The Talos Principle Review

Presentation:

A little way into Talos Principle, my partner – who loves puzzle games and was eager to help me through this one – called it a night, saying the game was making her feel sick. First person titles often elicit this response with her, but I turned off and turned in despite feeling fine. Picking it up the next day however I felt nauseous after an hour of play – and I’ve never suffered from this sort of thing in two decades of gaming. Shrugging it off, the next day I booted it up with the same effect – severe motion sickness after a short play session.

Poking around online turns up plenty of similar results – with players citing an inconsistent frame rate, your avatar’s fast movement speed, graphical glitches and head bobbing as to what exactly causes this reaction. Luckily there are a host of options (such as slowing your walking speed, disabling the head-bob effect and making the game third person) that proves the developers have been listening and implementing fixes. I really insist you mess around with these if you begin to feel uncomfortable.

Elsewhere, Talos Principle’s sound and visuals betray the games quality. Textures are a bit flat and areas feel very samey, whilst the voice acting – especially the Godly Elohim – sounds amateur at times. If you’ve played Serious Sam it will all feel instantly familiar to you, but whilst that game makes up for it with swiftly delivered diversity and screaming headless guys running at you to distract you from its lacklustre visuals, the contemplative pace of Talos Principle makes sure you take in every overly familiar detail. There’s a beauty to the Talos Principle, though, woven though smart level design, hidden secrets that feel truly special and a consistently suprising nature.

Conclusion:

I fell in love with Talos Principle’s smart puzzles, but it will stick in my brain for years to come for its hard earned story. The Talos Principle is an incredibly clever mix of head-scratching puzzles and beard-stroking philosophy, and it’s an undeniably brilliant and unique game. It’s not without flaws and it’s definitely not an unconditional recommendation, but despite this it is a fascinating look into a world video-games so rarely dares to go.