REVIEW : NORCO (PC)
NORCO is a point-and-click adventure set in a warped South Louisiana, where the player is immersed in the sinking suburbs and verdant industrial wetlands. Following your mother’s death, your brother Blake has gone missing. You must track down a runaway security android across the refineries, strip malls, and drainage ditches of suburban New Orleans in the hopes of locating him.
The player is drawn into NORCO’s quotidian sci-fi world of fading swamplands, labyrinthine oil refineries, and other landscapes inspired by the namesake town of Norco, Louisiana, and other parts of Greater New Orleans by the game’s artistic and dramatic pixel imagery. Sink into fmAura’s lush field recordings and sound design, as well as Gewgawly I’s powerful, post-industrial electronic score.
.What begins as a simple quest for your kidnapped brother suddenly becomes a multigenerational mystery. The limits between redemption, memory, technology, and nature blur in this unique, introspective story based in Southern literature, pulp fiction, and classic and contemporary point-and-click adventure games.
In a decaying and uncertain world, a chaotic bayou pirate, bar-stool private investigator, runaway security android, and your plush childhood monkey will all give aid. Infiltrate an influencer cult squatting an abandoned mall on the outskirts of New Orleans, solve puzzles, fight your way past corporate security goons, and infiltrate an influencer cult squatting an abandoned mall on the outskirts of New Orleans.
The fundamental gameplay is simple; there are a few minor fighting sections strewn throughout, and the problem solving spans from locating the appropriate spot to solving complex puzzles. I only got lost once because I didn’t pay attention to a particular piece of speech; fortunately, you almost always have a sidekick with you who summarises your current objective and provides you advice on what to do.
The atmospheric sound effects and gorgeous pixel art landscapes are complemented by an emotive synth music.
The game’s last act was fantastic.
The most distinguishing feature of NORCO is its entirely unique Industrial Surrealist / Southern Gothic ambiance, which is kept together by evocative pixel graphics, gripping text, a melancholy music, and distinctively melancholic worldbuilding. Because you’re experiencing all of these components for the first time in NORCO’s First Act, it feels fantastic.
From this perspective, it’s natural to find the Second and/or Third Acts to be underwhelming, because NORCO eventually moves away from being an abstract tone poem and instead concentrates its setting and characters into a coherent plot. It’s easy to see how some people could regard the specific tale conveyed to be unsatisfactory in comparison to What Could Have Been, given the infinite number of different stories that could have branched off beyond Act One. However, I don’t believe this is a criticism of NORCO; rather, it is a testament to the creators that the universe they’ve created is so alive and evocative that the specific story they tell seems to pale in comparison.
Kentucky Route Zero is in charge of managing this dynamic. The implicit ‘goal’ of the game falls by the back burner almost instantly and is effectively a MacGuffin, a contrivance to motivate the player’s access to customers with KRZ’s world; there is an ensemble piece of perspective protagonists and no clear main character; the ostensible ‘primary objective’ of the game falls away nearly instantly and is virtually a MacGuffin, a plot device to encourage the player’s opening up with KRZ’s This isn’t a criticism of KRZ; it’s an incredible piece of work that I plainly adore, but it’s certainly more “art” than “play” as an experience. NORCO, on the other hand, is a much more “traditional” rpg: you play as a single character all through the game, the technicians and appearance are reasonably constant, and there are fairly clear goals and antagonists (though you do have some freedom to decide what matters to your character).The game drops a lot of cards in Act One and doesn’t pick them up all at the end, but I was impressed with the story it portrayed overall. The individuals and circumstances that set the game’s plot in action are closely interconnected, and if you don’t pay attention throughout, you’ll most certainly feel like some plot strands were left hanging. If you enjoy the “feel” of NORCO, the plot is basically just an excuse to stay in the world.
REVIEW : Distant Worlds 2 (PC)
