Downward Spiral: Horus Station - Its Space Jim But Not As We Know It

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So here we are with Downward Spiral: Horus Station created for us by 3rd Eye Studios. Now this is a new company so it will be interesting to see what they can bring to the table. Lets see shall we?

Gameplay

Downward Spiral: Horus Station is essentially a VR game on PC/PSVR. It does also have controller support on the PlayStation 4 for people without PSVR.

Personally, I think on a controller the game is clumsy and shouldn’t be played like this, VR was forefront of the development teams minds when they created this game.

Rocking The 90’s Graphics Engine To The Max

The game itself doesn’t give you too much help setting the scene and atmosphere. There is no narrative cut scene to set the mood. In-fact when you start off your adventure there is no help at all. Downward Spiral: Horus Station is an environmental storytelling game, piecing things together as you go. If there was more atmosphere it could have been fun and exciting. However, I didn’t find much to get excited about. There are unlimited lives in Downward Spiral: Horus Station, this translates to not caring if you die or not. Playing Downward Spiral: Horus Station in VR is a slow affair, however you pick up a grapple gun early on which speeds things up but it’s still slow going.

There are the occasional puzzle in Downward Spiral: Horus Station but I use the term puzzle very loosely. They don’t tax your brain, they just consume a bit more time, and make you travel in a slow awkward fashion a little bit more.

I didn’t at any point feel engaged in the story. Or maybe I misinterpreted points that gave it something special. As I said earlier, Downward Spiral: Horus Station doesn’t give you much in the way of pointers or direction. Maybe I missed something?

Graphics

Holy cow!! what can I say about the graphics in Downward Spiral: Horus Station? Graphically this game belongs on a PlayStation 3. Even then it wouldn’t strain the machine. In my humble opinion 3rd Eye Studios spent more time trying to imagine how it would feel being at zero gravity instead of spending some time improving the game graphically.

Plenty Of These Poor Guys Floating around

I admit I couldn’t do any better myself, after all I am not a programmer. The graphics are poor and lacklustre. Out of the space station I should be in awe, seeing out into the galaxy, but nope I didn’t feel inspired at all. Inside a space station there should be all this cool tech I can look at, there should be really cool lighting and shading created from space. Again nope not impressed. I could go on and on about the graphics but I’m sure that would have me ranting till you got tired of reading, and I’m not that mean.

Audio

This is where Downward Spiral: Horus Station could redeem themselves. Excited? I was when I found out the soundtrack was composed by HIM frontman Ville Valo!!! Again, the sounds are drab and dreary. The Soundtrack is okay but certainly not the greatest. It never really felt like it complimented any part of the game by drawing you into it. The sound FX are also very basic. I guess in space there are no sounds since there are no air molecules for the sound to vibrate off. Boy do I feel like a science geek right now.

Conclussion

3rd Eye Studios could have made Downward Spiral: Horus Station into a massive hit. Unfortunately there was no drive in the story. There must have been a half day in the graphics department when they threw this game together and the audio department must have been handled by a temp on minimum wage. The idea for the game is genius unfortunately it came crashing down to earth like a meteor. This game is so disappointing even Spock would give this a Thumb Culture Trash Award.