As I sat down and installed the first episode of Incognito, I felt a wave of disappointment come over me. I thought to myself, “Great! I volunteered for this?” But the PC game, developed by Magrathean Technologies in Vancouver, BC was much more than I could have ever thought it would be!
The game begins on a city rooftop where a banker is about to commit suicide. Just before his death, what appears to be a wormhole opens and you find yourself aboard a spaceship. Here you meet HEIDI, gain some knowledge of the ship and why you are there as well as explore and watch tutorials on how to keep your ship intact and yourself alive. Incognito is an objective orientated game with shooter and strategy components. While aboard ships and exploring on foot, the game becomes a first-person shooter as you combat enemy robots. First person shooter elements aside, it is obvious this game is a real-time strategy game as the main objective is to gather elements found on several different planets to repair your ship.Now what you’ve all been waiting for … the good, the bad, and the downright confusing! The most important tip I can give anyone is to watch the tutorials. I didn’t, and then when I couldn’t figure out how to mine the elements, I was so discouraged I almost quit the game altogether! So, I sucked it up and watched ALL the tutorials.
From an RTS point of view, the only downside is that is lacks the freedom to do what you’d like to do, unlike other RTS games. Mining didn’t take an over-the-top amount of time, and once I watched the tutorials, the objectives were relatively simple. The FPS features are very nice, too. The gun’s aiming is dead on, no unrealistic kills and the weapon graphics are just fine. I would have liked to see each gun have drastically different designs and fire rates. Also, there were no grenades – which would have been useful when I opened a door only to reveal I had 4 bullets and an army of 10 robots in front of me! Not cool!
I mentioned earlier, I was almost immediately disappointed with the game. That would be because the game’s music and graphics could definitely use some work. The graphics are very simplistic and not very esthetically pleasing. Everything was very linear with poor rendering. Thankfully, the overall gameplay and storyline made up for it and it wasn’t long before I felt like an ass for judging the game in the first five minutes. Besides, if you get bored, you can always just laugh at the loading screens and their hilarious words of wisdom!
I can’t wait for episode two! In the meantime, try Incognito’s first episode for $9.99 available online and check back soon for an awesome review of episode two!
