Here is a narrative. Daedalus was a superb inventor, and designed the maze that stored the bloodthirsty Minotaur captive, however he and his son Icarus had been themselves each stored as prisoners of King Minos on Crete, in order that no one would study the key of the Minotaur’s labyrinth. Eventually, Daedalus constructed wings from feathers and wax, in order that he and Icarus might fly to freedom, however he warned Icarus to not fly too excessive, or the solar would soften the wax.
Icarus flew… too Close To The Sun. [cool sunglasses emoji].
Close To The Sun is the primary within the new style of this-is-definitely-not-BioShock-honest exploration horror, or as I’ve been considering of it, spooky Art Deco Firewatch. It continues the Greek mythology theme in its chapters (of which there are ten, working to about 5 hours), known as issues like The Border Of Hermes, The Fire Of Prometheus, The Strife Of Eris. They’re usually slightly clue to what’s developing subsequent. But even having performed by means of the entire game, I’m undecided who the metaphorical Icarus to the game’s title is.
Is it Nicola Tesla, who on this alternate timeline received the science race in opposition to Edison and now lives on an enormous ship, the Helios, with each different superb scientist, artist, or basic good particular person of the age? Is it your sister Ada, whose harmful theories had been used to meddle with time itself? Surely it’s not you, Rose, the plucky journalist who’s now trapped aboard the stricken Helios, placing her, in a textual sense, very a lot too near the solar? All these and extra, maybe.
The game begins as Rose arrives on the Helios, having obtained a cryptic letter from Ada, and it seems that stuff has very a lot gone down. A quarantine is in impact and the large ship (so large that it points its personal passports) is generally abandoned. You must discover, gently puzzle, and generally dash to your life across the Helios to search out Rose, escape, and theoretically work out what within the heckening is occurring.
Close To The Sun exists in a possible candy spot for me, a mixture of horror and leisurely exploration, and I loved a whole lot of it. It excels at toying with you, significantly within the first half of the game, and paces itself so that you simply’re always tense even when you don’t have anything to concern. The bounce scares are few however properly positioned, and are triggered by what you’re somewhat than e.g. if you enter a room. You received’t hear a sudden ominous piano chord and realise you totally missed one thing scary occurring behind you. The scary issues will occur in your face.
In the later phases of the game, because the hazard is extra absolutely revealed and the physique rely will increase, a whole lot of this rigidity is misplaced ‘cos you sort of know what to expect. You know in what form the danger comes, where from, and what’ll occur when it does, which is a irritating run-or-die part the place you leap over or squeeze previous obstacles. It takes some time to determine that if the icon to leap is white it means click on to work together, and if it’s yellow it means area bar. Or it may be the opposite means round. Either means, these sections are punishing to play, and I had extra enjoyable once I was imagining scares that didn’t exist but and creeping warily round beautiful nautical state rooms.
Storm In A Teacup, the builders, have emphasised a number of instances that Close To The Sun is unquestionably not BioShock. And it’s not; you don’t get any weapons, if you’re in peril your solely choice is to cheese it, and it’s actually not Storm In A Teacup’s fault that the majority gamers’ first publicity to Art Deco was in Andrew Ryan’s Magical Libertarian SeaWorld. It’s a stunning design fashion! Why shouldn’t anybody use it of their game, dammit? But on the identical time, and probably as a result of the Helios already reminds you of Rapture, a few of the story beats really feel like Close To The Sun was sitting subsequent to BioShock in school and cribbing solutions. Advanced science gone unsuitable? On an impartial colony at sea? Time loops and what have you ever?
That’s to not say that Close To The Sun doesn’t do its tackle these items properly, and a whole lot of the time I used to be having fun with it extra as a result of no one was shouting Objectivist speaking factors at me. It helps that Close To The Sun does a whole lot of element work, making the Helios really feel like a spot individuals truly lived and died in. There are scattered papers, desks and rooms organized in another way, narky notes left to the cleaners. Rose waves her hand in entrance of her face to brush away clouds of flies rising from corpses. There are a great deal of references to pigeons, for the Tesla followers. Ghosts of the previous generally seem, Everybody’s Gone To The Rapture fashion, to play out latest occasions or lead you to a puzzle. The Helios is beautiful, too, a temple of ruined glory that may be lovely and ornate, or mechanical and practical, however all the time gloomy and creepy.
The thriller of what precisely occurred to the ship to get it on this state, and why (and when) is teased out slowly, and also you’re rewarded for exploring with collectibles and additional particulars that give new angles the story. One entails fixing a riddle to finally break right into a room and discover one of many character’s secret backstories. The voice performing is fabulous, too, the stand out being Aubrey, the older scientist who guides you across the ship over radio, whereas he’s trapped within the engine rooms cheerfully gnattering to the corpse of his mate Benny.
This makes it all of the extra disappointing {that a} bunch of those mysteries are unsolved, left all of the sudden dangling on the finish of the game as if ready for a sequel or chunky DLC to tie them off. I want my journey on the Helios hadn’t ended so abruptly and I really feel a wee bit brief modified, however I’d nonetheless be actually happy in the event that they introduced an add-on — like being cheated by a 20s newsie, however he did it with a little bit of aptitude and a cheeky grin, so that you let him get away with it.
