The Crow’s Eye on PC

One of the most useful reasons for games, as being a medium, is a method in which players talk with interesting worlds and stories to produce an all-around experience that generates the variety of expectations and surprises. When I first jumped in to review The Crow’s Eye, all I knew with regards to the title was that it was some a style of psychological horror. Whatever found while i progressed was an element that was certainly more, and which challenged my expectations at a number of twists and turns through its story.

At its core, The Crow’s Eye is a tale on the dark and sinister experiment deep in a crumbling university, called Crowswood. Players begin the story with little exposition or explanation with regards to their surroundings, using only opening cues with a voice drifting in across the university’s PA system — one which may sound like it’s doing its best imitation of Mark Hamil’s Joker from Batman: the Animated Series. The game’s opening chapters are largely centered on exploration and discovery, with notes and audio tapes laying the groundwork to your story so far alongside the shrill urgings of Dr. William Holtwick above the loudspeakers.

Perhaps one of the most confusing feature in this early going is the fact, as players learn more and many more about the world, there’s no clear indication of these role within it. Many names arise often inside audio tapes and scattered notes — initially, it seems like just like you’re embroiled from a police investigation surrounding several students who’ve disappeared, however the deeper to the university you travel, a lot more sinister things apparently become.

Unfortunately, The Crow’s Eye generally suffer slightly originating from a deficit of identity. Although atmosphere and setting is firmly rooted inside the horror genre, the particular gameplay may seem to delve further and additional into Portal-style puzzle-solving and platforming. While the various puzzles are intriquing, notable and difficult, the disparity relating to the game’s ambiance and peruse along with the requirements to go on grows further; there’s obviously any good section that feels ripped totally the Portal franchise, down to the larger bold numbers painted to the walls plus the complex jumping puzzles across decrepit architecture and moving platforms.

Of course, it wouldn’t become a Portal-style puzzler without some unique gear. While players spend a lot of the outlet acts equipped just a lighter to pierce the pervasive darkness, The Crow’s Eye does eventually pass more interesting tools, including lockpicks as well as a gas mask. The most useful and central to progression afterwards, though, could be the electromagnet. Work a flashlight so that as an object-manipulation and movement tool, this critical section of gear plays a prominent role in numerous of your game’s latter-stage puzzles.

The biggest downfall, literally, the fact that Crow’s eye has is platforming sections. The controls, while acceptable for exploration and discovery, aren’t particularly well-honed for precision jumping, crouching, and weaving across moving platforms along with elements. Which you find in the stretches on the game that rely on these products more frustrating in comparison with can be otherwise, and more than while i had to stop, close the sport, and resign to be able to another attempt. The game’s limited save-point system adds some to the current frustration by sometimes forcing backtracking once the platforming contains the better of you.

All in all, The Crow’s Eye is an interesting title by having an interesting enough story, though with some hurdles to uncovering that story plus the world through which it’s set. Its dedication to dangling the carrot of freedom — as well as the conclusion of your convoluted tale — is commendable, and players will expend a lot of the experience feeling almost like the tip is just round the next corner or beyond daylight hours next locked door. Similar to the experiments its characters describe, The Crow’s Eye can be a trial of ways much players are likely to endure for this final bit of its puzzles. The Crow’s Eye releases March 20th on Steam.

Score: 3/5 – Fair