Vivid atmosphere, great setting, and excellent environments, let down slightly by the plot.

I've been eagerly awaiting this game since I first caught notice of it and for the most part I was not disappointed. For one, it's great to have a game set in Wales with Welsh voice talent! The end result reminds me a lot of the 90s mini-series "Invasion: Earth" because of it's framing of disaster coming to an otherwise uneventful village - if you like serious British sci-fi then read no further because you will enjoy the game no matter what.

Onto more videogame metrics, the mechanics of the game are simple but engaging - for the most part you are exploring areas and collecting useful items, but after a certain point you are also looking for clues about past events that fill in some of the details of how the central disaster unfolded. This drip-feed of optional story content was definitely among the strongest aspects of the game and had me scouring each location because the flashback scenes are very well-written and the voice acting is excellent.

The plot has touches of Lovecraft's "The Color Out of Space" (with an alien meteorite kicking off events) and a healthy amount of humour mixed into the sci-fi horror (particular credit must go to the Eastern European character who takes the piss out of the English bloke for being scared). For the most part it kept me very much engaged, particularly with the flashback mechanic mentioned above, but it did fall down a bit towards the end.

My chief complaints would be that (without going into details / spoilers) - 1) there's a character introduced fairly early on who becomes your 'guide' and reduces much of the mystery and exploration down to 'don't worry about that, just complete these objectives'; and 2) the plot has a lot of potential that's not really realised by the direction they take it in. With point 1, I would have preferred it if (rather than having an 'expert' character directing the player) perhaps notes or logs could have been a less obvious guide, and for 2 I would have liked more exploration of how the situation developed and what it's implications were, rather than feeling a need to connect it back to the player character.

[b]Vivid atmosphere, great setting, and excellent environments, let down slightly by the plot.[/b] I've been eagerly awaiting this game since I first caught notice of it and for the most part I was not disappointed. For one, it's great to have a game set in Wales with Welsh voice talent! The end result reminds me a lot of the 90s mini-series "Invasion: Earth" because of it's framing of disaster coming to an otherwise uneventful village - if you like serious British sci-fi then read no further because you will enjoy the game no matter what. Onto more videogame metrics, the mechanics of the game are simple but engaging - for the most part you are exploring areas and collecting useful items, but after a certain point you are also looking for clues about past events that fill in some of the details of how the central disaster unfolded. This drip-feed of optional story content was definitely among the strongest aspects of the game and had me scouring each location because the flashback scenes are very well-written and the voice acting is excellent. The plot has touches of Lovecraft's "The Color Out of Space" (with an alien meteorite kicking off events) and a healthy amount of humour mixed into the sci-fi horror (particular credit must go to the Eastern European character who takes the piss out of the English bloke for being scared). For the most part it kept me very much engaged, particularly with the flashback mechanic mentioned above, but it did fall down a bit towards the end. My chief complaints would be that (without going into details / spoilers) - 1) there's a character introduced fairly early on who becomes your 'guide' and reduces much of the mystery and exploration down to 'don't worry about that, just complete these objectives'; and 2) the plot has a lot of potential that's not really realised by the direction they take it in. With point 1, I would have preferred it if (rather than having an 'expert' character directing the player) perhaps notes or logs could have been a less obvious guide, and for 2 I would have liked more exploration of how the situation developed and what it's implications were, rather than feeling a need to connect it back to the player character.