Distortions

The atmosphere, the music and the premise are all bristling with promise. The world you wander through is heartbreaking and surreal. The music follows you out of the game, snapping you awake at night, wondering where that guitar riff is coming from. But the mechanics under the hood are deeply flawed. Beyond the startling rigidity of your avatar and the janky controls, the game feel is all off. My computer, a perfectly respectable beast, had a hard time with this game.

There are mechanical as well as technical flaws. But in its good moments Distortions delivers a strangely bizarre action adventure like no other.

A really mixed bag. The overall story of the Girl facing her psychological demons and overcoming the traumatic experiences that stranded her in this fantasy dreamworld is interesting and well handled, and I really liked the idea of using the violin as a kind of magical totem to transform and manipulate the world. The switches between perspectives and moments of introspection point to a sensitive appreciation of the deeper emotional resonances of Distortion’s narrative, but it just isn’t that fun to play. Dated and unresponsive controls, needlessly obscure exploration, and frustratingly unpredictable enemy encounters mean that it almost works better as a Let’s Play watch than it does as a game.