A.I.L.A

A.I.L.A. was provided by Fireshine Games for review. Thank you!

In today's world, it isn't insane to have a fear of the possibility of what AI could become. It's scary seeing it seep into almost everything we do online now, and it can feel a bit crazy. Still, it's interesting to think about where it could head, and that makes some games with overly intelligent AI quite intriguing. A.I.L.A is one of these stories, taking on what a game-focused AI could do if given control of our ever-evolving world of tech and how it integrates into our daily lives. Despite a predictable story and combat I wish I could avoid, A.I.L.A succeeds in creating a horrific experience that kept me on my toes and shows off a variety of locations that kept me hooked until the end.

A.I.L.A’s story is a bit on the predictable side, but that didn’t stop it from being entertaining. We play as Samuel, a game tester who is testing out a brand new product called A.I.L.A. This unit packs an advanced AI that can create horror experiences based on the preferences of its user. However, almost immediately, the AI seems to be pushing its limits, and it drives us to new experiences and a loss of control that hits a little bit hard in this current age.

While the whole storyline and AI’s evolution is easy to guess, it’s still a lot of fun to play through. I enjoyed the back and forth, going through the unique levels A.I.L.A creates, which range from creepy apartment complexes to medieval landscapes. The pacing does feel a little off at times, with some levels taking up a lot of time to just get back to our apartment for a few minutes of story development, but I loved the variety that each level brought to the table. It felt like condensed, unique horror experiences all put into one game, which was interesting. And with meaningful choices involved that can lead to multiple different endings, there are reasons to dive back in and play multiple times.

In today’s day and age, AI stories tend to hit a little harder than they used to. With the rise of AI and all the products being created with it, it’s a justifiable fear to think AI could become self-aware. It’s because of this possible eventuality that A.I.L.A’s story just hits different. It’s not necessarily a bad thing; it makes the story a little more impactful than it would be otherwise, which I would consider good.

For horror games, visuals are a very important aspect to creating a haunting experience, and A.I.L.A takes this to heart. The visuals are stunning and creepy, which made me want to take things slow and steady to get through each level. And because of the variety of each level, due to the way the game is structured, it always felt like there was something unique in each place.

The gameplay is pretty straightforward for horror games, feeling reminiscent of the newer Resident Evil games that take place in first person. You walk around each level and solve puzzles to continue the story along, experiencing horrors as you go. I would say 95% of the puzzles are pretty straightforward, but do require some thought to complete, as well as utilizing objects we find scattered around to complete them. There are some directions on what to do next, like whether to find the right fingerprint to unlock a door or fix a car, but it’s up to you to figure it out.

There are some puzzles that I found a little too difficult, but the majority of them can be figured out with a little bit of thought. Still, it never got to a frustrating point, and ultimately, it was fun to figure out.

However, I wish combat weren’t as prominent as it is. There are some levels where fighting enemies becomes a necessity, and the mechanics just don’t feel great. There are both melee weapons and guns we can use, but it feels half-baked with enemies that feel like bullet sponges. There are some generous aspects, like respawning at full health if you die and the shotgun being decently powerful, but it’s still borderline aggravating. I wanted to avoid these sections completely without my more powerful weapons, but they didn’t frustrate me enough to ruin the overall experience. I didn’t like them, and it just felt clunky with some areas not having enough ammo, and melee combat feeling floaty, but it was something I could overlook.

A.I.L.A. - Steam Deck Performance

A.I.L.A is a bit of an odd one on the Steam Deck. It did get Verified ahead of its launch, and I would say it technically deserves the badge due to its default settings going straight to the lowest, but this makes some of the levels look terrible. The lighting completely changes the game, and it makes the scene look either devoid of shadows or devoid of color. Some places look terrible, like our apartment and the first two levels we will play through.

However, there are also some levels that look better at low quality. The third level, where we are at a farm, performs significantly better on Low over Medium, but visually, it looks about the same or better. It's an odd conundrum that makes it hard to choose settings to recommend. On one hand, we can go with low visuals with a good chunk of the game looking bad, but performing well. But on the other hand, we can get solid visuals with some drops in other levels.

Personally, I actually preferred dealing with the drops. There are a couple of extra changes that I made to stabilize the framerate a little more, like turning FSR to Performance upscaling and View Distance to Low, but it still looks fantastic. For horror games like this, visuals can be a big part of the experience, and while there is some pixelation from upscaling, the lighting makes a huge difference. It does drain battery life a bit more as well, but this is a demanding game in general, and I found the trade-offs worth it.

The only big issue is that every time the game is booted up, the settings will default back to Low. It's a little annoying to have to change each time, so I can understand defaulting to just staying at Low, but the game looks significantly better in most areas at Medium, so it's hard not to change it each time.

アクセシビリティ

There is a dedicated Accessibility tab in the game, which includes options for subtitles, showing objectives, aim assistance (highly recommended if playing with a controller), Vignette Effect, camera shake, font contour, reticle and interaction icon size, and color blindness options for Protanopia, Deuteranopia, and Tritanopia.

We also have regular options for showing tutorials, auto reloading, camera blend, bloodscreen, showing the reticle at all, controller sensitivity, running mode, changing the controller scheme, switching between English and Portuguese voiceovers, and changing audio volume.

The game does support 16:10 resolutions, cloud saves, and controllers. There are no HDR settings.

結論

A.I.L.A is a solid horror game that shines thanks to its gorgeous visuals and interesting story. Despite it being a bit predictable, I was entertained and enjoyed seeing everything play out, and the variety of locations made the experience overall feel very unique and kept me interested. Combat parts of gameplay weren't that enjoyable, but I had a great time figuring out the puzzles, and it strikes a nice balance with its difficulty. Still, it's an overall unique and enjoyable time that fans of horror will enjoy.

And even though it isn't the greatest experience out of the box, it's playable on the Steam Deck. It doesn't save the changed settings on a new boot, but the visuals look significantly better set to Medium over Low for the most part. Still, either way, it's playable and enjoyable on the go.

このレビューはPC版に基づいています。

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