Subject 13 Reviews

I was enjoying this game right up until the *timed* massive 3d minesweeper puzzle that clears all your correct answers on every mistake. It also seems to be buggy and has a 10 minute time limit after which actions that you do don't work right (without any warning). There appears to be no way to skip this disaster of a puzzle and proceed. I did post a question about this on the forum last month with 0 responses. So I cannot finish the game, and for those interested in achievements - unless you complete this you cannot get more than 50%. I can only say boo - two thumbs down, I would have liked to have completed this game. Don't buy if you like achievements.

I really wanted to like this game, it had such potential. The first couple of chapters were so much fun to explore but that fell apart quickly. As other reviewers have noted some of the puzzles are just....impossible to figure out on your own. There's no guidance or any sort of direction as to what to do, it ends up just being a random combining of items until something happens. The final puzzle is the most ridiculous and rage inducing thing I have ever experienced in a point and click game, it's not even challenging or fun it's just sadistic. The game is super short too so I guess they made it insane to help it last longer. The game looks good, I enjoyed the story and some of the game mechanics are really neat. But it just falls flat and isn't worth $10.

The farther you proceed in the game, the more dull it starts to feel. It will entertain you for awhile, but when you finally get answers to your questions, it will dissappoint you how cheap feel this game gives out after all. Pro(s) +Some puzzles are rather clever and entertaining +Graphics are nice Cons -Short -Weird/bad action controls and camera panning -Some puzzles are just totally absurd! -Storyline is bad and characters' lines cheezy -Diary entries found in the map are somewhat useless Unlike Syberia series, this will not leave you thinking the story after playing the game. It will leave you depressed of how many hours you just wasted on very mediocre game, waiting for something more. The cake is a lie.

Too many game breaking bugs for my liking. The game itself is very enjoyable and the storyline is interesting. But I kept ramming head long into bugs that killed the game play. Some bugs could be solved with an exit and a reload, others simply will not resolve themselves and I can't continue the game. Bummer!

The game was initially fun, but as the game progressed, some of the puzzles ruined the game for me. I don't want to give away the game, but certain parts of the game were so bad, I feel I need to say something. The game lacked imagination and there was a lot of potential to do something creative which was then ruined by bad design. SPOILER: Don't read if you don't want to know. One of the puzzles was math-based. It's the kind of puzzle where you convert from base-10 to base-20, do a bunch of operations, convert back to base-10, do more operations, then convert to base-20 one more time and register the value. Then I get to do that whole thing three seperate times. I took math all the way up to Calculus and my wife is very bad at higher math. Since we play these games together, doing math for an hour ruins the fun. Another puzzle was really a big game of Mine Sweeper. I hate Mine Sweeper and I was never good at it. I just got to sit there and play Mine Sweeper for a few hours. Lame. Making puzzles like that isn't fun and it lacks imagination.

Subject 13 is an interesting point n click adventure. It's a typical 3D point n click adventure in the style of Syberia or other similiar games, it keeps that charm while having more logical puzzles due to its newer age. The gameplay is good, although interacting with things might feel a bit clunky at first due to how the interaction menu is laid out. The story is pretty basic but at the same time intriguing, you do want to know what's going on after all. The character is neither likeable or dislikeable, he's quite boring I suppose. The ending opens up for a possibility that we didn't get to know everything that was fully going on... perhaps building up for a sequel in the future? So I said the puzzles were okay right? They were, until the final bullshit which is mine sweeper. If you hate mine sweeper, congrats you will hate this too. Eitherway, recommended for fans of the genre!

pros + nice looking graphics which aged quite well + intriguing sci fi story + mini games and puzzles mostly enjoyable. these are nor easy either difficult. there are also 3D inventory puzzles. you can rotate items and examine to them + there is a hint system which gives clues + nice background musics + decent voice acting + there is auto save + when you press to space, hotspots highlighted so no need to pixel hunting + there are steam achievements and cards cons - controls quite clunky. it's take time getting used to it - there are some trial and error puzzles - game is buggy. sometimes mouse click doesn't response and you have to exit and re enter to game. - hard to spot testimonies because of bad camera angles - frustrating final minesweeper puzzle Overall this is an enjoyable adventure game. i like it.

An adequate puzzle game, nestled in disappointing packaging. The puzzle types are standard (some inventory-based, some sliders, etc), though a few do stand out as novel twists on the formula. Unfortunately, the lack of a save system means that you will have to play through the entire game again to revisit those gems. (Achievement Hunters beware: one achievement is granted for completing a certain puzzle quickly, so take longer than the threshold and prepare for your full replay) The game appears to auto-save whenever the voicework kicks in... Oh, yeah, that checkmark under "Full Audio" is overstating things. While there is "voice acting" (more on that in a moment), it only occurs alongside scene transitions or via a specific kind of item. The rest is unvoiced... which I failed to notice right away, missing some helpful tips in the bottom right corner as I was experimenting with the 3D perspective. That said, the game might actually be improved by silence. The sound quality is perfectly fine, but the performances are flat, merely reading the lines aloud, so characters experiencing fear and stress come off as pleasantly calm... Bye-bye immersion... Also, I imagine that the script itself was translated into English, which would explain some of the stilted dialogue and odd syntax. I did experience some minor bugs... or, perhaps, amazing superpowers on the part of the protagonist, as he could occasionally see through solid objects or interact with items that were left two screens ago... but nothing gamebreaking. In the end, I would recommend for puzzle adventure gamers, who have not already been turned off by any of the above. The puzzles were fun, the graphics were fine, and the story was occasionally intriguing, though it does end on a bit of sequel bait. Wait for a sale though...

Subject 13 isn't a bad game, I more or less enjoyed it, and I don't regret buying or playing it, BUT I don't think it is one that I would recommend to the average player. If you're a puzzle fiend, however, and particularly fond of MYST-like games, hidden object-style games, or the Room Escape series, this might still be a decent addition to your library if you pick it up on sale. The game is composed of four short chapters and should take roughly 5-7 hours to complete; each chapter gives you 2-4 rooms of searching, puzzling, object-combining, and item-manipulation, usually with the end goal of opening some sort of door and progressing. In Subject 13, you play as a depressed scientist who attempts suicide-by-drowning following the tragic death of his girlfriend. However, he mysteriously wakes up alone in an island laboratory where a two-bit GLaDOS impersonator eggs him on through a series of increasingly challenging puzzles. This snarky robotic voice is not very forthcoming with details, so the story mainly unfolds through a series of hidden audio logs you may find as you progress, and it's kind of all over the place - it involves an endless energy source, a shady corporation, a tribe of native islanders and their deity, people disappearing, multiple dimensions, and more. Overall, the story is fairly weak, and the payoff at the end isn't great, but it gets the job done. Graphically, the game is a bit dated, but it looks fine despite its age. The dialogue is fully voiced with competent but definitely not stellar acting. There is not much music, but the main violin theme is pretty good, and I like the little sting that plays at significant moments. Gameplay is also kind of a mixed bag. While there is an in-game hint system, this is absolutely the type of game that will have you soon reaching for a guide. Navigation of the world is a little pixel-hunty for my taste. Some scenes are unnecessarily well-hidden, and some items are way on the edge of the visible area, requiring unintuitive camera manipulation to see. Many objects are interactable in close-up, but may have hidden buttons or flaps not visible to the naked eye. One particular puzzle involves a jar that is stuck, and, unintuitively, the way to open it is to examine it closely in the inventory, flip it upside-down, and tap the bottom multiple times. Some of the puzzles are well-designed, but others suffer from no directions or unclear objectives. There's not much feedback to tell you if you are on the right track for a particular puzzle or not. You can attempt actions that should logically work, and there is no reason provided by the game for why they don't. In addition to the item-combination puzzles, there are a few more traditional puzzles in the game. There are some traditional sliding-block puzzles, a few glyph-matching puzzles and a particularly time-consuming math/code puzzle. The final task of the game is actually a large expert-level minesweeper that is identical to what you might play on windows '95, only it is 3D and semi-transparent, so it's pretty tough to see. (Protip: mark mines by holding left-click). I am not bad at minesweeper so I made it through this puzzle just fine, but it's pretty infamous. Final verdict - this is a passable game for puzzle fans that don't mind a bit of frustration, but the average player might want to look elsewhere.

I am a big fan of the Syberia games made by the same company, so I found Subject 13 to be somewhat disappointing. The graphics and music are okay, some of the puzzles are good but there are too many sliding tile puzzles, so it becomes a little repetitive and not very original. The worst part of the game is the controls though. The different cursor views confused me for a while and having to hold down the mouse button and press two different things just to do one action... pretty frustrating. Also I wish I could just use a trackpad and not have to sit at a desk while playing- it would be better off with a simpler point and click interface.