Narcosis is a horror/adventure game that will test your hydrophobia and searching skills as you seek to get to the surface before air, and time, run out.
General Gameplay
Narcosis is at its core a story-driven game in which you play a deep-sea expedition person that must get back to your base and find out what happened, and also what happened to your fellow colleagues. The Game’s Visuals are designed with the darker tones of colors (after all, it is underwater) as you are in a ½ ton diving suit. Your view of the game is in more of a first person perspective where you can see your readout of the oxygen that you have left as well flares that you carry at any given time. The game is all about being underwater, so you will see underwater life around you as well as an underwater station that you will explore. As the game is a survival/thriller your character will experience hallucinations, fight some enemies and avoid others. The game does not support a color-blind mode, but it isn’t needed. The game is an M-rated title; we did see some images that were of dead people as well some scary sea life, but nothing that would be too scary for anyone that is from the age of 10 and up. The game uses horror images to scare the player, but there isn’t too much blood and gore in the game. Audio for the game includes heavily-used voice over to tell the story. The voice over is well done and tells the story, as the only two voice actors are in the game (trying to stay spoiler free for the review! 😊) The game is narrated from the voice acting as you go along in the game to tell the story of what happen. There is some minor language in the game but nothing that you wouldn’t expect to hear in a PG movie (More on this in our Family Friendly section). The background sounds from the O2 filling to underwater effects and other objects are done well and clear to hear. The game does support 5.1 surround sound and it does a great job of conveying the sense of being at the bottom of the sea, all alone. In our honest opinion, we recommend that you play the game with a headset as it gives you a better experience, however we recommend monitoring your gamer’s extended usage of a headset. The Controls’ setup for Narcosis is very simple and easy to pick up and play. The left and right triggers are used to propel the character with an underwater jump pack where the buttons are for picking up items, using your knife to defend yourself and the shoulder button to shoot a flare so you can light your settings. Again, the controls are designed for anyone to pick up and play the game. As the game is more about exploration and discovery, there is no need for any special controllers or even setup as the game’s default setup is fine. In our play testing, we did not run into any issues with the control setups and everything worked well to play Narcosis.
“Take any fear you have of being underwater, running out of air and hope;add a story to this and you have this gem of a horror game”
Family Friendly
Being a M – For Mature-rated game, it was a little limiting for us to fully test this game with all our family gaming members. However, I can say from reviewing the game (and others agreed) that this is a great title for those who love story-driven games. As the game is mostly story-driven, telling the story of a deep-sea thriller, do not dismiss this game as just being a story. There is a lot of detail in the game and for those who want to know everything about the characters, there are a lot of collectibles to be found in the game. Narcosis is a game that will have you sitting on the edge of your seat wondering what happened, and it will keep you glued to your controller all the way to the surprise ending. The game does have some disturbing images of what happened to the crew and some moments of jump scares that help tell the story. There was minimal language in the game and if anything, the spoken dialogue helps tell the story of what happened at the bottom of the sea. As with any M-rated title it is all up to the parent/guardian as to whether the game is appropriate for younger gamers. As we played through the game, we felt it was more like watching a PG-13 movie than being R-rated in its content, but again we recommend using your best judgement on allowing younger gamers to play Narcosis. We do recommend this game for any gamers in your gaming family who are fans of the survival horror/thriller games, as Narcosis is a great experience that does this genre well. The game is very easy to pick and play, and the story will have you hooked from start to finish. The only thing that we did not like about the game is that after you beat it, other than going after the collectibles, there is nothing else to do in the game. So parent/guardians, do not let the M rating detour you from picking up this great digital game!
Closing
Narcosis is a great story-driven game that tells a great tale. Even though it is a short tale (4-5 hours), it’s still a great game to have in your digital library!
Be sure to listen to our podcast for our real thoughts on Narcosis!
