Observer has a lot more going for it than just these mind-bending sequences and jump scares. I never felt safe during these sections, and was always interested in what came next. I would be exploring a prison cell, reliving my victim’s memories from when he was a convict, and then suddenly be in his apartment years later, watching him and his wife having a violent argument – then a figure leaped out of nowhere to maul me. I loved these intense, terrifying sections because they make the most of the mind-jacking concept. Several levels are trippy hallucinations walls break away, and characters or settings change entirely as you jump from memory to memory. Memories are tricky things, especially under stressful situations, and many of the minds that Lazarski explores are traumatized and even broken. Lazarski is one of the eponymous Observers, which are special police units, half-human and half-machine, who can jack into the mental implants of individuals and explore their minds to recreate crimes and obtain secrets stored far away in the subject’s memories. Along with a high number of effective jump scares, there’s a constant sense of dread that hangs over this five-hour odyssey thanks to how it uses its Cyberpunk elements, like its particularly twisted take on hacking. Make no mistake: Observer is about as pure horror as you can get, despite its grimy sci-fi wrapper. This creates an experience where the most interesting aspects of the genre – terrifying and cruel corporations, the messy politics of body augmentation, the impact technology has on one’s psyche – are all funneled into a concise and terrifying experience. Where stories like Bladerunner, Snatcher, and Shadowrun usually have the urban sprawl of a futuristic city to work with, Observer trades that in for the narrow, cluttered halls of a broken-down apartment complex filled with tenants cowering in fear of a totalitarian regime (and something else that lurks in the basement). Observer makes the most of its fusion of cyberpunk sci-fi and terror. The grizzled protagonist steps out of his car and into the building, entering a hellish labyrinth where both the sins of his past and the horrors of humanity’s technological future await him. Tracking down the signal, Lazarski races through the futuristic and corporate-controlled Fifth Polish Republic to find the call coming from a run-down apartment complex in the poor part of the city. Detective Daniel Lazarski is in his patrol car when he receives a desperate distress call from his estranged son, Adam. Observer begins like many classic mystery stories: with a phone call.
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