Human After All?: A Review Of The Talos Principle As A Corrupt .txt File

Why a .txt file? Because it's thematically relevant, I suppose. Play the game and you'll understand. Suffice to say, it's an excellent puzzler.

So give me just a second and I'll load that up for you. Bring up cmd.exe, load Milton Library Assistant...Ah! There we go. Apologies, it is corrupted in a few places, and the corrupted data definitely isn't code or some hidden text. Okay? Okay.

Loading library session...done.

Mounting local disks... [47 million] distributed resources found.

Connected network drives... ERROR: network inaccessible.

Initiating command prompt...done.

Library archive session ready.

> list

talosprinciple-timreview.txt

doomworld2019-05-06.html

nextfriday.eml

> mount talosprinciple-timreview.txt

%%%ERROR:ACCESSVOID 74 69 6d 6f 74 68 79 20 69 73 20 61 20 63 6f 6f 6c 20 64 75 64 65 Talos Principle manages to walk a fine line between philosophising about a wide range of topics and fun gameplay (with questions like what it means to be human, what could be considered a citizen, what is consciousness etc.). But in addition to that, it also manages to include fiendish puzzles, excellent environmental design with tall cathedrals, frozen wastelands and serene paradises...Not to mention engaging and thoughtful worldbuilding pulling intertextually from across Literature. And when it comes to the worldbuilding, a lot of the pieces have to be put together by the player who controls a robot - the newest of your "generations", guided by a voice in the sky who calls himself "Elohim" (Bibilical Hebrew for "God"...Subtle) - and you as the player decide whether you stick to Elohim's path or decide your own fate. Having this player interaction on a storytelling level is quite apt for a puzzle game, as it's all integrated into the game's gameplay, world and lore; with all of the philosophy and texts left behind by humanity, who have vanished off the face of the earth, being found in strange terminals left around the different worlds you visit. And they paint an obscured but fascinating image of humanity's past: old forgotten texts, emails and memos corrupted by aging hardware and software, mere remnants of what humanity is (or was). This includes a strange seemingly sentient program called Milton, who you can debate with throughout the course of the game. Whether or not you construct this puzzle of a story or even view these terminals at all is entirely up to you, which only adds to the mystery, relying entirely on the player's own agency and independence to make decisions to investigate or leave it be - something which is core to the design of various aspects of The Talos Principle's storyworld.

Other than the worldbuilding, what's also mysterious is the music. It's somehow both YnV0IGhpcyByZXZpZXdzIGNhbiBiZSBraW5kYSBiYWQ= melancholic and relaxing (almost as if it's lulling you into a false sense of security and peace...Hmm...). Now, when it comes to the gameplay, it wasn't too hard nor was it too easy and it MOSTLY managed to find a good balance between difficulty and fun (although sometimes, the difficulty of puzzles spiked or fell dramatically so it wasn't a perfect gradual incline of difficulty). But I have to say, while I did use a few guides here and there to solve some of the puzzles, I did do most of them on my own. And none of the puzzles were SO hard that I tore my hair out in frustration. Also, bear in mind, I didn't 100% the game (something which I don't normally do in the first place), but I did get 2/3 endings and about 80% of the achievements - so I saw a good deal of the content on offer. And what I did play, I supremely enjoyed (as evidenced by the fact that I played through some of the post-game/end-game content).

If you are a fan of any puzzler that has strong worldbuilding shrouded in secrecy WRAPPED IN A RIDDLE-(I digress). Essentially if you like Portal and Portal 2, you'll almost certainly like The Talos Principle.

Buy it, download it, enjoy it.

In the meantime, I'm going to figure out whether or not I'm still in a simsimsimsulation or not91&33%appdata% 74 68 69 73 20 69 73 20 70 72 65 74 74 79 20 70 72 65 74 65 6e 74 69 6f 75 73 2c 20 69 73 6e 27 74 20 69 74 3f