Buy Close to the Sun

What do you get when an incredibly smart scientist in the late 19th century decides to create a sea-based utopian society for scientists that eventually turns into a dystopian nightmare? If your answer is BioShock, you are not entirely correct, but you may be forgiven for misjudging Close to the Sun by its very familiar tale. A suspenseful adventure at sea, Close to the Sun explores an alternate reality where Nicola Tesla sets out on a massive ship, the Helios, with the noble intention to further science and explore the theory of unlimited energy for the world. While it takes a page out of BioShock's book in terms of setting and setup, it's an entirely different game experience that won't stick in your memory for very long once you're through with it.

Close to the Sun is a "walking simulator," if you will. The game is played from the first-person perspective of Rose Archer, a journalist and sister of Ada, a scientist aboard the Helios. The game begins with Rose on a small boat as she approaches the Helios. Her sister had invited her to witness the scientific progress and achievements. Upon entering the futuristic vessel, nothing is as expected. A deserted docking station gives way to empty art-deco hallways, blood-smeared warning messages, and piles of corpses. Something has gone horribly wrong aboard the Helios, but instead of getting the hell out, we decide to investigate. Thanks to a futuristic earpiece, we can pick up comms of our sibling and other people onboard, including Tesla himself. It quickly becomes a creepy manifest of mania and ideology that has gone awry as we venture deeper into the ship and its curious scientific experiments.

Even though not wholly original, Close to the Sun tries to create an uneasy and tense feeling in the dark corridors of the ship, and judging by the noises and events, we're not entirely alone. Since the tale is based on actual historical figures with an intense fictional spin, the story is interesting enough to pull us in. The narrative weaves in the reality of Tesla's experiments and theories with the constant threat of spies, who were paid by his rival Thomas Edison. No matter how fantastical it eventually gets, the basic premise is believable enough that you want to push on — at least for a short while.

Since Close to the Sun is a first-person adventure game, we are unarmed, but that doesn't matter much. While horror elements are present, the title only has a couple of jump-scares, and even those become increasingly ineffective as the game moves on. This is not like Outlast, where threats are lurking around every corner to start an intense cat-and-mouse race. Throughout most of its four-hour campaign, Close to the Sun raises relatively few stakes. There are weird mechanical entities aboard the ship that attack you, but the assaults are — similar to the entire experience — scripted events that segue to an annoying chase scene. That is as much action as we get here; the rest consists of slow-paced walking from area and area, which makes for an underwhelming horror title. If anything, you'd want to feel danger at every turn to keep the tension high, but Close to the Sun quickly loses that tension as you realize that there's not much aboard the ship that can actually end you.

Given that, Close to the Sun is incorrectly categorized as a horror game. It's more of an adventure game, but it doesn't feature complex inventory puzzles, either. Close to the Sun is a straightforward affair. As we make our way through the linear story, we pick up newspaper scraps and other documents that slowly fill us in on the happenings aboard the Helios. In addition to our comms, this is the only means of story delivery, and it's about the extent to which we interact with the world. The other part is flipping switches to open doors, usually without much logic or puzzle design. Progressing in the game is as easy as pressing a button, reading a newspaper, and listening to someone whispering in your ear. Despite the story's intriguing premise and world design, the gameplay is often unexciting and not very meaningful.

The "exhilarating" part of the experience are the few chase scenes where we're running for our lives from a particularly stabby entity, but they're very linear and cumbersome sequences. Rose can vault over objects when in motion, but timing it with the clunky controls is a frustrating experience. The clunky controls aren't exclusive to the chase scenes, but they're especially annoying because failing to vault over obstacles automatically means starting all over again. It's not unplayable, and it's not completely broken, but it doesn't often feel like it's worth the time, and that's a shame.

There is a jarring inherent disconnect between the gameplay, story and visuals. As a whole, the Helios is a beautiful and captivating architectural creation, but it feels restrictive to wander around with constant hand-holding. It would've been amazing to walk around and discover the ship interiors on my own or have some more choice about what's happening around me. Instead, we fondle paper cutouts, press a few buttons, and sprint down some corridors. The story wasn't as good as the atmosphere and environmental design, but more enticing gameplay would've pushed the experience to another level. While I'm often the first to defend a "walking simulator" experience, such as the old Telltale games, Close to the Sun doesn't do enough to warrant your attention. There aren't any intriguing moral decisions, dialogue options to choose from, interesting gameplay concepts. It's all a straightforward experience that takes no interesting turns in its relatively short run time.

With that said, the game looks great. The Helios is opulent, and the visuals present the scientific experiments in a great light. The lighting, performance, and textures are as good as they can get, and there aren't any visual shortcomings. The audio is equally solid, but the atmosphere relies too often on the usual tropes of suspicious noises creating a false sense of tension. It's fine, especially in tandem with the moody visuals. The graphics, audio, and the first hour of the story create such an interesting premise that makes it feel like Close to the Sun will be worth your time, but the hop slowly drains away as you progress and realize that it doesn't go anywhere interesting.

At the end of the day, Close to the Sun is the exact opposite of what its name implies. It's not aiming for the sun, and while that also means it doesn't get burned by it, it's such a safe distance away that it doesn't feel like it's even trying. It's unfortunate to say for such a pretty, atmospheric game, but the superb presentation and a decent story are contradicted by slow gameplay that doesn't deliver the satisfaction that the setup deserved. Even at a highly reduced price, Close to the Sun had a lot of promise but ultimately fails to create a memorable experience due to its unengaging and bland gameplay.

Score: 5.8/10