continue?9876543210
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Critic Reviews for continue?9876543210
Continue?9876543210 is as weird as its title suggests, and surprisingly clever as well.
Continue?9876543210 explores what happens to video game characters after the game-over screen fades, and in turn asks how we'll face our own mortality.
Whether you'll like this title or not is entirely dependent on your willingness to accept games that attempt to "say" something. Even agreeing or disagreeing that the point was sufficiently met isn't as important as the mindset one comes in with.
The action side of things is weak but as an interactive meditation on mortality and predestination this is an impressively thought-provoking indie experiment.
Continue?9876543210 is a game I am glad I had the chance to experience, and for all its flaws it's still a smart, hauntingly beautiful adventure. However, it lacks the accessibility of some of its other cerebral peers such as Papers, Please and The Stanley Parable, and as such, its various quirks and off-the-wall lore will likely dissuade many from delving further into it.
It did propose some thought-provoking questions about mortality, but I was too busy being frustrated at the controls to give any of it a second thought while playing.
Perhaps it's the warped, half-meaningless dialogue or the impending sense of your inability to change your fate; maybe it's the way levels shift around each time you play, or the variety of strange quests you're set upon without much direction; it could even just be the fleeting glimpse of possibility, cradled underneath this game's cloak of philosophy and confounding introspection, but I can say that I honestly enjoyed my journey here, and while I wouldn't say it's going to be everyone's cup of tea, anyone who's enjoyed the experimental indie games that seep into the market of late owes themselves at least a passing glance at this one.
Continue?9876543210 asks for more than mere rote skill-based challenges. Rather, it forces us to reflect on existence, and explore the dark recesses of inevitability. As a game, it's unpolished, but as a rumination on mortality, it's an interactive poem.
