Well here’s a title that I didn’t think would have the BALLS to return.
Back in 2016, Nilo Studios released a twenty-minute experiment game called Asemblance, which was their attempt to meld together elements from Black Mirror, The X-Files, Silent Hills and Twilight Zone. The result? Unsuccessful, despite most gaming publications who covered it on release confusing “uniqueness” with “good”. Two years later, Nilo are finally here to continue the story. What’s the verdict this time then?
If you’re interested in what the first Asemblance was about, it was a walking simulator with more psychological horror aspects than usual slew of Dear Esther’s. You played a guy who thought a machine with three VR demos was more interesting than his wife, which is pretty funny if you ask me. His wife probably collected stamps or must’ve been a massive fan of Game of Thrones. Other than that, the game was full of pretentious wankery except… not really.
You see, I have recently returned from an epiphany field. In the month of July, I have played the original Asemblance, today’s title, and a game called Nevermind, which I compared Asemblance unfavourably to for a chunk of the review. After playing all three in quick succession, I have come to the decision that the original Asemblance is actually a much better game, and not just because it isn’t fucking disgusting like Nevermind.
But I digress, in all seriousness, Oversight shows that Nilo have made leaps and bounds over their previous effort. It’s still shorter than the average episode of The Eric Andre Show, but Nilo are learning. Oversight is smarter, it offers more of a punch narratively, and despite the surface level mechanics still not evolving, the game’s stupidly absorbing.
If you played the original Asemblance, you already know the gist of what’s going down. You have a massive machine in front of you that can create landscapes, and you’re tasked with finding connections and clues linked to each environment in order to uncover more of the story. How do you register these clues? Why, by comically zooming in to each piece of evidence, of course… how else?
Nilo have done fair to up the ante with what the game offers. Previously, the environments looked like they were stolen from a pre-alpha build of Grand Theft Auto III, but now everything looks absolutely stunning, with the main memory being the highlight. Birds flock the screen and stray clouds cover the mountain-tops, all in sleek ‘n’ shiny 60FPS and beyond. It’s a small scene, but God, is it beautiful.
There’s even more of a narrative presence than last time! More voice actors have joined the club, providing intrigue and slight horror with their presence, and while they might only have one or two lines each, they’ve done enough to build atmosphere. Which brings us to the shining achievement of Oversight: It’s actually a bit spooky now.
Yes, while the horror in the first Asemblance was an uninspired Newgrounds-tier romp through crap assets, we now have an incredibly thick layer of unease keeping everything afloat. However, it does the >Observer thing sometimes, where the screen glitches and flashes repeatedly, meaning you’d have to give a severe epilepsy warning beforehand. That’s not horror! That’s just being a prick with a strobe light.
So yes, all in all, Nilo are actually showing that they can create a game that COULD be worth ten bucks on the Steam storefront, but there are still cracks present from the last title. Of course the biggest complaint is still the length, and no amount of doing the same thing with different screen filters is going to change the fact that it’s obvious padding.
The writing can also be a bit grating at times. As stated before, Nilo seems like they’re snobbishly proud of the story they’ve created, which is fair enough, but oh my good grief, it’s so dense. Dense for the sake of being dense as well, as audio logs and dialogue speak in scattered sentences, replacing intelligence with pretension. I understand what you’re saying, Nilo, so just say it like a normal human being. I’m not stupid… no, I dropped out of college for different reasons.
Really though, the biggest concern that transpires from all of this, is that Oversight might be a fluke. I mean, the game’s execution is clean, the intrigue-o-meter is as high as it can be right now, but we’re two games in now, and so far, much has been left unexplained. As far as I’m aware, no roadmap of the story of Asemblance has been posted, and there’s nothing stopping Nilo from saying “Ahhhhh, bugger it”, and ending the project altogether. With a game that’s been umm-ing and err-ing about the episode releases (COUGH COUGH Blues ‘n’ Bullets), the original vision may no longer be concrete.
All of these questions are unanswered as of now, but personally, one could not be more excited for the future. Yes, the first Asemblance was a bit of a misfire, but Oversight shows that there’s possibilities that the third episode could be bigger and better. The only worry is when we might see the next installment. Nevertheless, if you have half an hour free, and you’re not bothered about spending ten bucks on a game that offers less than a House of The Dead arcade machine run on one quarter, then give Oversight a shot.
I wouldn’t blame you if you waited for a sale though.
This review of Asemblance: Oversight is based on the Xbox One version of the game.
