Figure I will post these here are well if anyone is curious about Close to the Sun, as it has gotten next to no coverage. I was really pulled in by the Bioshock like atmosphere
Here are some more in depth impressions on Close to the Sun, I have played about 4 hours, I have heard its short 4-5 hours so assuming I will finish tonight.
It looks good for the most part:
It's a dark game, even in areas that should be well lit it's dark it's clear they are going for atmospheric but at the detriment to the game. Enviroments look good but characters and animations look bad.
Technical stuff:
My specs: 2700x @ 4.2 all cores, 2080ti +150mhz core, +800mhz memory, 16GB DDR4 3200cl14, installed on Samsung EVO 860 ssd
On my system it runs for the most part 4k60 solid, but there are occasionally spots where the framerate will drop, yet not utilizing my CPU or GPU even close to 100%.
Graphic options are super limited you have:
Resolution, Full Screen yes or no (no borderless), Vsync, then 3 options: Textures, Shadows and Effects, with Low, Med, High, Very High
you can't change FOV
The soundtrack is pretty great.
Gameplay stuff:
You move slow, you have a sprint (one of the triggers on control and can't change to a stick) but it is very slow.
They are clearly going for a bioshock vibe, show up at a place (this time a ship) and it looks nice, find out very quickly things went to shit. you have a radio with someone talking to you, you are finding notes and codes and opening locked doors. Tesla built the ship. Tesla seems to be the Andrew Ryan stand in.
There is no combat. You get chased at certain times and have to just run, Sort of SOMA like but feels bad and they are horrible sections. you are being chased by (and I shit you not, Jack The Ripper) It reminds me of Everybody has Gone to the rapture in ways as you find "ghosts" of people walking around but you don't actually see anyone other than Jack as stated above and he chases you. but he is animated like a PS2 game. it's so jarring. you basically explore this good looking space but it's boring there is almost no interaction and the notes and whatnot you find are not that interesting (you find Einstein's passport for example and notes people left)
There are some jump scares.
Oh yeah in the chase scenes they put the chromatic aberration to 10 and no way to disable it is the heaviest amount I have ever seen in a game.
Also voice acting while not the worst is very mediocre at most. And story seems really not that interesting to me at all.
Final Thoughts:
It's not a horrible game, but it definitely isn't special. It is trying to be Bioshock but fails hard in that regard. I would have a hard time recommending it to anyone, especially if you are already hesitant to buy it on EGS, maybe it will come to steam someday and I would say if it was on sale I would pick it up. But even at the cheap $30CAD I paid I think I paid too much.
I will continue it and comment when I beat it as I stated I heard it was short but as for now these are my thoughts.