Pretty much every mission involves detective work that supports multiple possible approaches, which the game introduces well. Naturally, as this is the next game from the Sherlock Holmes team, detective work makes up the bulk of the gameplay. For the most part, this works pretty well and is quite involving. It’s a slick system that gamifies the mystery associated with Lovecraft and it needed to be more of a focus than it is. A bit more, and you’ll start seeing fake monsters, but once it gets really depleted, those fake monsters will start fighting back. Small knocks and you’ll start getting visions of doctors chasing you or Reed hanging himself.
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This replenishes over time as long as you’re not doing something stressful, but the lower your sanity the crazier things will get. Like most of the best Lovecraft-inspired games such as Call of Cthulhu or Eternal Darkness, the sanity mechanics are the best part of The Sinking City. As you see monsters, dead bodies, or things that should not be, Reed will take knocks to his blue sanity bar. The Sinking City Review | Mountains of Madness Because of his dull personality, the story doesn’t hit as hard as it should. He’s possibly the most boring protagonist this side of Alone in the Dark: The New Nightmare. Even moments of heightened emotion are rendered null by the fact that Reed (through a combination of acting and writing) doesn’t seem to have any emotion. The downside of the story is that it’s kind of ruined by Charles Reed himself, a man with less character than the oversized backpack he’s inexplicably carrying throughout the entire game. It can be quite intriguing, especially when you often get a chance to decide the end result of cases, such as whether a suspect you’ve been chasing deserves punishment or pity. As Reed investigates, the true monsters begin to make themselves known, and the various conspiracies build and come to a boil. The presence of nightmarish monsters is almost a matter of course for the Oakmont residents, as are people who literally look like fish or ape-men. The story is pretty good for the most part as it goes right off the deep end in the very first cutscene and only sinks deeper from that point on.
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You soon become embroiled in cults worshiping otherworldly gods (just don’t say the name “Cthulhu”), bigotry, xenophobia, murders, madness, and twisted monsters like any normal Thursday at the office. He soon becomes hired by Robert Throgmorton, a wealthy and influential man in Oakmont, to investigate first the whereabouts of his son and the cause of the Flood and the forces afflicting the city. The Sinking City‘s story involves the main character Charles Reed, a private investigator, travelling to Oakmont to investigate cases of strange visions, which Reed himself is also being effected by. The Sinking City Review | The Case of Charles Dexter Reed The Sinking City often has nothing to distract the player, and if an open-world game can’t give you something to do between A and B then the developer should’ve just made A and B and not bothered with the in-between. There are always distractions on the way to your destination in open-world games like interacting with NPCs, exploring interesting landmarks, or whatever. The problem isn’t so much that it’s a little tedious getting around the large open-world map, but there’s just nothing to do on the way. And, of course, you can walk and you’ll be doing a lot of. Boats also let you travel around many of the flooded areas. You can use the fairly placed phone booths to fast travel, although sometimes you’ll be placed miles from your previous destination when reloading a save.
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There are three main ways to get around Oakmont. The city is never less than compelling to look at, which is good since you’ll be doing a lot of looking. Oakmont is a truly sinister place, packed with detail, waterlogged buildings, and crazy-looking locales. As far as freely explorable, atmospheric places go, the Frogwares team has done an excellent job.
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A permanent fog covers everything, weird gigantic shadows move in the distance, and following a disaster the residents refer to as “The Flood” half the streets are underwater. The Sinking City is set in Oakmont, a fictitious city that seems right out of a nightmare. Advertisement The Sinking City Review | The Shadow Over Oakmont