My recommendation is conditional on your affinity for:

(1) point and click adventure games,
(2) the horror genre,
(3) mature themes, as I believe the MPAA puts it.

If you don't like any of the above, you probably won't like this game.

My initial attraction to this game stemmed from my enjoyment of the old school point and click classics (Kings Quest, 7th Guest, Myst, Grim Fandango, etc). This game differentiates itself from the genre, generally, by placing you in a horrifying environment, whereas most such games are more whimsical.

The horror aspect of the game is compelling, and truly, truly dark. The very environments feel threatening, and the use of sound adds tremendously to the experience. Adding to that, the story is supremely twisted. I'm not even going to go into the lifeforms you'll encounter.

As a point and click game, I found it to be a bit lacking. Solving a puzzle of course allows the player to progress to a new area or overcome an obstacle. The puzzles, though, consist of trying to find all of the objects you can interact with, then finding and picking up all of the objects that can be picked up, then utilizing trial and error by using the things you've picked up on the objects you can interact with, sometimes accompanied by attempting to combine whatever you've picked up with other things you've picked up. Sure, some of the puzzles can be intuited, but most of the time I found myself just using trial and error. For example, how would I have known to (1) put a slab of flesh on a prep table, (2) smash the flesh with the butt of a gun, and then (3) insert the personal data tag? And why would the surgery machine need a hunk of human flesh to operate properly, and more importantly, how could I have known that in the game? And how could I have known that blowing up a sentry gun would create a hole in the floor that proceeds to an area I had no idea existed? I eventually just got fed up with playing virtual scavenger hunt and followed walkthroughs when it wasn't obvious what needed to be done. That was pretty disappointing. And yes, I did read every single PDA entry carefully, sometimes more than once.

The story is quite strong, even if the crux of it (finding your lost wife and daughter) is a standard and unsophisticated video game trope. Your character's well-paced peregrination through the ship slowly unveils the full picture of what happened and why, culminating in chilling revelations and gruesome, morbid events. The grimness of it all provides an interesting backdrop for the central theme of the game: the risks of private research organizations acting unethically. This is a "mature theme" I mentioned at the start as much as the gore and violence in this game.

Buttressing the game's atmosphere was the excellent integration and use of sound, superb voice acting (maybe with one exception), and an undistracting UI. I did find the inset character graphics (what appears when a character is speaking) to be a bit crude, especially that of the main character, unfortunately. Also, the character's pathfinding was unnatural at times and distracted from the immersion. Lastly, at a few points I was forced to listen to the same long, scripted dialogue sequences over and over again as I failed to perform exactly the right action--there was no "skip" function.

All in all, the game provides an immersive and enjoyable experience for fans of point and click games and the horror genre, though not without a few drawbacks, the biggest of which is the abstruseness of many of the puzzles. Despite those, I do recommend this game to those of you who enjoy this type of game, as it provides a compelling horror experience with good writing and a developed theme.

My recommendation is conditional on your affinity for: (1) point and click adventure games, (2) the horror genre, (3) mature themes, as I believe the MPAA puts it. If you don't like any of the above, you probably won't like this game. My initial attraction to this game stemmed from my enjoyment of the old school point and click classics (Kings Quest, 7th Guest, Myst, Grim Fandango, etc). This game differentiates itself from the genre, generally, by placing you in a horrifying environment, whereas most such games are more whimsical. The horror aspect of the game is compelling, and truly, truly dark. The very environments feel threatening, and the use of sound adds tremendously to the experience. Adding to that, the story is supremely twisted. I'm not even going to go into the lifeforms you'll encounter. As a point and click game, I found it to be a bit lacking. Solving a puzzle of course allows the player to progress to a new area or overcome an obstacle. The puzzles, though, consist of trying to find all of the objects you can interact with, then finding and picking up all of the objects that can be picked up, then utilizing trial and error by using the things you've picked up on the objects you can interact with, sometimes accompanied by attempting to combine whatever you've picked up with other things you've picked up. Sure, some of the puzzles can be intuited, but most of the time I found myself just using trial and error. For example, [spoiler]how would I have known to (1) put a slab of flesh on a prep table, (2) smash the flesh with the butt of a gun, and then (3) insert the personal data tag? And why would the surgery machine need a hunk of human flesh to operate properly, and more importantly, how could I have known that in the game? And how could I have known that blowing up a sentry gun would create a hole in the floor that proceeds to an area I had no idea existed?[/spoiler] I eventually just got fed up with playing virtual scavenger hunt and followed walkthroughs when it wasn't obvious what needed to be done. That was pretty disappointing. And yes, I did read every single PDA entry carefully, sometimes more than once. The story is quite strong, even if the crux of it [spoiler](finding your lost wife and daughter)[/spoiler] is a standard and unsophisticated video game trope. Your character's well-paced peregrination through the ship slowly unveils the full picture of what happened and why, culminating in chilling revelations and gruesome, morbid events. The grimness of it all provides an interesting backdrop for the central theme of the game: [spoiler]the risks of private research organizations acting unethically[/spoiler]. This is a "mature theme" I mentioned at the start as much as the gore and violence in this game. Buttressing the game's atmosphere was the excellent integration and use of sound, superb voice acting (maybe with one exception), and an undistracting UI. I did find the inset character graphics (what appears when a character is speaking) to be a bit crude, especially that of the main character, unfortunately. Also, the character's pathfinding was unnatural at times and distracted from the immersion. Lastly, at a few points I was forced to listen to the same long, scripted dialogue sequences over and over again as I failed to perform exactly the right action--there was no "skip" function. All in all, the game provides an immersive and enjoyable experience for fans of point and click games and the horror genre, though not without a few drawbacks, the biggest of which is the abstruseness of many of the puzzles. Despite those, I do recommend this game to those of you who enjoy this type of game, as it provides a compelling horror experience with good writing and a developed theme.