enemy A.I, the combat doesn’t particularly offer anything new or exceptional, the epitome of serviceable if you will. One of the more unique additions to the weapon roster is the ability to lay down traps in which you can attempt to lure enemies into I was pleasantly surprised to see that occasionally the enemy A.I was smart enough to recognize the trap and to deliberately dodge around it (same thing when pointing a firearm at them), which will likely force players to quickly rethink their approach in any given situation, especially on high difficulties. To combat them all, you also get the typical array of survival horror weapons: pistol, shotgun, rifle, and so on. There are the weak and fast ones, the projectile ones, the large behemoth ones, etc. As a result, most combat will take place in designated ‘infested areas’ (or at a quest relevant crime scene), meaning that the large areas of Oakmont that are not infested are completely safe, resulting in minimal tension or uneasiness within most of the world.Īs for the wyldebeasts themselves, there are about four or five varieties (maybe one of which is actually somewhat creepy) and they check off all the boxes you’d expect. Residents of Oakmont are well aware of their presence, and dealing with them has become a regular issue. A majority of combat encounters are with the aforementioned wyldebeasts, creatures that started appearing when Oakmont began to flood. In regards to The Sinking City ’s other genre, the survival horror portion of the gameplay, it’s fun but not particularly exceptional. For the most part, the puzzle-solving portions of The Sinking City are well adjusted in difficulty, enough to consistently demand the audience think about what they’re doing but never go so far as to completely stump the player for too long. After collecting the necessary evidence at any given location, it is dependent on the player to extrapolate from clues left behind where to move next in the investigation. At no point is the player ever given an explicit checkpoint to pursue. While not usually a genre I dabble in, I actually found the puzzle-solving to be among the game’s strong suits (perhaps a testament to developer Frogware’s resume filled that’s with Sherlock Holmes games). Given the genre, players find themselves regularly investigating crime scenes and solving puzzles in a quest to slowly uncover the source of Oakmont’s, and for that matter Reed’s, troubles. ![]() ![]() The story follows Charles Reed, an ex-navy diver turned private eye, who finds himself guided by terrifying hallucinations to Oakmont, Massachusetts - only to discover a city plagued with massive flooding, as well as monsters from the ocean known as wyldebeasts. For the unfamiliar, The Sinking City is a detective-mystery survival-horror game inspired directly by the writings of H.P. The Sinking City is not a great game, but it was one that I enjoyed in spite of that fact. ![]()
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