Developer: Jumpship
Platforms: PC (Reviewed), Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S
Genre: Adventure
Publisher: Jumpship
Somerville is a mysterious action-adventure platform game that is in the third-person. A family consisting of a man, woman, child and dog are chilling at home one night. Having their whole life turned upside down by a series of strange events where aliens descend from the sky. Destruction, weirdness, and an unpredictable world are where you start on this journey. The man is left; with his dog in search of the woman and child.
The game has a dark Sci-Fi atmospheric environment quality throughout. It has this beautiful film quality to it; the wonderful dark world is lit up with the odd spaceship, lamp, or hanging light. These glimmers of light in the world; ratchet up the tension in the world. It gives a wonderful; sense of being in this crazy world where you know very little.
Every event, explosion, and alien encounter is pronounced by the score. It’s on purpose that you know very little, there is no real; narration of what is going on, and it’s a journey of exploration. You just navigate areas where you figure out the path by trial and error; you must figure it out all with little to no hints. For me, some narration and some; feedback apart from dying would have enhanced the game. It’s too mysterious for its own good, which is a shame.
I love the straightforward controls, it takes little to navigate and control the character, and it’s responsive too. You come to an area and solve a variety of puzzles to progress to the next area. The art direction is wonderful; I love the indie genre for pushing gaming into new avenues and trying to explore gaming. Games aren’t as cookie-cutter as they used to be. There are lots to like in this game.
The game does lack some key, narration and feedback that will; just enhance the whole gaming experience. I felt some narration or some story would have helped immensely. At times I felt some narration or some story would have helped immensely. At times I felt lost, and that was an issue when it happened over and over again. It’s beautifully designed, and the gameplay is fun, but the lack of story / cohesive narrative is the main issue I had with the game. I love the idea of lacking narration in a puzzle adventure game and enjoyed lots of the gameplay.
Overall: 7/10
Enjoys more than the odd game, long time gamer, somewhat a technologist and everything else in between.
Also enjoys a good solid game of FIFA online. Currently PS4, XBOX 360 and STEAM.
