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Wednesday 5 November 2014

The Swapper #1

Here's a game that I've been looking forward to playing for a while.  I'm a big fan of the kind of sci-fi that takes technological advances, pushes them to their logical extreme and then examines the often horrible implications.

The Swapper opens with what can only be an intentional musical call back to Star Trek, perhaps to lull people into a false sense of security.  That is immediately stripped away as soon as you're into the game proper.  The art style is all dereliction and decay, real-world clutter repurposed as abandoned technology.  The atmosphere is incredible, with the lights on your spacesuit shining through swirling mist and sounds echoing off into the distance, there's a real sense of isolation.  

A few rooms explored and we get to the major gameplay mechanic: cloning.  At any time you can create copies of yourself, and switch your consciousness between copies.  If this sounds like fun, just wait until you swap bodies and then accidentally walk your old self off a cliff.  The poor sod hits the floor, legs shatter.  It's all very grim, and immediately brings to mind The Prestige.  I can't wait to see the path it's going to take with this;  the creepy audio logs seem to suggest that it's not going to be pleasant.   




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