The Assembly Review

Review The Assembly | Most promotion for The Assembly is for VR-play, so I was a little shocked and confused that it was coming for Xbox One.  As you know, we currently have no VR-option so you’ll have to play The Assembly on your Television screen, turns out that it was the right decision from developer nDreams to give it to Xbox players. Find out more in this review!

THE GOOD

• In this first-person adventure game you take the role of two playable characters. Caleb who works for The Assembly and Madeleine, a scientist that the organisation wants to recruit. This set-up is perfect for learning more about the mysterious and dangerous plans from the organisation. The storytelling is realistic and exciting. Especially with Caleb things turn out very dark and sinister, at times I was thinking “maybe things like this are happening at Area 51 in Nevada” things like that show that the interactive story is working though, it’s engaging and you want to know why The Assembly wants to recruit Madeleine. Caleb’s storyline is far more intriguing and shocking, it was my favorite but both of them are well-directed.
• Story wise Caleb was my favorite but Madeleine has the better gameplay. Her puzzles are far superior, a little different too. You’ll be doing some unexpected things, like solving a murder dinner for example.
• The Assembly uses Unreal Engine 4 and looks particularly well for an Indie-game. They went for a realistic look and mostly succeed in this. Everything looks crisp and detailed enough to be almost lifelike. (the crows look terrible though)
• Developer nDreams made sure to hire great voice actors too. They perform their roles perfectly and try to deliver great work with disappointing writing. (See mixed) Even the less important NPC characters have good voices!

Mixed Feelings

• It’s a shame that the talent from the voice actors aren’t challenged enough by the writing. Dialogue remains a little bit too easy and fails to deliver some meaningful lines. Nevertheless, the game doesn’t really require it so I placed it with Mixed feelings. I am a little disappointed that with a great voice acting cast they didn’t try to use it more to their advantage.

The Bad

• The underground facility looks nice but doesn’t feel alive. Some rooms try to solve this with test-animals but I really missed some kind of human interaction. I mean, it doesn’t make any sense that Caleb can run around without ever really seeing someone. Yeah sure, it’s a nice touch to solve some love life issues between colleagues but everything feels too artificial and unreal.

Score: 77% | I have a weakness for story-driven games like this. The Assembly is a perfect addition for the Xbox game catalogue. Who knows? Maybe we’ll get to play The Assembly in VR on Xbox One Scorpio?  What’s important though, even without VR, The Assembly is an exciting and entertaining experience that I can really recommend for gamers that like thriller movies.