NobleGamer The Invincible Review

I recommend this first person story-rich dialogue-driven scientist adventure game to people who enjoy sci-fi and are not deterred by it functionally being a walking sim. It is based on a hard sci-fi novel, meaning there's a focus on scientific accuracy or logic, and because it is told from the perspective of a biologist who has helped study this planet, it is more thoughtful. Also, don't expect hardly any combat. Here is what you need to know: +The look, feel, sounds, and music of the retro sci-fi atmosphere called atompunk, is often done well. I enjoy sci-fi enough that I didn't tire of the walking sim because I was taking in the atmosphere or wondering what I would encounter next in the adventure. +The story is told mostly between radio dialog between you & the commander of your ship, as well as your observations and interactions on the planet. It occasionally brings up a somewhat philosophical approach to planetary exploration. -A dozen times in the game, ground landscape textures near me wouldn't render in square patches some of its expected lighter colors. I tried this with and without DLSS on my RTX 3080. Performance was otherwise good as expected with 120+ FPS @ 1440p with rare frame noticeable drops going into open areas. ?The player's 3 tools fit the theme and equipment only go as far as light puzzles on rare occasions. ?Tools serve decent purposes, and aren't needed so much that they're annoying, though the only annoyance is that the clicking noise from the tracker that detects bots & people even if it is not equipped, and I didn't find a way to turn it off but maybe I missed something. It won't be clicking during most exploration. ?The player doesn't really do experiments and such. It is more like they learn about the world & the planet's biology while progressing in the adventure. +Story choices are made by either taking certain physical paths, sometimes they're made by dialog choices, and all notable choices are tracked along with story progression in a comic book viewable anytime which unfolds as the story progresses. +In terms of story branching, I would call its branches tightly bundled, in that choices rarely result in going to radically different locations or very different interactive elements. Choices certainly affect the story though to varying degrees, which is more than I can say of many story games I've played lately that aren't walking sims. -I have to admit though that I can imagine how a number of my choices would've panned out, and so for me there wasn't enough nagging mystery for me to replay parts of the game. I'm not much of an achievement hunter either. +At least there's chapter selection for achievement hunters, but that might not be as fast as I would like for replaying because... -When I reloaded a section using saves (not chapter selection) dialog skipping required one key stroke per spoken line.