Genesis Noir - Review

 

I came across Genesis Noir (developed by Feral Cat Den and publish by Fellow Traveler) purely by accident. I was downloading Iron Harvest from XBOX Store, the art work caught my eye, watched the trailer and thought it looked interesting and decided to download.

Growing up, my brother suffered from hyper-activity meaning chocolate and sweets was a no no. There was Carob Chocolate in the house, which tastes about as much like chocolate as a bean burger tastes like a beef burger.  In place of that we had dates a lot at home, I really like them, a slight chew needed and a sweet honey like taste. The issue was that sometimes they came with stones in the middle, if you don't realize you will likely break a tooth or choke on it. Playing Genesis Noir I found myself asking was this a great alternative and did I need to be careful to watch out for the stone?

Story 

There are many layers to the cosmic journey that is Genesis Noir. The games sees you follow and direct No Man, who looks like a film noir detective who is trying to save the love of his life. Sounds simple enough story wise? Wrong. It is set before, after and during the big bang, across realities and alternative dimensions. There are many people he will meet along his journey and all need your help in someone way. When you enter the last few minutes of the game you will need to make a decision as to what the best, right or agreeable outcome.

Overall the story is very intriguing, the lack of talking means that a lot of things are inferred and/or interrupted some will find this frustration others will love it. While the story is both powerful, imaginative and philosophical that ending felt arbitrary and took away from the overall story.

Visuals

The art style used in the game is spectacular! The film noir style looks great and is certainly nothing like I have seen before. While the game is mostly in black and white, the colour filled sections are really powerful and have a lot of emotion connected with them. I really liked the comic book style panels in certain chapters that are mirror over and over creating a surreal experience.

Overall the visuals cannot be faulted and unlike the story which ends up tapering off this never occurs with the visuals.

Music

The soundtrack is jazztastic! Mostly a chill jazz vibe (not quite smooth jazz), paired with film noir style jazz and experimental jazz. There are also a few other music genre sprinkled in as well.The soundtrack is composed by Skillbard a UK Duo that have worked with; Cartoon Network, [Adult Swim], MTV and Nickelodeon.

The soundtrack is almost ninety minutes and for me is almost tied with the visuals in terms of the quality and greatness. As of a fan of film noir jazz and classic jazz the like preformed by Miles Davis, Art Blakey, John Coltrane, and Stanley Turrentine. My favorite tracks in Genesis Noir are;  'Golden Boy Suite', 'Pastoral (Part 1 Suspended)', 'Hello Universe', 'Alone', 'Gumshoe', 'Tetrachromacy', 'Siren Birth', and my favorite track of all 'We'.

Overall a very memorable soundtrack which is pure piece of art that easily exists outside of the confines of the game itself.

Gameplay

The gameplay is quite an experience. There are sections where you are walking and interacting with objects in the world and there are other times where you will need to figure out puzzles to progress. 

The walking around and interacting with the world can be interesting - the only flaw is that on occasion it can be difficult to work out where to go or what you are supposed to do next. Some of the markers that note what you can interact with can be rather small and easily missed.

The puzzles are where the gameplay can crumble, some of them are fun, at least initially and feels like something that would work well on the Nintendo Switch (I played it on PC). On the plus side each puzzle is different to the previous, the downside is that some are frustrating and take away from both the narrative and the visuals.

Overall the gameplay is not bad but some bad puzzles the occasion lack of clarity as to what you are supposed to do next and/or small interactive icons stop this game reaching its full potential.

Final Thoughts

So, after eight hours of playing how did I feel? A little conflicted. There was a lot of great elements to story but ended not being a Big Bang but rather a little fizzle. The animation and visual style are imaginative and different to anything I have experienced before. The music is an awesome jazz mash up of various styles which real bring the game to life. The gameplay has ups and downs and the inclusion of needless (and often frustrating) puzzles takes away from the rest of the content. Overall this one gets  a 3 out of 5

Iron Harvest - Review

 

The other day I was debating which game to embark on playing next. I checked on XBOX Game Pass to see what new additions there were, one of them that stood out was Iron Harvest an alt-history real time strategy game. Designed by Maximilian Kiese , developed by King Art Games and published by Deep Silver. It was free (relatively speaking) and decided why not give it a go.

Over the last few weeks I have been drinking a lot more coffee, probably not a good thing but could be consuming much worse things. While I enjoy many fancy coffees nothing quite beats a good filter coffee. While coffee is great hot it degrades in quality the longer you take to drink it, pretty much once it get becomes warm it starts to lose it taste and smell. Playing Iron Harvest I found myself asking was this a great filter coffee that stayed hot for ages or had it become warm quickly and lost its appeal?

Story

Iron Harvest has an extremely rich story. It is an alternative history, set around the 1920's and featuring diesel driven mechs. There are multiple factions you can play as and all add information to the overarching story along with presenting their own back stories and history.  The base game features three factions; Polonia, Rusviet and Saxony.

The Polonia faction's lead character is Anna Kos, after the death of her brother she joins the resistance to try and take back her country from the Rusviet.  The Rusviet faction has you take control over a multitude of characters, there is divide, some looking for peace for Polonia and others wanting war. The Saxony faction has you play as General Gunter von Duisburg, a veteran of wars trying to help conquer Polonia and Rusviet, but is forced to question who is the true enemy?

Overall the story is amazing, well thought out, the only real down side is that to a degree the game finishes on a cliff hanger. Looking at the two DLC available at present neither seems to provide a full conclusion. This could mean there will be more DLC or perhaps the story will be continued in Iron Harvest 2 (if one is made).

Visuals

The visuals are absolutely stunning, the combination of the country side, wooded area, and snow covered fields combined with diesel powered mechs is quite a sight to behold. While exploring the towns and villages they have a very realistic feel and a lot of time and effort has been put into the landscapes. Then seeing large and in some cases huge mechs traversing these same areas is very surreal and cool. I love mechs, but seeing innovatively designed diesel powered ones was amazing. While clearly out of place in the real 1920's it can be easily imagined how a few things changing could have brought about their creation.

Overall the game is worth playing for the visuals alone and creates a sense of magic and wonder making me question as to 'what if' our world would look like now if diesel powered mechs had existed in the 1920's?

Music

The music has a very military sound, which fits perfectly with the style of game, and in honesty I do quite like military music as a genre. The music conveys both a feeling of sorrow and loss but also chance and possible victory. The soundtrack is created by Polish composers; Adam Skorupa (Witcher 3, Witcher Enhanced Edition, Shadow Warrior),  Krzystof Wierzynkiewicz (Bulletstorm, Ancestor's Legacy, Shadow Warrior), and Michal Cielecki (Shadow Warrior 1 and 2).

The soundtrack is relatively speaking quite short and is well under an hour in length. That being said I loved every track and is certainly one of the more standout soundtracks I have listened to this year. Overall a very enjoyable soundtrack that I have no doubt will listen to again even if not replaying the game itself.

Gameplay

Iron Harvest is a real time strategy game. It offers you the choice to try multiplayer, skirmishes and of course the main campaign itself. The gameplay is the weakest element of the game overall, and while there are certainly many great things about it there are some that really spoil it.

The missions vary between playing with a single hero and a few troops for support, protecting an area, and building up a base and going all out (my favorite type). Each hero has some great abilities and can take on a small group of enemies alone with very little effort. The mechs you have are really cool, not only in look but also on feel, creating ideal units and then combining them without others can make you a fearsome force. The downside is that you are very limited as to how many units you can produce, in the beginning of the game this is fine but as things go on the amount of enemy mech versus your own is very unbalanced. Additionally, after the first few mission standard troops seem pointless other than engineers that can repair the mechs. I could not quite tell if it was simply that the mechs were over powered or infantry (even the more advanced ones) were underpowered.

The game allows you to produce a very small amount of resources through your Headquarters, but most of it will need to be gathered from Iron mines and Oil pumps which can be captured and upgraded. They are able to produce resources indefinitely, so as long as you are careful and play slow you can dominate many of the maps. 

The gameplay starts failing a little over half through the game. The issue is that the enemies seems endless and overwhelmed me a lot. I have played many RTS games and never run into this level of imbalance, I am fine with a challenge but certain parts seemed unfair even on the normal difficulty setting. It started to feel grueling no matter what tactics I employed, I ended up watching a few videos to see what I was missing. 

Overall there is some great gameplay and some awesome units, but half way through the game starts to feel imbalanced and changes the game from being a challenge to a pain. 

Final Thoughts

So, after twenty hours plus how did I feel? Mixed. The story, visuals and music are amazing. The biggest flaw in the game is arguably the most important with an RTS which is the gameplay. While it starts balanced the game ramps up in difficulty to a level where it simply unfair and removes the joy I have gotten from most RTS games. This one could have had a higher score had some issues been resolved, sadly this one falls shy of its full potential and gets 3 out of 5