Steam Next: 'ANNO: Mutationem'

 Wake the heck up, Anno.

Next up in my long list of Steam NEXT demo games that I want to talk about, comes a game that literally gave me an introspection attack as I realised that I didn't know a game series on the periphery of my radar as well as I thought I did. Of course, I'm talking about ANNO: Mutationem. Again, you know the drill, I saw the logo and downloaded, although this time I did spy the name as well and went "Oh, Anno. I know those games." I'd never actually played one, but I knew them to be city builder games that were popular enough to spawn a franchise. (even if I've never actually seen anyone play it either in real life or over the Internet. I cannot be sure those games have ever been bought) And I thought, "Oh, this one seems to have Cyberpunk theme to it, I thought I remember them doing the future thing once before but I guess it'll be cool if they do it again. And a demo for a city builder game? Why not. Might be fun."

Of course, had I cared to devote a single iota of thought to the topic I might have realised something such as "Oh wait, aren't those games published by Ubisoft? Why wasn't this at their E3?" Or maybe I would have noticed how this game is stylised as ANNO, whereas the series I know is called Anno. (Actually, no. I never would have noticed that. I don't even know what an 'Anno' is, so how the heck am I supposed to know how it's meant to be spelt?) To my credit, I did think it a little odd that the logo picture prominently featured a form-fitting-skin-suit rocking anime girl in front of the city skyline, but I just wrote that off as your typical "Sex sells" marketing campaign. I mean heck, just look at the promo material for 'Ratten Reich'. A game which literally features a sexy Nazi anthropomorphic rat woman on it's advertisements. (These video game marketing people go nutty sometimes, what can you do?)

Now you know where this is going, don't you? ANNO: Mutationem is (unless there's a huge surprise waiting that I'm absolutely not expecting) completely and utterly unrelated to city building in any way, and I'm an idiot for thinking otherwise. Such to the point where I played through the entirety of the neon drenched, cliched, cyberpunk demo and only at the very last moment thought "Huh, there really isn't going to be a City management tutorial here, is there?" So I guess that means I go a whole 'nother generation not really knowing what Anno actually is or if real people actually play it. (I'm sure any Anno fans reading this would tell me otherwise, but I want any such people to stop and think for a moment: Are you sure that you exist?) Still, is this completely different game which I'm sure absolutely has justification for the name choice, worth your time? I'd say it is. But I'm not exactly 'in love' just yet.

Mutationem is a story based side-scrolling action exploration game that boasts a charming comic book pixel wash that disappears amidst some truly sweeping Cyberpunk vistas that just glitter with that 'hands-off' magic which makes this genre pop for so many. ANNO certainly looks the part of a Cyberpunk adventure game, and the brief areas of exploration the demo presents (which I certainly hope aren't just momentary calms in the storm of the full product) boast that enviably crafted balance of a glowing gilded tech monolith draped over a diseased filth-ridden corpse. Glowing sky scrapers above poverty, these devs know the genre they're working with. Although I don't quite feel they're reached out and owned it yet, given that their lore is still holding onto crutch genre staples with toothless expressions like 'Megacorp' without really giving them value. And yes, I've played but a demo so keep that in mind, but I find that to be a trap that a lot of genre-type projects fall for, so I thought it worth addressing regardless.

In terms of that story which ties the world to it's gameplay... well, I'm going to fall back again on the "it's just a demo" excuse for why I couldn't quite grasp what was going on. (even though it really did feel like the demo started from the beginning of the game.) From the moment you awake from a snowswept dream in a dreary techno apartment (which looks gorgeous with the blinds down, by-the-by) I got excited with the potential, especially with those optional contextual tooltips around the apartment, ever a fun and engaging way to bring me into a character and their life by living in their apartment for a brief sec. Only, when the actual story started being told I didn't really understand anything. (And I'm usually pretty good with this sort of stuff, I'm no narrative slouch!) I didn't really understand what the protagonist was about, who the AI that's important enough to share cover art space with was, or why I should care about our heroes family dramas. (Or even why she cares.) But again, 'demo'; I'm sure it'll come together better in the whole game. I'm relatively sure, anyway.

But with a side scrolling action game, it's going to be the action that we're here for anyway, right? We want to see the badass Cyberpunk goodness, and given that our protagonist doubles as a katana wielding anime magical girl (for some reason) the action has to write itself. And here's the part which confuses me and, I'll imagine, where my opinion is going to drift away from a lot of others who played this same demo: because I didn't think the combat was all that good. I mean it was functional, it worked exactly as you imagined it would from my set-up, but it didn't have anything special to it. There was no 'oomph' to Katana hits, no special rhythm or dance to the combat, no special combos to switch things up, (although I'll bet the combos, at least, will come later) it was just a bare basic hack and slash game. 

Now maybe I'm a little-bit spoiled for choice given the absolutely stellar-looking 2D action games that have been unveiled this year, but I didn't really think there was any 'magic sauce' in this formula. Even the special finisher, because this game does indeed have those to be triggered after a stagger, was entirely lacklustre. Everytime I pulled it off, no matter the enemy or my position, it would be the same animation, the camera would pull in to a point where the pixels stood out larger than was aesthetically pleasing, and I'd be treated to the most half-hearted jab-stab of all time. It was so bizarre, because everything else about this game looks so good and holds potential, but the thing I think is holding this game back just so happens to be one of it's most important features. Now again, the combat isn't terrible, or even bad; it just doesn't live up to the quality of everything else. And that's a bit of a big deal.

At the end of the day, ANNO is just another step on the industries apology tour to the Cyberpunk genre for the-game-which-must-not-be-named, and I'm forever happy to see these fruitful grounds get some spoils. (That's right, I called the genre 'Fruitful'! Just try and stop me!) I do think the game is teetering on being something really cool, unfortunately that extra step would require fundamental work and that is never easy to do or even guaranteed to work. That still does mean, however, that this game enters my list of 'ones-to-watch', just for what it's trying to do, more than for what it actually accomplishes. So to ThinkingStars I offer good luck and say "I'm routing for you", because polishing this rust may just unveiling a Crazy Diamond in the rough.