Aurora Watching review

My sister came round this afternoon and for a good three hours I helped her put some items up for auction on eBay. She’s none too bright when it comes to the interweb, you see. And due to the fact she’s three years older than me, naturally the afternoon had many an argument.

While putting up listings for several girly items it occurred to me I’m never going to get those three hours of my life back again. And who knows what I could have accomplished within them? I could have cured cancer. I could have won on a scratch card. I could have played Aurora Watching.

No, actually… forget that last one. If there is one thing losing those three hours managed to achieve, it was pure pleasure by contrast towards playing one of the most God awful pieces of gaming I’ve ever stumbled across. Aurora Watching? Aurora Bloody Boring, more like.

Arctic Stealth Action

Sound familiar? Yeah, you’ll get that a lot when playing this trash. If there is one thing Aurora Watching wants to be it's Metal Gear Arctic. Everything, from the snowy location, the codec-like conversations, the gravely lead character and the stealth screams rip-off.

It doesn’t just end with Metal Gear Solid however – Aurora Watching also has delusions of being several other games. Splinter Cell, Hitman, No One Lives Forever and The Thing feature more prominently than any others. But most your time spent playing soon becomes a game of spot the rip-off.

What story there is really isn’t important when you realise you’ve spent three hours playing and you’ve only witnessed two cutscenes. It involves terrorists, a sunken submarine and zombies. Actually, the back of the box sums it up much better than I can: Zombies, Laser-Traps, A Sunken Submarine and Covert Surveillance.

I’m freezing…I could really use some booze

After a laboriously long and terribly narrated training sequence, we cut to the first in-game cinematic – and the only one you’ll see for quite some time. Two special agents strode into the humble, downtrodden abode of one White Fox.

White Fox, it just so happens, has left the Special Forces behind him to embark on a life of seclusion, cigarettes and booze. He’s practically chugging on a bottle like a happy loon when the agents discover him.

And quicker than you can say Solid Snake he’s picked up, shipped off, ass firmly planted outside an Arctic post with no clear idea what in the Hell you’re supposed to be doing. But free from the awkward training tutorial, you now get to experience the game in all its pathetically sub-par glory.

The Worst Hangover Ever

That’s the name of the very first mission – and something White Fox adheres to keep mentioning as you play. He has little aside, you see – a nudge, nudge, wink, wink of sorts where he tells the gamer he’s desperate for a drink, or that the cold is killing him.

By using the mouse-wheel you’re able to control White Fox’s movement speeds from crouching surreptitiously, walking, and running. Problems quickly arise when you realise the game really wants you to play it sneakily. Which wouldn’t be much of a problem were it not for the fact White Fox moves unbelievable slow, even when running at full pace.

But running is the last thing you want to do around these guys. As your Soliton Radar system shows… sorry, as you’re unknown but virtually MGS-like radar shows, despite how far away the guards may be they can pretty much hear you trudging around from quite a ways off.

Should you manage to alert too many of them you may wish you hadn’t. Not because they provide any amount of threat – which they really don’t – but because it serves to highlight how bloody terrible the AI is. I stood behind a large box and still managed to pick guards off despite the fact my arm had disappeared into the box itself.

Sneak and Eliminate

You’re able to loot dead bodies for extra ammo or weapons – and this shows the same way interaction works with any item in Aurora Watching. You right click on the subject first, and then left click on the open or search buttons which emerge.

Quite why you have to right click, and then left click is beyond me. As is the use of the aiming-cam – which you use by pressing the spacebar.

All it achieves is a camera view from directly above. But given the fact the map clearly points out every enemy, and the standard camera works well enough anyway, it’s merely a superfluous feature. It’s as though the developer attempted to add variety but purely for the sake of doing so. It benefits the game in no way at all.

To further prove how inept the game is: in a cutscene White Fox sets a large open elevator to descend a long drop. At the very bottom a guard stands nearby on patrol. For reasons which are not only unclear, but are absolutely preposterous, White Fox is able to hide from the guard all the way down.

As the lift arrives, we see the guard from the opposite side of the closed door as he steps forward to investigate. Down drops White Fox behind him – somehow having managed to jump into the narrow corridor with him.

He breaks the guard's neck, and the level starts. Now that would be bad enough…except you begin the level back in the lift, the doors closed before your very eyes, the guard dead on the floor on the opposite. Now that’s either glaring problem, or White Fox decided to step back into the lift for some covert downtime.

Spit It Out

Actually that’s a lie. Surprisingly, there are a couple of pluses to be found in this trash. First of all the graphics really aren’t that bad. They’re smooth, invoking IO’s Hitman franchise – and the physics are top notch. Popping guards in the head proves surprisingly fun too.

Most of all, the box is downright lovely – with its whites and greys and...oh God, do we have to go on? This is an awful, awful, awful game. Don’t even buy it for your enemies. Don’t even think about it. You’ll never get the time back you spend playing this rubbish.

I mean you could cure cancer or something.