PS4 Review: Lacuna – A Sci Fi Noir Adventure

Do I detect a worthy adventure?

A murder. A hack. A bombing. All it takes to plunge the solar system into war – unless you do something about it. Help CDI agent Neil Conrad make a string of increasingly difficult decisions in this modern dialog-driven adventure set in a gorgeous 2D sci-fi noir universe.

I honestly didn’t know what to expect with Lacuna other than what I saw in screenshots before I started playing. It has the look of an old 2D point-and-click but more refined for controller support, but there’s also a ton of choices that you make that cannot be undone once made. There’s no save function other than the autosave, so if you regret a choice…tough, you’ll need to do things differently on a second playthrough.

Lacuna lets you question witnesses, gather evidence and so on. You will also be able to submit your guesswork at opportune moments to push the story forward, regardless of whether you are right or wrong. You can handle situations in a number of different ways like questioning people can be done in a calm way or the complete reverse which can have a good or bad outcome, depending on the situation.

The game lets you highlight areas that show what can be interacted with or not, which helps if you aren’t sure what you can actually do. I was impressed with the overall interface and controls, which also thankfully lets Neil run. The story itself is intriguing and had me hooked till the end and makes me want to go through it a good few more times to get the different endings.

The visuals are made up of 2D pixels, but have an element of charm to them. This is definitely one of those games that is made to look like this to appeal to fans of old-school point and click adventures, but it’s done so well that you can’t imagine it being any other way. Voice-acting is only done by Neil during monologues, but is well done and the soundtrack is impressive overall.

The Verdict

Lacuna – A Sci-Fi Noir Adventure is a 2D mystery that you won’t want to miss out on. It’s story will keep you gripped till the end and you won’t want to miss out on any of the endings. It’s one of those rare games that even though it makes you replay it fully to get the most out of it, you will be more than happy to oblige.

Score: 9.0

Disclosure: I received a free review copy of this product from https://www.keymailer.co

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