Storytelling in games has evolved in various ways in the past decade. You’ve got BioWare with their character-centric writing, JRPGs with their bizarre plot-twists and Ken Lavigne’s BioShock games with intricately crafted but abstract stories that take more than a while to fully comprehend. The latter has always had an obscure niche, one that has seen more adoption in recent years. Such plots are hard to construct and even harder to execute in a way that doesn’t come off as half-baked or just plain lousy.
Plot and Gameplay
Unknown Fate is one of these games and tries to tell a story while being really constrictive with the details. At first, this draws the player in with all its mysteries and a chimerical setting, but soon the formula becomes stale and the game keeps following the same patterns over and over again.
The story is held together by a series of scenes played in greyscale. While this generally isn’t a bad thing, the plot in Unknown Fate barely manages to fill in the empty blanks left at the beginning of the game.
The ending too can be best described as hurried or perhaps even incomplete. Lets back-up a bit and start from the beginning. Unknown Fate plays out in an unusual setting, one that resembles that of the movie, “Honey, I Shrunk the Kids”. Giant cassette tapes, pencils, cigarettes, skyscraper-sized paper notes and deformed creatures populate the world of Unknown Fate.
The game follows a thirty year old who finds himself in a bizarre world with no memory of who he is or how he got to there. He must explore this world and reclaim pieces of himself he has lost to figure out how to get back to reality.
Soundtrack and Puzzles
The setting along with the soundtrack are the only redeeming aspects of Unknown Fate. Other than that, everything else is either half-assed or lacking finer details. The voice acting is also shaky, the visuals sub-standard, the combat lousy and the game is riddled with bugs and glitches.
The puzzles although quite innovative don’t really change much through the course of the game, and like everything else get quite repetitive.
Conclusion
Unknown Fate is a fairly short game that can be completed in one long sitting. It starts off rather well, but after a couple of hours as the novelty wears off, the game feels more like a chore. It drags on for roughly six hours, held together by a decent soundtrack and a colorful world.
Pros:
- Soothing soundtrack
- A well-designed world
Cons:
- Lousy story and combat
- Poor voice-acting
- Glitches
Further reading: