Is it fair to review a game I admittedly haven't played all the way through? Well, I suppose I can explain precisely why I didn't play this for long.
Volume is an isometric stealth-based game made by the same developer as Thomas Was Alone, a game so charming that my heart oozed out of my nostrils. (It made me want to cry over geometry, for gods sake!) Fortunately, I'm an open-minded chap and so I'm going to expect a completely different experience here. If a game can capture just 1% of the magic that Thomas Was Alone had then we're in good hands.
Initially I wasn't going to review this because I played it for over an hour before realising I wasn't at all invested or entertained. But after turning it off and getting ready to test out the new Steam Refund service, I mused on precisely why I wasn't getting into it. I'm usually a patient man, and am prepared to spend more than an hour before determining whether I'm enjoying myself or not. After all, the majority of my favourite games have rather underwhelming first chapters. Deus Ex's first mission throws you right into the action whether you're ready or not, System Shock 2 forces you to go through a series of doors to determine your vague stats, and Mount and Blade: Warband abandons you to be ambushed.
But all of those games felt like I was beginning a journey. This just filled me with dread and boredom. The game boasts over a hundred levels, but each are incredibly short...yet you still have to select each one individually. I would much rather have longer levels but enable more variety and depth in each one. I would also like to be able to play them all in one string rather than blast through one in the space of five seconds only to be thrown back to the menu. And who bothers with highscores and time-trials in a single-player narrative game? Stealth games are, by their nature, careful and calculating. I will complete each level with whatever pace the game demands, thank you very much.
What definitely made me stop playing was the story. Not because it was bad, but because it was completely seperate from the gameplay.
The game starts with a quick cutscene before dumping you into the first mission. It's an empty room with an exit door. The game lets you walk to the exit and in the meantime two people were having a conversation. I headed to the exit hoping that the conversation will continue because I was getting bored just walking around in a circle. But, once I went through the exit, the level was over and the conversation abruptly ended. It took me two levels to realise that one of the people talking was the guy I was playing as - because the character is so far away I can't tell what he looks like. Later, the characters would keep blathering at each other whilst I was trying to sneak around pawns and collect gems. At first I thought the people talking were my tutorial - but actually the tutorial was bits of texts scattered around that I would read whilst these people went on and on and on in my ear. Once again, I completed the level before they'd finished.
This is appauling storytelling. You're supposed to weave this stuff into the gameplay, or - since this is such vital exposition - this is the only time where it would be acceptable to stop the game so we can listen. But no. The dialogue is just there, like an audiobook playing whilst you're driving. Two characters talking to each-other via a headset is one of the earliest concepts of storytelling in games. How can you mess it up this bad?
Because I wasn't paying attention to all this, it meant I missed the story. I had no idea who I was playing as, who I was talking to, what the outside world is like, what my character's goal was, and what the game was about. Thomas Was Alone worked so well as a narrative piece because of how fluid it was. There, the levels were stupidly short as well, but you instantly hopped from one to another only occasionally being handed a short dialogue box to read. There was that wonderful narration, of course, but the narration took place in strategic points rather than dumped on you right at the start of the level or at a seemingly random section midway through.
Imagine if during the Batman games where you stop every once in a while to talk to Alfred, you did this in the middle of a fight scene. That's what the storytelling of Volume is like.
The second biggest problem is that the game just doesn't do anything new. This isometric stealth game is a complete copy of The Marvellous Miss Take, which is also an isometric game split into levels but with a plot that comes around eventually. It's a game where you must use a whilsting mechanic to distract guards whilst you sneak around stealing things before escaping the level. The only difference is that The Marvellous Miss Take keeps the story in the background and has a nice Paris-inspired aesthetic that's rarely seen in games. Also, the enemies move much slower and don't have a ranged weapon whilst you have the power to sprint, which makes the experience less fustrating yet still just as tense.
This game is also a rip-off of Invisible Inc, which was also an isometric game split into levels and in a cyberpunk setting. In fact, the game doesn't do anything different from the abundance of isometric stealth games out there. It claims to be inspired by Metal Gear Solid, but I distinctly remember MGS being a much smoother game because you weren't as much of a sitting duck. There was a brief window between enemies spotting you and enemies trying to kill you, which doesn't exist here. Also, it's much easier to get back into cover, whilst if you're spotted in Volume then seven times out of ten you're dead. This is incredibly annoying since baiting guards with your whistle is the games primary mechanic. You're obviously going to screw up, but the game seems to not want you to screw up - which makes no sense since what makes stealth games fun and intense is getting caught and having to hide.
The mission briefing explains where you're stealing from, and I feel really sorry for the poor guy who wrote all these briefings out since everyone's just going to skip them thanks to the weird level structure I mentioned prior. However, I decided to finally take the time out to read one of the briefing and I discovered that the level I just played was simulating the robbing of the Queen's palace...which I really don't see. It looks exactly the same as all the other levels, the enemies are exactly the same, and you're stealing the same white gems. Compare this to The Marvellous Miss Take where the levels are varied and you steal a variety of objects and you'll see why I didn't play this game for too long.
I was excited when I discovered there was a level editor, since I've always aspired to make games myself despite having no knowledge of code or 3D rendering. I still really want to write for games (hence why my reviews often focus on narrative, characters, and setting) However, this level editor is quite simply broken. You can only move across the grid correctly with the gamepad plugged in, actually placing items is a nightmare and the lack of tutorial certainly doesn't help either. I can't believe that so many people are already able to make custom maps with an editor this dodgy. Maybe it's just my copy....
In fact, the game has this bug where slider bars gradually go down regardless of if you want them to or not. It makes the options menu inacessible, which is a huge problem considering that the first thing PC gamers do when starting up a game is go to the options menu because nine times out of ten it's loaded in the wrong screen resolution or has defaulted to either the highest or lowest graphics settings.
Overall, I hate to say this; but just play The Marvellous Miss Take and/or Invisible Inc. Both have a more distinctive style, a less obtrusive plot, and offer everything Volume offers but in a much more refined way. I wouldn't mind the games lack of originality so long as it executed it's unoriginal idea well...but it doesn't. This is some of the worst storytelling I've seen outside of a bad JRPG. Sorry.
