Downward Spiral: Horus Station - A Choose Your Own Review

This post was originally published at Sub-Cultured.

As always, thanks goes to the unflappable Kimmie Britt, for keeping me occupied.

Of the three games I've been given the opportunity to review in the past two weeks, Downward Spiral: Horus Station was last on the list for one very particular reason: Looks.  It looks like Subnautica on the lowest res setting.  But, as I've learned, beautiful games can be terrible (Star Wars: Battle Front), and even the most coarse of games can be incredible, like Galaxies:

Galaxies: Ugly and perfect.  He was an NPC and he responded to unwanted advances.

  So, despite my initial bias, I opened my mind, and my heart, to Downward Spiral: Horus Station.

From developer 3rd Eye Studios, Downward Spiral: Horus Station is the closest thing to Myst In Space that we're gonna get for a while.  Taking players through an abandoned vessel, the game focuses on visual storytelling for single player or two player online co-op. Using their wits, players will have to piece together the mystery based on observation and interaction all while accompanied by the electronic ambient soundtrack composed by platinum selling HIM frontman Ville Valo.

It needs to be said, that without a doubt, this game needs to be played in  VR, otherwise Downward Spiral is nigh unplayable.

For the first few hours, my time was spent try to get the hang of the:

[VR] Innovative 

[Normal] Utterly Frustrating 

directional controls.  Moving forward is realistic, and just like real movement in a zero gravity environment, you're expected to grab handrails or shove yourself off walls to propel your body across a room.  As it turns out

[VR] This system is awesome, as you can grab surfaces, reorient yourself, and launch off a matter of seconds.  It forces a slow, methodical pace through levels that adds tension, and gives a sense of pride as you progressively learn how to best manipulate your momentum in each confined space.

[Normal] This system makes the game impossible to play.  Even after turning mouse sensitivity up to maximum, the look speed is too slow to react to threats, look around naturally, and the max is about 15 degrees a second.  Look, grab, look, shove shouldn't take upwards of 10 seconds in a game that's already painfully slow.

Environmental and object interaction is equally

[VR] Innovative

[Normal] Utterly Frustrating

as the physics involved are the same.

The soundtrack by Ville Valo is

[Objectively] Tolerable in short stints if you enjoy 80's sci-fi ambiance.

[Subjectively] Annoying to the point that I had to mute the music.

So, what's the mystery?  Who are you fighting?  Where does this adventure take you?

Look, I gave this game my best shot, but I had to stop playing.  In addition to having 

[Subjectively] A terrible tutorial system, absurdly slow movement

[Objectively] A plethora of technical bugs that, while not game breaking, were collectively a hindrance to game-play 

[Both] No clear sense of direction of plot or story past going forward and figuring things out for yourself, generally by accident; 

what killed it for me was the fact that whenever you enter a compartment of the station at a different orientation to the previous, there exists no mechanism to reorient yourself to that room, adding another layer of difficulty to movement, and the extra punch of disorientation.  

I won't discourage anyone from playing Downward Spiral, but I cannot, in good conscience, give my recommendation.