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Genre: Adventure Developer & Publisher: Geography of Robots/Raw Fury Released: March 24, 2022 Requirements: OS: Minimum, Windows 7; Recommended, Windows 10/11 Processor: Minimum, Intel Core i5 or AMD equivalent Memory: Minimum 4 GB RAM; Recommended, 8 GB RAM Graphics: Minimum, Intel Iris/AMD Vega; Recommended, Nvidia 1050 or equivalent DirectX: Version 11 Storage: 4 GB available space
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By flotsam Geography of Robots/Raw Fury NORCO was a game that I bought earlier this year, played briefly and then kind of forgot about. Other things got in the way – real life, trips away, other games, etc. But something brought it back to my attention recently, and I can now tell you about it. Description wise, the Steam page summary is a good one: “NORCO is a Southern Gothic point & click narrative adventure that immerses the player in the sinking suburbs and verdant industrial swamps of a distorted South Louisiana. Your brother Blake has gone missing in the aftermath of your mother's death. In the hopes of finding him, you must follow a fugitive security android through the refineries, strip malls, and drainage ditches of suburban New Orleans.” With the addition somewhere in there of surreal and dystopian, I probably couldn’t have described it better. It does though tell a somewhat shallow tale. What unfolds is an intricate pastiche of complicated relationships, failing communities and dysfunctional institutions as well as things that might inhabit the gaps; conspiracies, cults, fanatics and shadowy agencies, but also resilience, tenacity and an unshakeable desire to overcome. It is well written, at times beautifully, and the occasional overblown portion never tired me of exploring the dialogue through which it is told. Of which there is a lot, even more if you fully explore the nodes in the Mindmap, chat to all the NPCs and exhaust all the dialogue options. Much of it will fill out the lore, contributing to the cultural context within which the events unfold. All of it is read, although ‘blurbly babble’ is softly heard when a character is speaking. Dialogue bars will appear vertically on one side of the screen, perhaps alternating left and right as a conversation occurs, each accompanied by headshots of the speakers. In case the screenshots passed you by, this is pixel art, but of the high-end variety. Indeed, many of the scenes effectively convey the mood and texture of life in a place that has literally derived its name from the petrochemical refinery (New Orleans Refinery Company) that, symbiotically or parasitically (depending on your point of view), dominates the skyline. While some are busy and full, others are verging on the empty, the sky artistically dominating the dilapidated foreground. The town itself is one in which robots provide home services and the rust of everything past is ever present. The sultry matt colour palette tops things off. As does the ambient sound and the soundtrack. NORCO is a familiar point and click adventure. Explore the environment, unlock new locations, engage with an array of NPCs, collect and use some inventory items, engage in some puzzling. Each screen is by and large discrete, where ‘what you see is what you get.’ It’s first person, the mouse does everything (assuming you aren’t using a controller), and you can save at will (but are limited to three save slots plus an autosave). A small array of icons will indicate what might be done at a hotspot, and you can reveal those should you wish to. You play Kay, and will pick up and later discard different members of your party as you go. Each will have an icon left of screen, so you will know who (or what) is with you at any time, and while you don’t choose to play one or other of them (except when it comes to combat) you can chat with them. Which you should. Having mentioned combat, lets go there. There is combat in NORCO, which for me was a dud aspect. Except that you can turn it off in the menu, which I did after a while, and the game was none the poorer for it. It felt too tacked on, and out of place with everything else. It is turn based, and depending on which member of your party you choose to use to attack, you might be presented with a little quick-time interaction. Which I didn’t like, another reason why I turned it off. To be fair, the combat isn’t hard, even in the ‘boss battles’ near the end. I went back and deliberately tried to lose that sequence and gave up well before I failed. So don’t let that aspect put you off (but in my view turn it off; it will still occur, you will just watch it happen). Another setting in the menu is expert mode, which says it turns off various hints. Leaving it on meant that e.g., the word “heard” might be highlighted in a dialogue, suggesting that you might need to record a particular part of another conversation (yes, there are a small number of puzzles where you do that). You still need to work out what conversation and which bit and what to do with it, but its up to you whether you use it or not. Speaking of which, much of the puzzling is inventory based (hold and drag to use items) but you will also need to find and discern codes, navigate waterways, engage successfully in dialogue, and a few other things. It’s a varied happening, not too hard but not a stroll in the park either. I did find getting around in NORCO a bit all over the place. A little location map sits bottom right, with nodes (e.g., car park, entrance, loading-bay) that you click on to make your way around. Each click brings up a new screen, and perhaps a new set of accessible locations. There is also a world map which sits top right, enabling you to choose to move to different locations, should it be available to you (it isn’t always – perhaps you need to be outside?). Plus you have a rideshare app on your phone which I never really felt I mastered, but which seemed like it was the intermediate option (i.e., a different area rather than a different location). None of which stopped me from getting around, but which I felt could have been less convoluted. There are multiple endings, not too dissimilar given the ones I have seen, but the best one (perhaps) depending on things done earlier on. The capacity to start from Chapter beginnings adds to the save points, and gives you more capacity to go back and do things differently. Finally, Norco is a real place, a locality in what has been referred to as ‘Cancer Alley,’ a strip of petrochemical refineries in Louisiana between Baton Rouge and New Orleans. Which is largely irrelevant to the game, but which influences aspects of the fictional story and which you can find out more about by visiting the makers’ website. In summary, while not everything worked for me, the narrative tapestry of NORCO and its various presentation aesthetics made this a game I would definitely recommend. I played on: OS: Windows 10, 64 Bit Processor: Intel i7-9700K 3.7GHz RAM: Corsair Dominator Platinum RGB DDR4 32GB Video card: AMD Radeon RX 580 8192MB
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