Recourse Demo

Many games have tried to copy Portal and its ideas after Valve released the game almost a decade ago, but few came close to providing the players with a similar experience. Portal had a lot more than just an awesome gameplay idea, because the whole thing was backed by a brilliant plot as well, not to mention the great characters.

Recourse is a puzzle game that follows almost the same principle as Portal, except that it doesn’t feature any actual portals. As such, your task is to solve each level by moving things around, pressing buttons or just redirecting lasers in order to open doors. The recipe is pretty old, but it’s presented in a fresh manner, which makes the whole thing kind of fun and engaging.

There’s even a story to keep you company, although it’s not very original either. As such, you play as a robot named Sleet, and it finds itself having to solve a series of puzzles without having a clue as to why. However, a new character enters the picture after at one point, and the two of you tackle the challenges together, which means that the game supports co-op sessions as well.

Each room requires you to use one of the multiple deployable tools at your disposal, including lasers, saws, and a variety of other things. These can also be combined to obtain the desired contraption, and most rooms even force you to use a bit of maths too. Even if it’s not complicated per se, you still have to work the brain a little, if only to figure out how to reach a solution.

On top of it all, the game is a looker as well, although it’s a shame that there’s nothing much to see most of the time. Thanks to Unreal Engine 4, everything is nicely rendered and almost photorealistic, although there’s a heavy layer of post-processing effects added on top. On the other hand, the animations are great, but the controls could use a bit of tuning.

All things considered, Recourse is certainly quite polished, and it features a decent amount of content as well. However, it would seem like it’s a bit overpriced, at least when you consider the fact that this is not really a game for the masses.