This article originally ran under a different banner/website in October of 2019 and is now being here re-uploaded for purposes of convenience and consolidation. Please enjoy.
LADIES AND GENTLEMEN!!! BOYS AND GIRLS!!! CAN YOU FEEL THAT CHILL IN THE AIR? It can only mean one thing: Halloween has come. Now I am sure many of you might have expected me to rail again Bethesda and their latest last attempt to fleece money from Fallout fans, but NAY, I SAY!!! It is Halloween. My favorite holiday. WHY SHOULD I BEND TO THE WHIM OF PUBLISHER’S GREED AND STUPIDITY!!! Well, not today Bethesda. I WILL NOT YIELD!!! Today, I will talk about two games that are a fraction of a Fallout 76 subscription and infinitely more worth your time. Please consider playing them over giving Bethesda more money. Today, I will be presenting my very first DOOMSAYER HALLOWEEN DOUBLE FEATURE!!!
I present to you all the first game in this double feature: Apsulov: End of Gods. I was initially drawn to this game with three phrases: sci-fi, Norse mythology, and horror game. As a fan of Norse mythology, it has been gratifying to see games like God of War (2018) and Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice gives exposure to the mythos. The Norse mythos helps Apsulov: End of Gods feel fresh even with the sci-fi and horror aspects not innovating the story. Naturally, our main character awakes in a mega-corporation underground bunker with amnesia. You piece together the story which revolves around said mega-corporation attempting to siphon power from the Norse Gods. Essentially Doom with Christianity replaced with Norse mythology.
Tasked with collecting nine keys scattered around the nine realms to close a device called the Apsulov, you must creep along with the hazardous facility and various realms that you tasked to visit. While this might seem like an arduous task, six of the keys are already in the Apsulov and you must find the remaining three. This leads me to my first criticism. While Apsulov: End of Gods takes us to iconic places in Norse mythology, I would have enjoyed seeing more of the nine realms. We only visit Midgard, Niflheim, underneath Yggdrasil, and Helheim. I believe this is a missed opportunity to allow the other realms to show off how terrifying they could be to mere mortals. I wanted to go to Alfheim and see what horrors the elves could cook up. While I know the game is an indie title and they probably didn’t have the resources to imagine more realms, I am underwhelmed having to visit Nifiheim a second time. Could we possibly go to Niflheim once and go to a different realm.
Nonetheless, no matter what realm you go to, you will always feel like a tiny insect scuttling around among giants. Even when you are in the underground mega-corporation bunker in Midgard, I couldn’t escape the feeling of being watched by giant beings. I tribute this to Norse mythology. The opening scene had grand statutes of fabled Norse gods. All of them positioned to be staring down at me. Even when I was crawling in claustrophobic air vents could still feel their mighty gaze upon me. On top of that, the atmosphere in Apsulov: End of Gods is top-notch. From the Dead Space style of the rattling of pipes to the viscus gloopy sounds that come from interacting with the World Tree; these elements help hammer home the feeling of being a small mouse in the lion’s den.
However, Apsulov: End of Gods ruins a bit of its atmosphere by being one of the darkest games I have ever played. I am not merely referring to its tone. At the start of the game, you are given a flashlight that floods the area in that cybernetic green grid commonly seen in science fiction. The flashlight naturally needs to charge up, and while that is happening your screen will literally be black. Even while standing next to a light source, you will not be able to see two feet in front of yourself. It turns many levels into a frustrating game of red light green light, and frustratingly hinders the combat. The combat consists of you using your laser arm to charge up a shot. Being completely in the dark means an enemy can spot you before you have the chance to charge up a shot. When a game limits the information a player can receive, difficulty drastically increases. Constraints the player has no control over mount up and push a player’s patience over the edge.
While Apsulov: End of Gods’ lighting made me curse the All-Father, I would still recommend the game. The story, while not overly original, is still well told. I am sure many people can guess which gods are involved in the plot, but don’t let that fool you. I admit, tried to utilize my Norse mythology knowledge to predict the story, and Apsulov: End of God was able to craft a better story than I originally thought. A fun, bite-sized horror game that feels fresh with the Norse mythology coat of paint.
Our second game in our Halloween double feature comes to us from developers No Code and published by Devolver Digital: Observation. You play as SAM, an artificial intelligence aboard the space station aptly named the Observation. You have awoken with most of your memory missing, most of the crew missing and the space station no longer hovering above Earth. When the one remaining human, Dr. Emma Fisher, asks you how this all happened, SAM believes he might have been responsible for their predicament, but isn’t sure how. You must help Dr. Fisher keep the station from falling apart while trying to sort through your corrupted files to figure out why we decided to become HAL 9000. SAM probably got the idea after dealing with crew members who constantly barked the same orders similar to when someone constantly clicks a loading application.
Atmosphere is the word of the day. Much like Apsulov: End of Gods, Observation superbly captures the groaning and creaking of a space station in deep space. It very much gave me flashbacks to wandering the USG Ishimaru in Dead Space. While most people recall the clattering of Necromorphers skittering the Ishimura, I often remember the groans that sound like the ship was struggling to support its own weight. The Observation space station excels in creating a similar feel, especially when sections of it start detaching from the initial base.
SAM is able to explore the station through these camera feeds located all throughout the station. This creates an almost a mixture of Five Nights at Freddy’s and Stanley Kubrick as you pan the cameras back and forth expecting to just catch a glimpse of something foreign, looking to make a snack of Dr. Fisher. Early Observation will give you a mobile sphere camera that you can use to float inside and outside the station. While functional after you probably orientate yourself, I very much prefer the fixed camera locations, because the faster movement of the mobile camera fails to capture that slow panning movement similar to shots from The Shining. The mobile camera ditch Observation’s main strength.
Five Nights at Freddy’s fan will be disappointed to learn that Observation is more than scanning cameras for aliens. SAM is primarily tasked with helping Dr. Fisher getting many of the functions of the stations up in running. This ranges from pod hatches to crew tracking systems. While it might seem like you would need a degree in computer science to operate SAM, I can assure you Observation has boiled down a lot of the complexities to simply instruction following. The hatches, for example, can be controlled by tracing certain patterns within a grid system. Unfortunately, the directions for these instructions are often found on documents scattered through the space station that you just have to find. Often I was told to just merely slowly pan the cameras around multiple rooms to find the document that contained the next set of instructions. The explanation for these being astronauts in space had to double their living and workspaces together. Resulting in passwords and panel instructions taped to the wall. Understandable in a space station, but it still resulted in me asking the internet which room has the instructions I was in. I just found this slow-paced puzzle-solving to very frustrating at times, especially when a section of the station containing ten rooms was unlocked.
Some might be thinking I am gearing up to call for Observation to be taken to the stakes, I would still recommend it. My time with both games has me concluding that recommendations for them would go to different players. If you have not grown completely tired of the standard horror game blueprint but would like a new twist on it, I would recommend Apsulov: End of Gods. If you are tired of creeping around in the dark and could stand some slow boil puzzling, then I would recommend Observation. If you are looking for an overpriced mess that can’t even get private servers or scrap bots correct, then I recommend Fallout 1st Membership. Not really, I recommend burning your money over that.
