Game of the Month #65 (June 2020) - Observer

What would you do if your fears were hacked? >observer_ is a cyberpunk horror game from Bloober Team, the creators of Layers of Fear. Play as an Observer, the new front line of neural police, as you hack into the jagged minds of the insane.

Oh, one I might actually play this month! I was going to get into it a while ago then got side tracked by some other game. Made it as far as the first area I think. Might be time to give it a second chance.

Nice, this was free on EGS a few months back. Since it is showing about 8 hours to beat, I think I'll give it a go.

Even though it looks like some walking simulator (not my taste), for some reason I own it on steam. I'm in.

By the way, there's a behind the scenes video:

I've beaten the game twice and enjoyed it a quite a bit.

Both completions were almost 2 years ago but I loved the aesthetic, great atmosphere, and it's a way better game that Layers of Fear (Bloober Team's first game of this type). PC is the way to go if you have the option, console performance isn't great.

According to my playthroughs I played it longer the second time and rated my playthrough slightly higher.

Completions Times:
PC - 3h 50m
Xbox One - 4h 34m

I've beaten the game twice and enjoyed it a quite a bit.

Both completions were almost 2 years ago but I loved the aesthetic, great atmosphere, and it's a way better game that Layers of Fear (Bloober Team's first game of this type). PC is the way to go if you have the option, console performance isn't great.

According to my playthroughs I played it longer the second time and rated my playthrough slightly higher.

Completions Times:
PC - 3h 50m
Xbox One - 4h 34m

Your completion times are significantly down vs the Main Story average - even the Main Story Rushed time is 4h 55m! Did you play with God Mode or do anything specific to get times so low?

I enjoyed Layers of Fear a lot more (which can't be said about its expansion), Observer didn't click me with me until the second playthrough, I did love the idea of talking to tenants through that intercom system, it's these clever workarounds with a small budget that I appreciate so much. And the entire building was accessible to the player for exploration from the start so there is that. I could see how people would get annoyed by the psychedelic segments though.

I've been playing it for a bit and it is true that the plethora of effects on-screen is not the best. Chromatic Aberration, while fitting for the setting made my eyes really tired even after a short time of play. Thankfully it can be removed on the PC version.

The config files are in "%LOCALAPPDATA%\TheObserver\SavedºConfig\WindowsNoEditor" on windows and "$HOME/.config/Epic/TheObserver/Saved/Config/LinuxNoEditor/" on Linux

I just added :

[PostProcessQuality@3]
r.SceneColorFringeQuality=0
r.SceneColorFringe.Max=0

To the "Scalability.ini" file and made the file read-only (so the game can't change it back)

I also added

r.DepthOfFieldQuality=0

to remove Depth of Field, because I tend not to like it in any game

More info here

Your completion times are significantly down vs the Main Story average - even the Main Story Rushed time is 4h 55m! Did you play with God Mode or do anything specific to get times so low?

I tend to be faster than the average on everything. I guess I don't poke around the environment much. I just take in the main story and dialog. Also, when you've beaten so many games, the path to take is always predictable and I guess I just move through it quickly. This is a linear game.

EDIT: I didn't even rush through it if I remember correctly. Time is likely from stopwatch too.

Had my first play session:

Had my first mind interrogation

I have a quite a few thoughts on this game. I'm enjoying it so far it feels like cyperpunk detective game and there are few things mystery's which the game is leading up to (Janus's stalking, the animal in the apartment block, What set off the lockdown) but at the same time it feels to me like the game is only going to take part in this apartment block which feels a shame as I'd like the explore the world more but i guess due to developer constraints they couldn't so c'est la vie.

The mind interrogation surprisingly to me both disorientating and coherent. I got the general gist of the persons life up to that point while still feeling lost in fragment of life. I found it lasted too long though and should've been shorter though

I'm 90 minutes in, and so far it feels like the 'gameplay' is just holding the story back. Then again, I felt the same way about SOMA and a lot of people here love that game, so so I may well just be in the minority on this one.

Shoutout to Rutger Hauer (RIP) for a phenomenal vocal performance. Supremely underrated actor.

I'm 90 minutes in, and so far it feels like the 'gameplay' is just holding the story back. Then again, I felt the same way about SOMA and a lot of people here love that game, so so I may well just be in the minority on this one.

Shoutout to Rutger Hauer (RIP) for a phenomenal vocal performance. Supremely underrated actor.

In fairness, most SOMA players would say the game's gameplay is its weakness. I mean, they added a mode that waters down the gameplay for this reason...

Though I didn't mind some parts of SOMA's gameplay - the survival horror parts were outside my comfort zone, but the puzzles and stuff helped the pacing IMO.

I'm tempted to start Observer now instead of waiting for the System Redux. The PC version is what I have anyway and I'm not sure how they'd expand the story if the voice actor has passed :(

I stopped playing when I got to the first mind hack.
The game loves its jump scares and it´s a bit annoying how you´re basically bolted to the floor whenever you´re talking to someone.

Free on Twitch Prime for June right now https://twitch.amazon.com/tp

So I just finished the game, clocking in around 7h (EGS doesn't give precise playtime stats, and I didn't bother to time more accurately myself).

This is a mediocre cyberpunk novella masquerading as a game, and while the gameplay is thin and weak (not to mention horribly shoehorned in) the story isn't nearly good enough to carry the package. The sound design and soundtrack were both stellar. Rutger Hauer's vocal performance as the protagonist was also great, if a little patchy in spots.

I gave the game a 4/10 and had it not been a short Book Club playthrough I'm certain I would have retired it.

I´m 2 and a half hours in and just reached the second mind hack. The first one was annoying as hell, but I already know this is going to be a lot worse and that you can actually die this time. I´m getting Call of Cthulhu flashbacks.
I looked up what the game wants me to do in this level and it looks like rage quit material for me.
If I die more then once or twice I´m gonna watch the rest of it on Youtube, it´s not like there is much gameplay to begin with.

How did this win over the Last of Us?

I´m 2 and a half hours in and just reached the second mind hack. The first one was annoying as hell, but I already know this is going to be a lot worse and that you can actually die this time. I´m getting Call of Cthulhu flashbacks.
I looked up what the game wants me to do in this level and it looks like rage quit material for me.
If I die more then once or twice I´m gonna watch the rest of it on Youtube, it´s not like there is much gameplay to begin with.

How did this win over the Last of Us?

tenacity on uvehj part plus I had played the last of us before so chose this over that

Okay quick update. I'm also in the second mind hack although it's the third for me as I found a side one in one of the apartments

There are some aesthetic in this game i'm enjoying. One of them is the fact that the apartments have clearly been torn apart and made into smaller section as you travel through the halls you can clearer see part which used to be old toilets and kitchens. The map also displays how small the apartments are some being just cupboards and the distinct poverty these people are living in.

The tenants also can have some interesting things to say and they do help build the world especially hearing about the war, people with no mods, the genophage and one side quest where i found a old woman living in a camatose little girl.

Still i'm prob one of the more positive people for this game and even then my feeling on the game at the moment is wasted potential. The mind hacks waste so much time repeating itself and should of been cut down. It also now has thrown in a monster that can cause a game over screen and i think i'm about half way through the game so this just feels out of place and shouldn't been included like people have mentioned they 'thought' they needed some gameplay so added a monster like SOMA. The detective works need to be fleshed out more and I believe this is only going to take part in this apartment block which means we're not going to explore the rest of the world the game has created.

I´m 2 and a half hours in and just reached the second mind hack. The first one was annoying as hell, but I already know this is going to be a lot worse and that you can actually die this time. I´m getting Call of Cthulhu flashbacks.
I looked up what the game wants me to do in this level and it looks like rage quit material for me.
If I die more then once or twice I´m gonna watch the rest of it on Youtube, it´s not like there is much gameplay to begin with.

How did this win over the Last of Us?

How did this win over the Last of Us?

It's been a freebie on EGS and is currently free on Twitch Prime.

So I just finished the game, clocking in around 7h (EGS doesn't give precise playtime stats, and I didn't bother to time more accurately myself).

This is a mediocre cyberpunk novella masquerading as a game, and while the gameplay is thin and weak (not to mention horribly shoehorned in) the story isn't nearly good enough to carry the package. The sound design and soundtrack were both stellar. Rutger Hauer's vocal performance as the protagonist was also great, if a little patchy in spots.

I gave the game a 4/10 and had it not been a short Book Club playthrough I'm certain I would have retired it.

What do you mean EGS doesn't give precise playtime stats? Do not all EGS games record how many minutes you've played?

Edit: I see what you mean. I guess having a launcher throws it off.

What do you mean EGS doesn't give precise playtime stats? Do not all EGS games record how many minutes you've played?

Edit: I see what you mean. I guess having a launcher throws it off.

Steam give you 6-minute increments in its 'time played' (read: 'time spent running the game') stat, whereas EGS just gives you a number of hours once you hit 2h playtime. Both are annoyingly imprecise, but Steam's imprecision is at least tolerable.

Steam give you 6-minute increments in its 'time played' (read: 'time spent running the game') stat, whereas EGS just gives you a number of hours once you hit 2h playtime. Both are annoyingly imprecise, but Steam's imprecision is at least tolerable.

I use ManicTime to track my time played for PC games. It´s extremely accurate, easy to use and it´s free.

Steam give you 6-minute increments in its 'time played' (read: 'time spent running the game') stat, whereas EGS just gives you a number of hours once you hit 2h playtime. Both are annoyingly imprecise, but Steam's imprecision is at least tolerable.

If it helps at all - using GOG Galaxy seems to show more accurate time data, even for platforms where it's not always available. For instance, it manages to pull my time data for Xbox games (even ones that don't show time data anywhere), as well as to-the-minute times for others like EGS, Uplay, even minute-accurate Steam times. It's not a perfect bit of software (still in beta) but when it works, I find it to be quite useful =)

I´m 2 and a half hours in and just reached the second mind hack. The first one was annoying as hell, but I already know this is going to be a lot worse and that you can actually die this time. I´m getting Call of Cthulhu flashbacks.
I looked up what the game wants me to do in this level and it looks like rage quit material for me.
If I die more then once or twice I´m gonna watch the rest of it on Youtube, it´s not like there is much gameplay to begin with.

How did this win over the Last of Us?

TBH, it's easy to win against The Last of Us. TLoU is an exclusive, so people on 3/4 of the current platforms have no access to it. While Observer has everything in its favor: is available in all 4 main platforms (even the 3 biggest computer OSs), has been featured in bundles, included in the twitch prime subscription and given away for free. So there are lots of people that own it already and want to try it out. That, and I've been nominating it for like half a year, so it was a matter of time before it won even if by pure chance.

I did nominate it because of my love for SOMA, but I'll have to at least partially agree with the comments so far. Since I'm not loving it the same way I loved SOMA and the story hasn't grabbed me so far. That being said, there are some good aspects too. The MC voice acting, as other people have pointed out, is great. I love the atmosphere in the building, specially inside the apartments themselves. There were a couple annoying effects, but thankfully they can be disabled. The conversations with the tenants are nice too, and I'm enjoying the world building.

TBH, it's easy to win against The Last of Us. TLoU is an exclusive, so people on 3/4 of the current platforms have no access to it. While Observer has everything in its favor: is available in all 4 main platforms (even the 3 biggest computer OSs), has been featured in bundles, included in the twitch prime subscription and given away for free. So there are lots of people that own it already and want to try it out. That, and I've been nominating it for like half a year, so it was a matter of time before it won even if by pure chance.

I did nominate it because of my love for SOMA, but I'll have to at least partially agree with the comments so far. Since I'm not loving it the same way I loved SOMA and the story hasn't grabbed me so far. That being said, there are some good aspects too. The MC voice acting, as other people have pointed out, is great. I love the atmosphere in the building, specially inside the apartments themselves. There were a couple annoying effects, but thankfully they can be disabled. The conversations with the tenants are nice too, and I'm enjoying the world building.

Is that the room where the guy hanged himself?

Is that the room where the guy hanged himself?

Yep