Video Game Review - Lacuna - A Sci-Fi Noir Adventure

Rob reviews Lacuna - A Sci-Fi Noir Adventure on Xbox Series X...

Lacuna - A Sci-Fi Noir Adventure is one of those games that grabbed my attention straight from the start. The opening shot of a seemingly tranquil park soon makes way for a more industrial image as steel support beams and a distant barren landscape sneak into view. As you progress through this tutorial you play as a new arrival within the colony who's adjusting to life on a different planet. After meeting up with an old friend and attending their first day at school, disaster strikes, and you're then running for your life. 

As the disaster unfolds, you're tasked with reaching an emergency bunker within 60-seconds. It's also here where Lacuna hits you with its first choice. One of your neighbours is trapped inside their home and is calling for your help. Your best friend is telling you to hurry to the bunker, and time continuously counts down. Do you rescue your neighbour? Or leave them to die? While it's not a tough choice (you rescued the neighbour right?), it's an introduction to one of Lacuna's core mechanics - choice. 

It's this form of choice that shadows you throughout Lacuna's sci-fi/detective noir narrative. There were plenty of times where I thought that I was doing the right thing, to in fact be doing the opposite. However, in this reality, there isn't necessarily a good ending as everything sits within a grey area. That's not to say that the narrative is lacking, as it's a game that will instantly grab your attention to then throw you into a politically charged thriller, where each choice could lead your colony into an interplanetary war. 

From playing the title it's easy to see that Blade Runner is its biggest influence. The central character of Neil Conrad takes a page from the Rick Dekker playbook. Like Dekker, Conrad is a grizzled detective who's jaded by his failures and has plenty of personal issues. As a detective for the CDI (space FBI) Conrad is called in to investigate the apparent assassination of a visiting diplomat. The result of this death leads to widespread panic as a domestic terror organisation takes credit for the hit. If this wasn't bad enough - the death also causes tensions to rise between two planetary governments. So no pressure! 

Gameplay takes the form of many other point-and-click adventures. Coincidently Lacuna is nearly identical to the recently released Detective Di: The Silk Road Murders - albeit with a moody sci-fi overtone. Throughout the investigation, Conrad will be dogged by the political machinations of both parties who have their interests in his investigation. This is also juggled by Conrad's private life as his work puts strain on the already frayed relationship with his daughter and estranged wife. 

As you investigate things move at a pretty fast pace. From investigating the scene of the crime, you are then thrown into a vast spanning race against time. Lacuna - A Sci-Fi Noir Adventure keeps its fast pace by doing away with most of the point-and-click traits. As such you'll be ferried from location to location and allowed to focus on the detective work. This means you'll be discovering conveniently placed evidence and interviewing suspects. This isn't a game where you can relax as a lot of getting things right lands on how much you've paid attention. 

To lock in your evidence some sheets need to be filled in. These are where you'll submit your choices which ultimately push the game forward. One such investigation sheet tasks you with discovering the look of our suspected assassin. This then leads to a pretty tense scene as the CDI hunt the suspect through a crowded marketplace. The scene plays out over the radio and you have no effect over the outcome - aside from your submitted evidence. Get it right and the CDI capture their suspect unharmed. Get it wrong and it leads to a possible shootout with some added casualties.

On paper, this does sound quite daunting, but the reality is that it's fairly simple if you don't try to "wing it". You do however feel like a true detective as you'll be cross-referencing witnesses testaments against the evidence. There's a real sense of achievement as you discover that a witness is lying to then see them become a pawn in this much larger game. 

Any game that relies on you getting behind its characters needs a pretty strong atmosphere. Thankfully Lacuna - A Sci-Fi Noir Adventure superbly achieves this. The world is full of small detail that highlights the social issues that are plaguing this colony. You'll venture through a myriad of locations that will show every side of this social climate. There's a real difference in the design of these too with the pristine grand mansions of the local elite, to the crime-ridden underbelly of the cities underbelly. All of Lacuna's presentation comes together perfectly and it's hard to choose a single aspect that's better than the rest. 

The narrative is also one that's easy to understand and allows for some gripping scenes. Everything has an adult tone to it and there isn't anything particularly outlandish. It's somewhat "hard sci-fi" in that things are grounded within the real world. There's no magic technology that allows you to perfectly recreate a crime scene, and there's nothing to tell you that a person is lying. It's just a hard-boiled detective story that takes no prisoners. 

The only downside to Lacuna that I have is that you are never part of the action. The aforementioned arrest scene is one prime example as you don't see your hard work play out. Even if it was shown in a cut scene, I would have liked to of seen Conrad down on the streets overseeing the arrest. Instead, we're stuck in the back of a van with sporadic text crawl for company. 

Considering that the narrative is designed to cater for multiple replays, the replayability factor isn't well implemented. If you choose to play through the adventure again, you do so without the ability to skip scenes or even skip dialogue. Whilst I loved every minute of seeing these different choices play out, those wanting a quick understanding of events will have to suffer multiple runs. 

Come to the stories conclusion and I was very satisfied that I'd experienced this world. I'm still unsure whether I made the right decisions or not, and there are a few choices that had me conflicted over what was best. But this just made the experience that more tense - and somewhat rewarding. The whole experience is made complete by its fully realised and lived in a world that's certainly made for you to get lost in. While some elements- such as the "sheets" - can slow the game down, it all forms the basis of a fantastic hard-boiled sci-fi detective story. 

Rating 9/10 

Lacuna - A Sci-Fi Noir Adventure is available now for Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S and can be purchased via the Microsoft Store by clicking here 

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