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Harold Halibut is very hard to enjoy when everyone’s so openly passive aggressive toward youIn fairness, I would be, too, if I had to deal with hapless Harold everyday
In fairness, I would be, too, if I had to deal with hapless Harold everyday
Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Slow Bros
Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Slow Bros
The game starts with Harold being fined for not having enough credit on his travel card, and it only goes downhill from there. |Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Slow Bros
Jeez, boss, no need to rub it in… |Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Slow Bros
Even when you do track these folks down, Harold’s exchanges with them are equal parts maddening and exasperating. Sometimes, for example, a timer bar will appear pressuring you to choose a certain line of dialogue Telltale-style, but the bar disappears so quickly that you barely have time to even read each response, let alone internalise what they might mean or entail. This can make choices feel rushed and careless, but that feeling pales in comparison to some of the other tasks you’re required to do. At one point, your supposed friend Cyrus asks you to fix his broken 3D printer, which involves unscrewing lots of little panels from the control box. It’s the kind of light, tactile arm manoeuvring that’s worked exceedingly well in other kinds ofpuzzle games- seeFixfoxandAssemble With Careas just two great examples of the form - but here it’s reduced to pointless busywork, if only because at the end of the puzzle Harold is essentially forced to electrocute himself, at which point Cyrus reveals that the damn thing wasn’t really broken at all, and that he just thought it would be funny to call you down to ‘fix’ it and hurt yourself.
This is really sucky, not just because Harold’s once again the butt of everyone’s jokes, but because it also disrespects your time as a player. Puzzles should exist to further a game’s plot, not just kill dead space between tasks for a laugh at your own expense. The really infuriating thing is that Harold himself just shrugs his shoulders and carries on like this is a totally normal occurrence in his daily routine. But even when his ‘friends’ aren’t causing him bodily harm, he’s such a vacant and disinterested human being that he rarely has anything insightful to say anyway. His default response seems to be mostly just asking more questions, leading to protracted merry-go-rounds with NPCs as they try in vain to spell out what Harold needs to know but is repeatedly failing to grasp.
Minus points to Cyrus for being a turd. Plus points for having all the panels I unscrewed lying in a heap below the printer after completing the puzzle. |Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Slow Bros
Most conversations you have with other people around the ship end up being very frustrating. |Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Slow Bros
It all gave me terrible flashbacks to the turgid conversations I had inOutcast: A New Beginningearlier in the month, only here you can’t just hammer skip to bring the conversation to a swift conclusion. Every encounter has been carefully scripted to account for both its voice and animation work, so even if you do cut the talking short, you still have to wait for the game to play out the ensuing animation - albeit at a slightly fast-forwarded pace - until the next voice line triggers. Sure, this is marginally less jarring than having a camera whiplash between each speaker, but I’m not entirely sure it’s really saving you much time in the process. It all still feels too slow, which is a tricky thing to try and mitigate when your patience is wearing thin already.
