CONSORTIUM Reviews
Consortium is a game of great ideas in search of a story that deserves them.
Consortium is a fun story-driven sci-fi role-playing game with some first-person shooter elements, but bugs and glitches mar the experience.
Consortium aims high, probably beyond the scope of what is reasonable for a game of this scale, but the experience is very enjoyable, if a bit short lived. Mechanically, there isn't much that's all that impressive, but from a storytelling standpoint, Consortium is a notable achievement.
A brilliant premise is undercut by short play time, poor combat and many bugs.
Much more than just a homage, Consortium might be rough around the edges but the dialogue system and freedom of choice rivals that of any other game.
Simply running about the ship, crawling through its underbelly, and chatting up the fully-voiced (mostly well) crew make up the bulk of Consortium. It's a nice change of pace for anyone who wants that older style of RPG where you learn about someone's mom who is suffering from Alzheimer's, argue whether or not videogames are insulting "murder simulators," and are exposed to suspicious organized religion.
Consortium is a tragedy. There's an extremely clever game to be found within, but only when it works. It's just the first part of a planned trilogy, and I have so many questions that I won't be able to help myself, I need to play the second part. But I can only hope that it's not held together by chewing gum and sellotape again.
Consortium is an ingeniously subversive gem, containing enough backstory to fill a Triple-A trilogy while focusing exclusively on an airship crew in distress. The execution is a little clunky at times, but Consortium still has the charm and depth to encourage multiple playthroughs as we wait for the sequel.
CONSORTIUM is a short adventure but with a lot of flexibility in how you can play it and with your choices and actions leading to very different stories. With fairly limited, and entirely optional combat, this is definitely a game for those looking for a good story rather than action. The game has a great cast of well-voiced characters and intriguing plots with plenty of mystery. Whilst the launch was set back by technical issues, these should now be largely resolved by patches.
The overall sci-fi themes are interesting and might lead somewhere, but without tighter mechanics and a broader set of outcomes, Consortium just sits as a wannabe Mass Effect that doesn't quite understand the difference between a game of Guess Who? and a video game.
Consortium is a really immersive role-playing experience that plays like an adventure game set in the early days of the Star Trek universe. It is similar to what a modern incarnation of the classic point-and-click adventures of old should be like, complete with diplomacy and multiple choices with different consequences and end results.
Strangely compelling though it is, Consortium is a roughly-cut venture that doesn't really make use of its ideas. Not recommended unless you're really, really, creepily into dialogue trees.