Beholder Review – PC

Beholder is an intriguing new game that blends a bit of voyeuristic adventure with a dash of stealth-action and even a bit of strategy. You play as Carl Stein, a government-appointed building manager that is home to numerous apartments filled with a variety of tenants that you have the luxury (and duty) to spy upon. In many ways the premise is just as creepy as the actual gameplay, in this oppressive world where you covertly watch the daily lives of your tenants, peeking through keyholes, invading their apartments when they are out to search their belongings or install surveillance devices like bugs and cameras. You’ll need to profile everyone and report anyone who may be plotting against the government.

The parallels between Communist Russia and Nazi Germany are obvious in both the gameplay and the oppressive art style of the game that is easily my favorite part of the experience. The visuals are reminiscent of the bleak political commentary “toons” of that era yet manage to give the game a bit of added charm.   Beholder offers numerous endings, and while it is possible to “win” the game, you’ll have to literally destroy the lives of countless others to do so. For the type of game there is a surprisingly deep plot with elements of family loyalty and the decision to continue working for the state or join the resistance. With double agents to worry about you never know who to trust.

There is an almost guilty pleasure to the sneaky nature of the game, as you must eventually learn the habits and schedules of your tenants, so you know when it’s safe to ransack their apartments looking for any clues to subversive activities.   As the game progresses the government will pass new laws and restrictions given you fresh reasons to scour through their possessions and eavesdrop on conversations, either in person or by electronic methods. It’s quite thrilling to be in someone’s home with only minutes to spare before they are schedule to return.

You’ll earn money for turning in enemies of the state, but your legitimate earnings are seldom enough to pay the bills, let alone add new apartments or repair existing ones, which makes it all the more tempting to start planting evidence leading to additional arrests and more money, or open up the chance to blackmail your tenants.

I did have a few concerns with the game in its present state. The controls are point-n-click but require the WADS cluster to pan the camera around the 2D cutaway view of the apartment building. In a day of Big Picture Mode and game computers in the living room it’s unthinkable not to have at least basic support for a game controller. My game computer doesn’t even have keyboard that reaches my couch, so it was a big deal to even play this game let alone enjoy it. Even if they had allowed for mouse-only controls, I could have had a better time.

Another issue is with the dialogue. All the characters speak gibberish (like the Sims) but the captioned text is pretty poor, almost as if the Russian developers just ran the script through Google Translate. Considering the game supports five languages, you’d think they’d at least try to get the English translation working before moving on to Chinese.

The final issue is actually a bug in the game that doesn’t seem to register deaths properly. In some instances, the same family member would die multiple times. Another time my son died but I still won the game as if he hadn’t. Another instance they threatened my wife who was already dead.   Bugs like this really take you out of the game.

Many times, throughout Beholder I was reminded of other games like This War of Mine and Papers Please; two great games that I ultimately enjoyed more than this. Between the broken scripting, repetitive nature of the missions on future replays, and poor translation, there was just too much distracting me from the thrill of home invasions and the quirky art style. Plus, with no gamepad support this game isn’t home theater friendly. While Beholder offers an intriguing premise and original art style, the oppressive nature of the buggy gameplay makes this a tough recommendation, even at the low cost of $10.

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Author: Mark Smith
I've been an avid gamer since I stumbled upon ZORK running in my local Radio Shack in 1980. Ten years later I was working for Sierra Online. Since then I've owned nearly every game system and most of the games to go with them. Not sure if 40+ years of gaming qualifies me to write reviews, but I do it anyway.

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