Surface: Virtual Detective Collector's Edition

Virtual reality may be in its infancy at the moment, but it’s already very powerful and convincing, at least in certain scenarios. However, the developers are constantly trying to improve the devices and the simulation itself, so it’s simple to imagine how things might look and feel in the near future. With enough progress, people might actually lose track of reality if they let themselves experience their fantasies.

Surface: Virtual Detective is a hidden object adventure game that challenges you to put your investigative skills to the test and find out the culprit behind a couple of disappearances. As the name clearly implies, the whole thing revolves around virtual reality, although the technology is much more advanced and potent in the game than what we currently have.

As such, you play as a detective who takes on a peculiar case. Everything starts when people using the latest virtual reality capsule go missing, and it’s especially weird when the total number of comatose or disappearing people exceeds one thousand. Naturally, the goal is to use this device yourself and investigate the VR universe it simulates in order to find the reason for all the disappearances.

The puzzles that form the gameplay are not particularly tough, but you might new a few minutes to figure out the right patterns to solve them. In essence, there are no unclear riddles to deal with, especially since every puzzle comes with a description and an explanation. This takes away most of the challenge, but then again the game was designed for casual audiences, so it’s only natural that it doesn’t feature complex mechanics.

Thankfully, the graphics are very expressive and detailed, especially when it comes to the level design and the environments you get to admire. It can be argued that the characters are rather stiff and inexpressive, but the static 2D engine has its limitation, as it’s only normal. On top of that, the great voice acting makes you forget about the lack of visual acuity.

Surface: Virtual Detective achieves its purpose and it manages to provide you with a fun and enjoyable experience, in spite of its simple puzzles. Moreover, it tackles a pretty unexplored subject at the moment, since there aren’t many interesting stories involving virtual reality.

NOTE: This is a downloader for the game. Once run, the application will automatically download and install the game on your computer.

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