Remember when Quantic Dream actually developed video games rather than glorified movies that let you walk forward on occasion? I know it sounds crazy, but that actually happened. Granted, the later games Quantic Dream developed had intriguing and involving narratives, but they still were too akin to films with little gameplay. In the wake of David Bowie's unfortunate passing, we've decided to go all the way back to 1999. Which saw the release of Quantic Dream's first video game that had story input, cameos, and original game tracks by the man, the myth, the legend, David Bowie; in Omikron: The Nomad Soul.

Omikron: The Nomad Soul may have the strangest story in video game history, but that isn't necessarily a bad thing. The Nomad Soul begins with our protagonist, Kay'l 669, directly speaking to the player. Kay'l 669 asks the player if they can help save his dimension, but first, the player must "transfer their soul" into the body of Kay'l so they may control him. Things only get stranger from here. After the player "transfers their soul" into the body of Kay'l, he is then transported into Omikron; a dark cyberpunk city on a world called Phaenon. Once the player enters Omikron as Kay'l 669, they must continue his investigation into a string of serial killings with his partner, Den. This quickly escalates into anti-government conspiracies, demons, and an ancient religious order led by David Bowie himself (as a character known as "Boz").

The plot initially feels overwhelming and convoluted, but once you trek further into The Nomad Soul's narrative and begin to understand what exactly is going on, you will quickly become engrossed in this world's story. Admittedly, to me at first, the story felt too strange and awkward at first.

This almost got me to completely give up on The Nomad Soul, but I was glad that I sat through until the end because my initial feelings soon went away. The Nomad Soul's story isn't perfect though. While the overall plot eventually gets more engaging, the characters always feel so one dimensional. You never care about their struggles or how their fates play into the overall scheme of everything. That is with the exception of one character.

I'd be going too deep into spoiler territory if I said too much, but David Bowie's performance as Boz is absolutely fantastic. Although Boz has odd motivations and isn't around long enough to become likable, David Bowie portrays him in a way that intrigues you every second he's on screen. I even purchased Omikron: The Nomad Soul again on Steam to play through to his part.

For 1999, the graphics are fairly good. The darker shading and non-reflective surfaces help bring the dark Blade Runner-esque world to life. Granted, the graphics were good, but they weren't anything to write home about.

Sadly, this is a poorly optimized game. The only settings you are given to tweak are resolution, clipping distance, display sky, display shadow, street activity, and detail level.

This may not sound like an issue since most of our computers were built after the dinosaurs died off, but there is also a 30fps lock that hinders your experience with the game. I even had an issue running at a framerate above 20fps due to an issue with the 30 fps lock.

The Nomad Soul also happened to be one of the earlier games to use motion capture technology for some actors, including David Bowie. The technology was still fairly primitive back in 1999 for games, but it was still nice to see slightly more animated faces on some characters.

Decent gameplay and Quantic Dream usually get along together about as well as Anakin Skywalker and a group of younglings. So, is it different in this case? Yes and no. Yes, there is a lot more gameplay in The Nomad Soul than what you will find in Heavy Rain or Beyond: Two Souls, but it feels pretty awkward and clunky. I can't really blame the game for that because a lot of older games played in modern times feel clunky and awkward. Times change and so does player accessibility.

There are two types of combat gameplay. First, we have hand to hand combat. Hand to hand is also the less awkward of the two. Once you've engaged in a fisty cuffs battle, you control kicking and punching with the WASD keys. I never could get a good pattern so I just mashed them until I won. The second is gun combat. Once you are given a gun, you are put into a first person perspective. While serviceable, the gunplay in The Nomad Soul feels stiff. Especially when you have enemies from all sides and you have to work with the Resident Evil style tank controls. Overall I've had better, but I've also had much worse.

With the inclusion of David Bowie, you would think that the soundtrack would be absolutely amazing, right? Well, it certainly is great, but it falls short of perfection because of the lack of David Bowie sung songs. There are a few songs sung by Bowie himself, but the rest from him are purely instrumentals and you would have to be a diehard Bowie fan to notice. The other side of the soundtrack comes from Reeves Gabrels. His additions are also good and add to the dark cyberpunk vibe. Gabrels' additions also sound akin to Bowie's genre of music.

Voice acting in The Nomad Soul is also convincing with an exceptional performance from David Bowie himself as Boz. The distorted computerized effect to his voice is also a great addition. A lot of expository dialogue is, unfortunately, just in text. This is most similar to examining an object in Silent Hill and Resident Evil. Along with the fixed camera positions, you will be right at home to many of the features of The Nomad Soul if you are coming off of Resident Evil or Silent Hill.

With the inclusion of many strange features and elements, one would think that Omikron: The Nomad Soul doesn't always know what it wants to be. And you may be right with that conclusion, but that doesn't make it a bad game. In fact, The Nomad Soul does just enough different from other games to remain entirely unique. This is an Underrated Gem in every sense of the word. Just as I did for the late Lemmy Kilmister with Brutal Legend (which was uploaded before his passing), this Underrated Gems article is dedicated to David Bowie.

I suppose it's understandable to see why many people forgot about this gem, but that doesn't mean it's a bad game. It may take some extra hoops to jump through to get this to run on modern machines, but you can still buy Omikron: The Nomad Soul on both Steam and GOG for less than usual microtransaction. I highly recommend you give this game a try.

This is arguably Quantic Dream's best game. An intriguing story, David Bowie, a great soundtrack, AND actual gameplay? It feels like a dream, but it's not. It's a Quantic Dream.

Rest in peace, David Bowie (1947 - 2016)

Now where did this undying love begin? Well one day, whilst strolling through the Xbox Live marketplace, I stumbled upon an interesting little title that caught my eye; Mars: War Logs. The description and screenshots made it appear as a Mass Effect-esque space adventure. This was back in 2015, so I was still emotionally scarred from the utter disappointment of Mass Effect 3, and had yet to experience the human rights violating atrocity known as Mass Effect: Andromeda. I needed a worthy successor to Mass Effect, so after glancing over some reviews, I took a gamble on Mars: War Logs, and boy, did I get it.

Mars: War Logs opens on, you guessed it, Mars, in a POW camp where we are introduced to our first companion, Innocence, through a heavily implied attempted gay rape scene. If there's a better way than that to start a game, then I haven't seen it. Luckily the protagonist, Roy, intervenes just in time to prevent that from happening. What follows is a slow, yet deliberate prison break sequence reminiscent of The Great Escape that sets the tone and narrative for the rest of the game.

While some might be initially put off by the overall depressing tone of Mars: War Logs, I think it's fantastic because it illustrates a grittier depiction of war and death in a cyberpunk future. Most games with similar themes, such as Mass Effect and the latest entries in the Call of Duty series, show a much more "Hollywood-ized" version of those themes complete with huge budgets and explosion filled set pieces. Whereas Mars: War Logs drags you down into the thick of it. If that's the kind of future we have to look forward to, I'd look at Mars: War Logs to get a more accurate picture of what to expect; technomancy excluded.

"Technomancy?" What? Yes, in a way, similar to Biotics in the Mass Effect series, Mars: War Logs features "Technomancy." However, unlike Biotics, technomancy is limited to the ability to wield and control the power of electricity. Characters trained from a young age to use 'pre-Turmoil' artifacts enabling them to wield the electricity produced by the human body are called "Technomancers." Normally this would be a spoiler, but Mars: War Logs spoils itself with a locked skill tree that says "technomancy" when selected; Roy is a technomancer. The introduction of this plot point also becomes a gameplay change that was executed perfectly. Up until this point, I'd been playing for about 4 hours, so the fights had been becoming rather stale, and I can't help but feel this was intentional to make your newly acquired technomancy powers feel all the more powerful to freshen up the gameplay.

Anything beyond that actually would be a spoiler. So let's recap the story thus far: you're on Mars, it's a gritty cyberpunk future, you play as a guy named Roy, and Roy is a Technomancer. Got it? Alright, let's move on.

Mars: War Logs is not, I repeat: NOT, a shooter. Not a first person shooter. Not a third person shooter. Not a Bulgarian miak shooter. NOT a shooter. Surprising, right? Well the reason I bring this up is because, according to many reviews from both critics and users that I've come across, many people went into Mars: War logs expecting a third person shooter similar to Mass Effect. I don't know if it's because shooters were the only games being developed at the time or the fact that Mass Effect really is the only game Mars: War Logs can be compared to, but Mars: War Logs is a third person action adventure, not a shooter. However there are gun in gameplay, but they are used in a similar way to the guns in Bloodborne. Yet you wouldn't categorize Bloodborne as a third person shooter, right?

Perhaps it was just me, but I was nearly overwhelmed when first experiencing the combat Mars: War Logs had to offer. That was until I realized how simple, yet ingenious it actually was. You have basic melee combat mechanics such as attack, block, and dodge, but that won't be enough to get your through most enemy encounters. That's because enemies are actually somewhat competent and won't hesitate to murder you repeatedly if you try to spam your attacks. Since the enemies are as tough as nails, you must remain vigilant in every fight. Like I said, you have your attack, your block, and your dodge, but you must also utilize your ability to break your enemy's block, your technomancy powers, and the orders you issue to your companion.

It may sound fairly simple at first, but in practice, it can be a nightmare to get through fights if you don't know what you're doing; even on the easiest difficulty setting. This is where I discovered the one major flaw in Mars: War Logs' combat- the companions. Being able to control whether or not your companions should focus on melee attacks, dodging, or ranged attacks may sound like a blessing, but that's completely squandered once you realize that enemies will gang up almost exclusively on your companion, so unless you set them to dodge, they're going down in just a couple of hits from multiple enemies. So I devised a routine to account for this problem. Set your companion to focus on dodging, take out the out any ranged enemies, then pick off the enemies ganging up on your companion one by one. This routine makes combat a breeze, but enemy encounters begin to get stale. While not fatal, this flaw definitely does hurt an otherwise great combat system.

Outside of combat, Mars: War Logs is a fairly open exploration game. While not an "open world game" per-se, Mars: War Logs' open, non-linear level design is great. You'll be able to visit multiple locations around Mars ranging from a hellish prison camp to a decaying ghetto and even a war torn city; all full of side quests with interesting characters and stories. It's clear that a monumental amount of love went into fleshing out these characters and locations to create a seemingly living breathing world. Even if that world is a sun scorched hell hole ravaged by war and human atrocities.

The side quests, and even some of the early main quests, introduce the player to Mars: War Logs' morality system. Now before you roll your eyes so far back that you snap your optic nerve, I am happy to report that Mars: War Logs is one of the few games on the market today that properly utilizes a morality system. I'm sure we're all used to morality systems in games being as simple as "be a jerk for absolutely no reason other than receiving weapon that is slightly better than the one you're using right now" or "be a goody two-shoes and get nothing other than a nice big thumbs up from the game for being a good person." While there definitely are some side quests that end like that, most of the quests in Mars: War Logs end in moral ambiguity, and it is imperative that you understand which decision will affect your moral standings with a companion and/or faction. Something you may believe to be beneficial to whomever gave you the quest may in fact cause your companion to grow suspicious of you and even eventually distrust you.

As I said before, my initial discovery of Mars: War Logs was while browsing the Xbox Live marketplace, so my first playthrough of this underrated gem was on my poor old Xbox 360. Of course, that being said, the graphical fidelity of Mars: War Logs on console was... okay. Obviously not up to par with the latest AAA or even most middle market releases at the time, but also nothing that made my eyes bleed. On PC, however, Mars: War Logs actually doesn't look half bad. Facial and clothing textures are well detailed, expansive Mars vistas are a sight for sore eyes, and all at a buttery smooth 60 frames per second on any PC built before the turn of the century with little to no dips during transitions between loading areas.

Although I was hoping for a more synthesizer heavy soundtrack in a cyberpunk game, Mars: War Logs' soundtrack is actually quite incredible. Often times I found myself in a quiet area of the map just listening to the original score Sylvain Prunier crafted for Spiders. So props to you, Mr. Prunier. Listen for yourself.

While not necessarily a masterpiece, Mars: War Logs is a testament to proper RPG and game design the likes of which we haven't seen since the original Mass Effect. Undeserved hate and criticism comes with the territory in the middle market, but Mars: War Logs is one of the most undeserving of said hate and criticism of any middle market game I've ever experienced. The combat could have done with a bit more polishing and testing, and the side quests could have been a tad bit more unique, but if you're like me and often long for a proper role-playing experience, then do yourself a favor a pick up Mars: War Logs.