One of my first favorite games when I was young was Half-life 2, and I think the part that captured me most back then and still does today is when the game sort of drops off near the end as you get sucked into the bowels of the citadel and get lost in the nooks and crannies of its architecture - as oppressive and and unwelcome within its halls as it is outside.
This game digs at a lot of things I like about games - both those that I like to play and those that I want to make. It abandons all but the sideways suggestion of reality for a dreamlike experience to be painted on, and offers a vague, yet corporeal sense of place using only footsteps and head-bobs through walls and sets of stairs that should be made for humans, but only barely feel like it. The main attraction - this use of 3D space in such creative ways - was evocative to me in ways I can't put into more than a collection of disjointed and sometimes contradictory words: dreamy, godlike, firm, foreign, ignorant, controlling, familiar, vast, paranoid, and close. The diegetic soundscapes and instrumentation of the score carried me gently and moodily through this journey, and there was an absence of any technical or design problems that would have taken me out of the experience.
Although I was initially surprised by the unexpected length of the opening cinematic, adapting to the flavor put me in the proper headspace to enjoy the piece - one that spoke loudly to my subconscious and quietly to my attention, like a negative space for my mind to fill, impressing movements upon my soul for me to move with and reflect upon. Never before have I played a game that so deftly guides me to think about such a curious place and, indeed, myself in quiet cognizance between such an original, earnest, and well-made series of novel and vivid architecture.
Fugue in Void - 5/5
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I wrote this review about 8 months ago, but I don't think the ratings are public, so I thought I'd post it again here. I've been following you on twitter since then and since then I've enjoyed and been looking forward to future work! Wonderful stuff.