Subsurface Circular

Genre: Graphic Adventure

Players: 1

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Review:

Subsurface Circular is a Graphic Adventure placing you in the role of a robotic detective questioning a series of other robots on a subway to get to the bottom of a mystery. After hearing rumors of disappearing machines and strange goings-on, it seems there is some sort of conspiracy. Could it be a rogue human or robot? The increasingly prominent anti-robot group? Or perhaps the all-powerful “Management”? Or perhaps there is no conspiracy at all, but a few misplaced lines of code, a glitch in the system… these are the sorts of questions you’ll be tasked with answering.

Well, less “tasked with” and more “following along”. The gameplay mainly takes the form of selecting conversation choices with the various robots you encounter, but not much that you do actually seems to affect the story all that much, and mostly you’ll just be going through the motions. There are a few clever interactions here and there, such as when you have to manipulate one robot’s emotions to affect the responses of another, or when you have to deduce what a robot with broken linguistics is saying, but for the most part the game doesn’t feel

As far as the presentation goes, this game looks phenomenal, at least as long as you look part the entire game taking place in one location – a subway car. But all of the robotic characters look good, even if for obvious reasons they’re not so expressive.

What’s less impressive is the sound, or lack thereof. While the game’s soundtrack is superbly Blade Runner-esque, all of the game’s dialogue is via text, which tends to dull the experience and make it oddly quiet.

As for the actual story itself, it’s quite good, if a bit short – the game is over in just a few hours, and since there isn’t a branching story there’s no much need for a second playthrough.

All in all, if you want a good science fiction story and don’t mind a lot of reading, Subsurface Circular delivers. If you want an immersive game, however, it falls short.

tl;dr – Subsurface Circular is a Graphic Adventure game with a great story and slick graphics, but its short length and the feeling that you’re not really having an effect on the story keep it from being something truly great.

Grade: B-

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