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REVIEW

The Fall Review

by Ian Stokes, July 25th, 2015
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The Fall is a modern take on an ageing genre, the good old point-and-click adventure game. It’s not the first game to attempt to breathe new life into this ancient game type, with Stick it to the Man and The Cave coming to mind as the most successful attempts to date. But how does The Fall measure up to these greats? Does it abandon too much of its heritage or retain just enough whilst injecting new life into an extremely tired formula?

In The Fall, you take on the role of ARID, the artificial intelligence system on-board a combat suit. Your pilot is knocked unconscious after a fall (The Fall, you might say) and you are tasked with keeping him alive. ARID is programmed to protect her pilot at all costs, however without his permission, she has limited access to her key systems. ARID can gain access to these systems if her pilot’s life is in mortal danger , a concept which drives much of the gameplay.

In practice, The Fall controls like a slow, clunky 2-D platformer with a really long winded, pain in the arse method of picking up objects. You control ARID with the left stick and aim her torch/gun with the right stick. To interact with objects you aim your torch at them, then hold RB to bring up an interaction menu and then select the interaction. It really is a bit needlessly clunky, but it’s still light years ahead of most other point-and-click games, so I can’t complain too much.

 

I DID NOT MURDER HIM!!!! Well OK maybe I did murder that guy.

The puzzles themselves are fairly standard fair, find item A to rub on obstacle A to get it out of your way; except as usual you’ll have to find items B, C, D and E to get obstacles B, C, D and E out of your way so you can find item A. Thankfully there is no bonkers point-and-click game logic here, every puzzle has a sensible solution that you can figure out without consulting the Necronomicon. Keycard opens door, robot arm reaches things, flowers go in the vase etc.

Artificial intelligence is a well-trodden path in video gaming, we’ve got the lovely Cortana of course, the irritating Claptrap and the murderous GLADOS. These are great characters, don’t get me wrong, but when it comes down to it, they aren’t really AI, they’re just people in computer suits. Cortana is more human than the Chief, Claptrap is a talkative git who won’t shut up and GLADOS gets annoyed and insults you when you outsmart her. These aren’t the responses and actions of a computer. The Fall attempts to emulate the logic-driven thought processes of a machine as ARID solves her problems.

An example straight from the game, at one point you have to pretend to be a domestic robot helper for a fake family, proving you can complete basic tasks in order to gain access to the next area. A baby lies in a crib crying, how would you solve this problem? You’re supposed to sing the child a lullaby, which most people would figure out. Our robot friend ARID approaches the problem from a different angle though. To pass the test, the sensor must simply not be able to hear the baby crying, so if the baby is, oh I don’t know, say sucked away through a giant pipe system, then the sensor won’t hear the baby crying and ARID has passed the test. Brilliant.

Must not misrepresent the truth: It’s a small, off-duty Czechoslovakian traffic warden.

The Fall doesn’t just show us the problem solving skills of our dear ARID, but also her interactions with the other AI she meets along her journey, some of which are friendly and others which are quite hostile. The facility in which the game is set has been abandoned for some time, and as such these AI have had a long time on their own. Some of them have as a result gone a bit doolally, whilst others have learnt to circumvent their programming to varying degrees. Watching ARID’s interactions with these characters, as well as her development as a character is incredibly engaging, as she breaks through the barriers that hold back her key systems, she also changes as an entity.

The voice acting is pretty damn good too, especially for such a small project. ARID’s lack of emotion is conveyed with more depth and nuance than most games manage to show in their fully emotive displays. As the story progresses and ARID begins to break down the walls of her programming, her tone and mannerisms change accordingly but subtly. There is concern and even fear in her voice towards the end, where at the start she was just a cold and logical machine.

The ending is somewhat predictable, but I think it was meant to be. The Fall is more about ARID’s journey up to this point, rather than just a big surprise ending out of nowhere. And whilst the cliffhanger ending itself was predictable, what happens next is anybody’s guess. Developers Over The Moon Games are hard at work on the next instalment into the story though, so we don’t have to wait too long to find out thankfully. For now though, I can heartily recommend The Fall to anybody who likes a little light puzzling and musing on the meaning of (robot) life.

Disclosure: We reviewed the recently released Xbox One port of The Fall. A review copy was provided by Over The Moon Games.

8
It doesn't revolutionise the genre, but it's a valiant effort at a revitalisation of it. The voice acting is effective, conveying both emotion and the lack of emotion in characters beautifully. ARID goes through a meaningful character arc as she strives to meet her primary objective, to save the life of her pilot, but what her objective means to her changes over the course of the game. A great puzzle game that makes you think, and not just about the puzzles.

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Filed under: Over The Moon Games PC PS4 The Fall wii u Xbox One

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