OMEGA: The Beginning - Episode 1 Reviews

OMEGA: The Beginning is the first part in a trilogy of games and yet I have no idea where the series is going next. Story: You play as Scott. His friend Teni has been in an accident where he lost his leg and he hasn't been the same ever since. After coming back from a trip, he urges you to meet him because he has something of importance to tell you, but once you get to his home you find him missing. I'll stop here, because everything I described above takes up almost 60% of the actual game length. This is the games biggest problem and that's how little the plot moves throughout the entire playtime. Considering this game is the first part, I have no idea what's going on, because the game does not set up the questions that the other episodes can answer. Imagine someone telling you a story and stopping midway through and just walking away from the conversation, that's how this first episode feels. The English grammar is also not the best with many spelling mistakes and some weird translations, but it's nowhere near as bad as some other games I've played, but it still detracts from my enjoyment of the game. Graphics: The art style of OMEGA is bland to say the least, but nothing incredibly terrible. The blocky, minecraft esque look is appealing for the most part, but I have to say that I find both the environments incredibly bland and just a pain to explore, because every place you visit just doesn't have many items to look through, which also makes the puzzles incredibly easy, cause there's not many items to pick up and places to use them in. Audio: There's barely any audio design to speak off in OMEGA. It's mostly quiet with very few audio tracks which are all just generic tracks. You'll mostly be hearing the audio of your dialogue box moving constantly, but at least they made the noise grading on the ears. Gameplay: OMEGA The Beginning is basically a point and click adventure game, but without any pointing and clicking. You move Scott around a 3D space, interact with items, talk with people and solve puzzles. It's a pretty simple game and it works for well for the most part. However there are a few things I'm not the biggest fan of. First of all the games fixed camera angles are annoying, cause it feels like the camera flips out and you lose your bearings a bit which might make you go through a door you didn't mean to go through. Now for the puzzles. They are incredibly easy and never really gave me a challenge and that's because like I stated before there's very little for you to interact with. You find the items you need fairly quickly and since you can use your logic to deduce where they go it ends up wrapping up fairly quickly. Also the sheer amount of rooms that have nothing for you to do in are just a pointless design decision and wind up wasting your time. Verdict: Overall OMEGA: The Beginning is a poor start to this so called trilogy. The plot is incredibly weak and the overall mystery is not interesting whatsoever and by the end of my 50 minute playthrough I was left more confused than thrilled about the upcoming installments. There is some fun to be had with the game if you like the genre, but only on a massive discount. Final Rating: 4.5/10 Pros: + Gameplay is fine + Art style is appealing even though it's nothing special Cons: - Story goes nowhere - Audio design is bland - Puzzles are way too simple - Tons of dead end rooms If you liked this review please consider following our groups and curator pages at https://steamcommunity.com/groups/completingthebacklog and https://steamcommunity.com/groups/ImperialReviews