REVIEW : South of the Circle (PC)
We reached the end credits of South of the Circle after roughly three hours of nonstop gameplay.
Please don’t get caught up in the brevity of the State of Play’s narrative experience, and don’t get drawn into the unnecessary debate – trust us, there has already been plenty on this topic recently – but instead focus on the fact that we couldn’t take our hands off. from the pad throughout the remainder of the novel, a genuine display of admiration for what has turned out to be one of the best interpretations of the genre attempted in recent times.
After a few years as an Apple exclusive, South of the Circle finally makes its way to other platforms, expanding the audience of players who, we’re sure, will be captivated by its history.
The beginning of South of the Circle is far from ideal. We play Peter, a young Cambridge professor specialising in meteorology who, after an unlucky landing, finds himself adrift in the frigid lands of Antarctica with his pilot, who is injured and trapped on board the plane.
The situation feels terrible right away, and the work’s capacity to develop well-rounded and well-characterized individuals is evident from the opening bars.
The protagonist is terrified of being separated from his colleague, who must firmly urge him to abandon the sheets of the plane in search of rescue, fuel, and medicine, a route to redemption that is ultimately lost in that white expanse.
Peter’s expedition is immediately exploited as a time travel back into the protagonist’s past, from which we will gradually learn about the obstacles encountered in the drafting of his scientific publications, and we will get to know a ruthless academic environment governed by old men conservative solons ready to put a spoke in the wheels of the new generation, and we will reach the young researcher’s difficult and traumatic childhood.
One of the primary topics of these flashbacks is the relationship that Peter has with Clara, another struggling researcher who agrees to assist the protagonist in drafting his paper and to accompany him on his studies up to the Scottish countryside.
It’s difficult to discuss South of the Circle without giving away too many details. The entire work of State of Play is built totally on the narrative sector, and we particularly loved the intertwining between the most private section, comprised of human connections, childhood traumas, and growth routes, and the most historical in an absolute sense.
The story takes place in an alternate 1960s, yet it departs little from reality. In this version, the Cold War has become even more aggressive, and nuclear disarmament is only a distant goal, fading as the USSR, the US, and the UK struggle over dead-end diplomatic treaties.
This historical context properly frames many of the temporal leaps; it presents us with an eternally tense atmosphere of suspicions and informers, which contrasts with the expectations of young people willing to demonstrate peace and a brighter future.
Peter himself maintains a fragile balance between his duties as a professor, his closeness with Clara, and her difficulties, which stem from a tough childhood.
These memories get increasingly jumbled, adding to the strain of a tense present. All of the scientific bases depicted on Peter’s maps are deserted, and a dark air hangs between the radios, beds, and instruments that predict nothing positive.
Without spoiling the final bars, know that South of the Circle had us on our toes to the end, thanks to increasing tension and the capacity not to add unnecessary filler, an element that benefited above all the rhythm, which was never burdened by downtime.
In short, everything is in order, except for the last moments, which did not answer all of the problems that developed during the voyage.
South of the Circle’s greatness is not limited to the tale itself, but also to how it is told. The stylization of the characters contrasts with a fluid and realistic animation – not surprisingly, motion capture was used – capable of giving expressiveness to the faces, the artistic effects always add a dreamlike touch to the scene, which brings us back to the icy reality of Antarctica when our face is whipped by the snow.
Even the acting is of the finest calibre, and all of the lines become credible because of the actors’ expertise in portraying the varied moods of the characters.
Finally, the direction, with cuts and shots that accompany the many events of the past and present without smearing, unified in a single flow thanks to carefully calibrated transitions, is the frosting on the cake.
Unfortunately, South of the Circle is also a fragile toy, breaking multiple times during its most dramatic moments due to glaring technological flaws.
For example, we watched a fight between our virtual parents floating in midair one metre above our bed while hearing screaming from beyond the door. It’s difficult to take topics like education and domestic violence seriously when you’re just getting started.
In addition to these more blatant occasions, there were regular interpenetrations or some inappropriate animations that had nothing to do with the flow of words. Overall, they are not errors that prohibit you from enjoying the story, but they should not have been overlooked.
We purposefully ignored the playful component for one reason: it is essentially non-existent.
South of the Circle is, in fact, a nearly entirely passive experience in which we often confine ourselves to moving the protagonist from point A to point B, waiting for the next dialogue, or interacting with an object in the scene.
If you’re searching for a level of challenge, puzzles to solve, or a specific amount of action, you’ve come to the wrong place, because State of Play’s work simply requests to be lived with as few interactions as possible.
This does not imply that you are passively experiencing the story. In truth, the conventional multiple choice questions arise during the discussions, not in spoken form, but as attitudes and expressions represented by some icons, the meaning of which is never quite evident.
There are also a few identifiable major decisions that not only shape the tone of the words but also the trajectory of history. Unfortunately, even in this case, the paths we picked remained a surprise until the end, and we’re not sure we grasped the significance of the numerous selections during the climax.
REVIEW : Submerged: Hidden Depths (PC)
