No life, no life, no life, no life, no death, no life. This periodic pattern runs throughout the Scorn, running through it like a rotting umbilical cord. It’s a world where animals and automation come together in a disturbing alliance so seamlessly that you can never be quite sure where organic matter ends and machines begin.
For such a taciturn game – Scorn has no text prompts, no dialogue, and no map; you traverse its world through organic exploration, hope, luck, etc. – this life circle thing is surprisingly present in your before. Before you leave opening time, you’ll pry a deformed form from a rotting egg and rip an organic weapon from its umbilical holster, and you’re greeted with an overwhelmingly thick milky Substance soaks and it will make you pass out. Finally, there are statues in, uh, compromised positions. Abdominal swelling and yes, more umbilical cord. It’s not subtle.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, then, Scorn’s phallic imagery and action have come of age. Our protagonist – a half-dead humanoid husk roaming a (mostly) desolate alien world – endlessly inserts their weapons into mysterious holes and sinks their fingers into fleshy grips in the control panel. There are holes, tubes and propulsion pistons – enough to make Floyd blush – all openly inspired by the horribly delightful nightmares of HR Giger and Zdzislaw Beksiński. It’s shockingly disgusting, disgusting in all the right ways, and for all of Scorn’s faults — I’m afraid I have some — its meticulously detailed aesthetics aren’t one of them.
It was dark too; figuratively and thematically. Scone’s morbid pallor is often interrupted by the shock of scarlet, and the disorganized mounds of meat—meat that used to think and feel—are haphazardly discarded in corners. There are claustrophobic hallways with walls that look like they’re built out of bone and skin, and you can’t get away from the feeling that the tracks on the ground beneath your bare feet look more like a spine than a transportation system.
That’s not to say contempt is a terror, though. At least, that’s not the way some people think it’s scary these days. There’s no cheap scare or scare, instead it relies on an ominous soundtrack and its (admittedly excellent) environmental cues to heighten the tension. To be clear, this isn’t a criticism – I’ve never been happier than playing a horror game without scare – but aside from the combat (more on that later) I’ve never been disturbed. Lost money? Of course – there are many. scared? No. I can’t help but admit to being a little disappointed by this.
If you’ve seen or played the opening scene, then you’ve probably come across the first puzzle, which sets a very intentional tone for the rest of your adventure. Yes, the puzzles are intentionally opaque. No, you will not be prompted. Yes, you will get frustrated, but yes, you will eventually fix it. honestly. I solved them on my own time, and I firmly believe that if I – the most ordinary of all ordinary players – can do it, so can you.
Some will be environmentally friendly. Some people need tools, which are made of muscles and bones, plugged into meaty machines, and hung expectantly on the wall.Sometimes you know what you have to do, if not quite how Do, these are my favorites. Bewitched in narrow corridors and cavernous cathedrals, marvel at the bioengineering this mysterious civilization has built around you. Some you will do methodically step by step. Other times, success may be accidental, a side effect of brute force or idle experiments. You are always improving, even if you don’t feel like you are improving.
Alas, if the most frustrating thing I’ve ever encountered in Scorn was just cryptic.
There’s no manual saving here, and going into the “Load Game” option only spawns you when the behavior starts, even if you’re halfway through when it stops. Of course, hitting “Continue” will give you a more generous checkpoint, but since you don’t know when and where those checkpoints are, you’ll be taking a gamble every time you take a break.Yes, I know; that’s old school, some people Love Old school stuff – I’m not one of them, though.
To go along with the brain’s puzzling, lack of direction and paltry checkpoint system, you’ll also have to fight the enemy. As my time here has proven, I’ve played a lot of shooters.I like shooter. But I can’t master Scorn’s battle.
I’m hesitant to ask this question, and with full disclaimer I don’t know if the problem I’m having is because I’m using a controller (admittedly, developer Ebb says it’s only “partially” supported on PC) or I just, well , dammit, but when I switch from the grenade launcher, I often can’t get it back without reloading the checkpoint, even with the reticle Say I got headshots, I don’t seem to have. It’s really weird and, for obvious reasons, incredibly frustrating. Combined with the fact that the enemy seemed to be able to snipe me unmistakably from the other side of the room, which led to my fear of the battle segment, and I was fed up with this mysterious, otherworldly adventure instead.
Even running away is not always a viable option. If you back off and give them enough space, some enemies will back off, sure, but easily stunned, and twice – twice! – I had to restart Act 3 because after completing a puzzle checkpoint, an enemy would kill me while you were completing the puzzle animation. Every time I respawn I get stuck in the same animation and die. Don’t get me wrong; the more you know about the environment, the faster you can get through it – I replay Act 3 a lot and I think I can run it fast now – but if like me, sometimes solving puzzles The solution is happy accident, not intentional, extra backtracking can be tragically repeated.
I want to love Scorn.On paper, I should love contempt. It’s a slow, thoughtful, atmospheric sci-fi horror film – my favorite! – That particular puzzle that makes you feel like the smartest and dumbest person ever. sounds good. It looks better. But it embodies the definition of style over substance. It doesn’t matter how poorly positioned it is if the game elements are unbalanced and sometimes unfair.
I suspect Scorn will be one of the polarizing games of the year, with some praising it as a masterpiece, while others insisting it’s too short, poorly paced, obscure, scary enough, and doesn’t have a satisfying narrative ending. I fell somewhere in the middle. I love Scorn for its atmosphere, light-hearted storytelling, world-building and confident hands-off puzzles. It’s a pity those wonderful attributes are ruined by the paltry save system and tedious combat.
