Review for Beholder. Game for PC, iOS, Steam, Mac and Linux, the video game was released on 09/11/2016
In a distorted and dark future where the system has engulfed and terrified everything and everyone, your only escape is to become a cog in the complex system of which you are a part. You will have to turn your fears into weapons and use them against others for your own survival: your only arrows are cunning and your ability to spy on your bow. This is the only important premise in Beholder: Complete Edition, now also on Nintendo Switch.
Difficult to explain how the plot of Beholder: Complete Edition is current and at the same time disturbing. The government has control over everything, and in this context that roughly recalls the dystopian one of Big Brother, we find ourselves taking on the role of a man who has been entrusted with the task of managing a building and its tenants. Great is the anxiety that the title transmits from the very beginning in which, in the form of a tutorial, we will be explained how it is right to behave.
A voice on the phone will tell us how to move and what our tasks are, underlining in a nefarious and heavy way how important it is that these are done well and quickly.
We then find ourselves administering this building seized from the old owner (one of our new tenants), and it is immediately clear that the appointment as administrator actually hides a simple and terrible task: to spy on the tenants and report all the shortcomings to the state. or suspected infringements, so that the police can take steps to sanitize the situation.
The plot, based on this anxious and disturbing context, however, manages to develop a strange sort of addiction that forces us to come to terms with ourselves in order to be able to provide for our family. Encouraging romantic encounters with a medical tenant could help us to buy medicine for our sick daughter, but if we do the job too complacently by allowing the tenant to bring his new flame to live in the building, we could end up with heated family quarrels that they will make everyone unhappy and, consequently, they will see us unable to recover the medicine for our beloved daughter: and the system does not forgive, inevitably leading us to the funeral of our second child.
Similarly, if you try to ingratiate yourself with a condominium by selling canned food for him, you will automatically become - in the eyes of the buyers - responsible for the quality of the product itself. A food poisoning can then turn into a fight, but if you rightly blame the owner of the food you will surely get his retaliation: your murder. Deciding what to do according to the rules and the continuous requests of the State, carefully evaluating every single possible consequence, is the only way to continue in the adventure.
At the level of gameplay, we will then be required to install spy cameras and to obtain under the table all the elements that can prove illegal attitudes in order to guarantee the order constituted by the system: by any means, legal or not. Carrying out our task efficiently and promptly will see us rewarded in prestige and money, but failing to complete it in due time and manner will result in terrible punishments.
The menu and commands are rather complex and evident result of the transposition of the title born on PC. We will find two main menus, one on the right and one on the left that can be activated with the backbones. The first contains a sort of inventory of objects that we possess and that we can use, while the second is an account of the tasks to be performed, of the tenants to manage (complete with a personal file of each) and of the evidence collected to get them convicted. Yes, because in the end, whatever you do, nothing pleasant will happen to you or your tenants: the institution reigns supreme and wins, always.
We also find the commands to buy everything we will need to operate the building and of course to monitor the neighbors, and the commands to speed up time or stop it so that we can move more easily or stop and think about what is best to do.
The interaction with the condominiums - which takes place through well-translated dialogues - is of vital importance to decide how to move: interpreting and evaluating the various possibilities and especially the consequences becomes imperative not to attend our funeral.
The setting is very reminiscent of those of the production studio, with drawings beautifully transposed in their simplicity and immediacy. All in ocher and black tones, in their various shades, adapts in a masterly way to the context and the game environment, thanks also to a suitable and not at all invasive soundtrack.
As for the transposition on the newborn from Nintendo, which offers Beholder: Complete Edition the gift of portability, we have nothing to object to. Even if the title did not require a very high graphic detail, the porting work was done very well also in terms of game controls. There is therefore no uncertainty to report.
Beholder: Complete Edition turns out to be a masterfully crafted title that manages to put the player in a particular life situation with all the ensuing facets. The result of the effort of Warm Lamp Games and Alawar Premium offers a setting that is at times anguished but with complex and well-made themes that manage to immerse the player in a complete and profound way. Great porting work that brings out all the merits of the title by combining them with the portability of Nintendo Switch. And it should not be forgotten that in the proposed price we will also find the DLC included, which will serve to face, once the game is finished, new quests, increasing the longevity of the title.
► Beholder is an Adventure-Indie-RPG-Simulation-Strategy game developed by Warm Lamp Games and published by Alawar Entertainment for PC, iOS, Steam, Mac and Linux, the video game was released on 09/11/2016
