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Void, The

EMAIL PRINT pc

8.5 User Score:

Generally favorable reviews

Based on 8 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

Based on 12 votes
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Game Info

Publisher: Mamba Games

Developer: Ice-Pick Lodge

Genre(s): Adventure

Players: 1

ESRB Rating: RP (Rating Pending)

Release Date: October 16, 2009

Summary

Set in the Void a place where mortal's souls go before death - a middle earth of life and death. The player has a chance to survive the Void sparing their soul and even their life- the tool they have to do this is The Colour. The Colour is the only food for the dying souls in The Void, every soul feeds off it and every soul is desperately struggling for every drop they can find, as this is the only means to save their souls and return to mortal life. The player needs to use his wit and fast thinking to determine the colours needed to escape the realms of The Void. [Mamba Games]

Also On The Web: Official Website

What The Critics Said

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

100

Just Adventure

A solid "A" for innovation and delivering it in the highest professional manner.

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PC Format

It's a very slow game. But The Void has really got under my skin in a way no game has for a long time, and it's totally recommended. [Christmas 2009, p.95]

PC Gamer UK

An astounding world, and a flagship for the imagination and capability of independent game developers. [Christmas 2009, p.94]

LEVEL (Czech Republic)

Absorbing and atmospheric piece of art – The Void can be described as a survival adventure horror on LSD. Its originality definitely deserves your attention. [Issue#186]

Multiplayer.it

The Void is pretty unique: the gameplay is hard to describe with a mix of complex mechanics, the first person view and an innovative storytelling. It's not for everyone but still worth a try!

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PC Games (Germany)

Titled as an action-adventure, this game is not typical. The best way to describe it, is like a modern art picture. You’ll find bizarre and beautiful elements and it his hard to understand, what the game is telling the player. The plot takes place between life and death and the melancholical spoken dialogues are good performed. So if u like to play around with uncommon gameplay, the void is a nice try.

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Eurogamer

I did not get nearly as far into this game as I would want to for a review. I simply couldn't. I tried for long enough. Yet I am completely unwilling to say this a bad thing - I'm certain this is a brilliant thing for the right person. Which is why I hope I've brought you to a place where you can make that decision for yourself.

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GameStar

The Void has its fascinating sides, lucid colors on dull grey, bizarrely warped beings, floating bodies and bare breast. Surrealism plays a huge role in this otherwise quite simple game. Using an out-of-date function like time limits is simply annoying. But the game manages to surprise from time to time and is still worth giving it a try, despite the weaknesses.

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What Our Users Said

The average user rating for this game is 8.5 (out of 10) based on 12 User Votes

Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Daniel C gave it a10:
My game of the year, and Zachrid W.'s criticism are legitimate but I would like to point out that everything which he complains about in the game was a deliberate choice. You have to figure thing's out for yourself, most of what is fun and interesting about this game is learning and exploring and gaining an understanding of you surroundings and figuring how the game works. Most games are essentially just about following instructions. Designers tell you what to do and you do it and that's supposed to be fun, well that's not how The Void works, you have to think and experiment and you probably wont do it right at first but that's cool, you get to figure stuff out. When approached properly the game is fascinating. It's kind of an adventure game but it's totally not point and click. It's all about gathering information about you environment and using it. Figuring out what works and doing it. These are the thing's that I enjoy about games. The chance to explore and learning about new worlds so I love this game

Collic . gave it a9:
Everyone should at least try this game. You won't have played anything like it before.

Zachrid W. gave it a2:
I may be writing this a little bit soon, but this game has the potential to frustrate you seriously. I really admire games in which you start with a 'WTF'-expression on your face and then have to figure out what you are supposed to do. "Penumbra: Overture" was a great game that way. The problem is, that there is no concrete feedback for your actions and so you can easily navigate yourself into a dead end and waste a couple of savegames, without even realizing it. For instance, you always need to keep some of the "collected color" (yeah, you collect color here) inside your body, while you are on the map-screen, otherwise you die. Easy enough, but you are always processing this color, you put into you body from your stock, into "color you can use" - meaning that you always have to refill the color-chambers inside of you and keep an eye on your stock. The color only respawns at the beginning of each "cycle", so if you are making the mistake to process too much color at one point, you may not have enough to to survive the rest of the circle - because you already have collected evey drop throughout the map. The next thing is: I always got an audio message when I did something wrong, but I never had an idea how serious the impact of my actions was. So I just made my thing, tried to survive the circles, do the quests, collect as much color as possible and donate some of it to NPCs, so I could get access to more areas... but suddenly, at the beginning of a new circle I got attacked by a boss, because "I overdone it" or something like that. I didn't even got the option to flee and so I was out of color (= Life, Ammo, Mana) and in the middle of a bossfight. I could neither attack him, nor survive his attacks or even had a idea how to beat him. I didn't had a any chance to rethink my actions, because the punishment killed me at the end of the cycle and not at the moment I gone to far. Besides, the only thing I did wrong in my eyes was wasting color, and this just because the game often didn't recognized what spell I wanted to cast. So my whole turn was in vain and perhaps don't know how may turns before that one too. Another thing is, that a NPC asked me for green and golden color so I could access more levels, not knowing this in the first place I used that up for spells. But the real problem was, that within the next cycles every other color spwaned, but not the two I needed. So I was struck for a few circles in the first few chambers without being able to do anything useful. ...did I mention that this game has only 35 circles? Yeah, It has a fricking timelimit for the whole game. This game is a blance act, but without you having any sense of balance. It gives you only vague directions, but is unforgiving if you break one of it's rules. It's like one of the old Sierra Adventures: Eat the pie at the beginning of the game and you will never defeat the yeti at the end of the game. This could have been a GREAT and atmospheric game, but like this, it is just frustrating - without a decent walkthrough you will have to start it over A LOT to find out how you have to beat it ... and this is not how games are supposed to work these days.

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Void, The

Game Info

Summary

What The Critics Said

What Our Users Said

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