![]() Thankfully, most of your time in Oakmont will involve investigating crime scenes, gathering evidence, questioning townsfolk and making tough decisions. ![]() ![]() With a better combat system, this would feel like a tense dance for survival, but rather, due to combat’s rigidity, skirmishes succumb to false difficulty as you pick off foes and sporadically die while reloading or attempt to evade without the ability to dodge or roll. With limited resources, I often found myself trying to evade foes while scouring environments for supplies. While well equipped with an arsenal of firearms to take on these beasts, alongside vastly more vulnerable human enemies, the game’s severely clunky combat makes each encounter a frustratingly clumsy affair.Ī needless crafting system further hinders combat forcing you to go into a menu mid-fight to craft health and ammo. Multi-limbed monstrosities of flesh, the cursed unison of human and sea creature populate Oakmont’s dank basements and linger in infested zones. Like the city’s citizens, the Wylebeasts brought by the flood are equally malformed in their design. Its labyrinthine structure of winding alleys and avenues can be difficult to navigate with the navigation bar alone I often found myself switching back and forth between the map as I made my way across town by foot and boat, a process that would have been alleviated by the inclusion of a mini-map. While fast travel lessens the burden, travelling across the city can be arduous with the spaces between objectives feeling a little empty. Split into seven districts, Oakmont is a sprawling but dense open world, half-submerged and strangely charming in its derelict beauty. Stellar voice acting and characterful writing imbue everyone you interact with a distinct personality, while Reed’s sarcastic deadpan keeps your experience grounded among the bedlam that surrounds you. Moreau’s island, yet everyone has similarly odd, exaggerated features gaunt faces, bulging eyes and an ungodly number of mutton chops adorn the town’s citizens, resulting in an inhabitants that are equally unsettling and goofy in their cartoonish appearance. ![]() Innmouthers and Throgmortons are inherently unusual in appearance, like rejects from Dr. These characters and this world are brought to life with an uncanny art style which seems to border on realism. In its marriage of Lovecraftian lore and real-world history, the game does an excellent in crafting a complex, convincing world, rich with atmosphere, that generously draws from its influences whilst feeling all its own. Little in the way of bold social commentary or criticism of the era’s prejudices is discussed or explored by Reed or Oakmont’s citizens, but rather these issues are presented to the player to consider and reflect upon. Quintessentially Lovecraftian themes of race, religion, forbidden knowledge, fate, and civilization’s downfall permeate every corner of The Sinking City’s world and every tale it tells. Scientists and scholars study the profane is search of forbidden knowledge, while this same knowledge stands sacred to the town’s fanatical cults. ![]() Fish-faced Innsmouthers bicker in an age-old feud with the Throgmortons while facing persecution from the Klu Klux Klan. Oakmont’s citizens are a bizarre, colourful and often grotesque cast and their relation to one another and the town itself feel intrinsic and historied. THE SINKING CITY POLICE ARCHIVE SERIESIn seeking out his son, whom went missing with an expedition into the ocean’s depths, the first thread of this town’s tenebrous tapestry is pulled, instigating a seemingly inevitable series of events. Robert Throgmorton, philanthropist and patriarch of the influential Throgmorton family, an ape-featured clan that consider themselves genetically superior, is your next port of call. Johannes van de Berg, an enigmatic man with a LeVayen likeness, clad in tones of mustard and canary yellow, welcomes you before hurrying you on your way. Upon your arrival, Oakmont’s key players swiftly make themselves known. This ambitious, 1920’s supernatural thriller surpasses its technical shortcomings and clunky combat with superb storytelling and a rich world, brimming with deep lore, complex characters and tough moral quandaries. Beckoned by eldritch visions, Private Investigator Charles Reed finds himself embroiled in the town’s politics, placing him at the heart of a twisted, Lovecraftian mystery. ![]()
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