‘The Occupation’ has too many bugs to be any fun: Game review

The following review of The Occupation is spoiler-free, mostly because I couldn’t make it work long enough to see the ending.

Turing City, 1987. A bomb has gone off at the Bowman-Carson building, killing 23. Harvey Miller must use his cunning investigative journalism skills to crack this alarming whodunit wide open. 

To begin his investigation, Harvey will — pause for dramatic effect — probably need to wait for an   update.

The Occupation, a first-person perspective adventure from White Paper Games, has many of the parts necessary to make for an engaging and enticing mystery. Unfortunately, its insufferable mountain of bugs kept me from enjoying any of them. Instead, I was left confused, frustrated, and (above all else) stuck in a vent for 30+ minutes of playtime.

Making use of a modern fear, The Occupation chronicles the darkly political aftermath of a terror attack. As an investigative journalist, your job is to sift through the lies being fed to the public about the attack, as well as the oppressive “protective” legislation resulting from it, to uncover the truth behind the horror.

An insufferable mountain of bugs left me confused, frustrated, and  stuck in a vent for 30+ minutes of playtime.

The game breaks your investigation into a series of real-time 60-minute chunks — think of them as levels — during which you can scrutinize any number of leads before conducting an interview with a knowledgeable character when time runs out.

As you explore, you gather evidence by eavesdropping on conversations, perusing prohibited areas, and scouring over confidential documents — taking care to avoid getting nabbed by security (and keeping an eye on your watch) in the process. Fittingly, the observations you make enhance the quality of the interview you conduct at the level’s end.

The realistic feel of the investigation at first seems exciting, but it only lasts until the glitches descend upon your playthrough. At that point, the real-time pacing poses a unique threat. 

In its least harmful form, the ticking clock pairs with a glitch to steal a few minutes of your precious time, making a task as simple as scrounging through a trash bin a multi-minute affair. At its most destructive, it creates a game-breaking impasse that forces you to restart the game altogether.

Here’s how that latter nightmare materialized during my time playing The Occupation.

Before anything else, I had to wrestle with the clumsy controls. It should never take anyone more than four actions to open a door, for example. I have to select the correct key or key card from my inventory, use that key or key card on the door, grab the handle, hold the handle, and then push? Doors in real life are less complicated.

After adapting to the laborious control scheme, I began my first investigation still feeling quite hopeful. The atmosphere had me intrigued and the narrative begged for further analysis.

It was 35 minutes of investigative bliss: Steve the security guard/aspiring actor was quoting movie lines left and right as he chased me around the building. Marlon the janitor couldn’t have given less of a shit about what I was up to and incidentally kept leading me to helpful stuff. In spite of my inability to work the darn thing, my beeper made a cute noise and, for me, that was enough. I was grabbing scraps of paper, sneaking through doorways, fiddling with fuseboxes, and looking for clues in my personal detective playscape.

Then I crawled into a dark hole from which I would never return. 

Attempting to get into a locked office to retrieve a clue, I became stuck in a corner of the ventilation system. The gray and black screen bucked and shook as I tried to flop free. After sitting there for a minute or so, I gave up and exited out of the game.

Of course, I promptly got stuck to a different corner. 

When I restarted The Occupation, I was once again at the start of the 60-minute level, all of my progress lost to the glitch. I was annoyed, but soldiered on, considering it a one-time occurrence. I went through the same 35 minutes in less than 20, even picking up some extra clues that I hadn’t seen before along the way. 

With plenty of time to spare, I boldly and stupidly reentered the ventilation system, clinging to the opposite side of the duct in an effort to avoid “that” corner. Of course, I promptly got stuck to a different corner. 

Not wanting to lose my progress, I tried everything to escape restarting the game. I thrashed and shook, stood up and crouched back down, turned my hand into an angry geometric spike while checking my watch, conjured up every bizarre multi-step set of button commands from previous interactions I could think of, and otherwise smashed my controller’s buttons with varying results. 

Finally, I waited out the clock. 

I (semi-correctly) figured the game would kick me forward to the interview at the end of the hour. When a five-minute warning came over the loudspeaker approximately 35 minutes later, it worked and I regained some of my mobility. Able to shimmy my way out of the vent and toward the level’s end, I conducted a somewhat lackluster interview, watched my progress save, and bailed out of the game for the night, feeling defeated.

I somberly guided Harvey Miller into the vent system and left him there to die.

When I booted The Occupation up again the next morning hoping for a fresh start, I was inexplicably once again at the start of that same 60 minutes. I swear to Steve the Security Guard, I watched that game save. The little icon did the save-y thing. I do not know what happened beyond that. All I know is that I was once again stuck and that vent had yet to be entered. 

Unable to force myself to continue, I somberly guided Harvey Miller into the vent system this morning and left him (and my hopes of ever finishing The Occupation) there to die.

Yes, there’s something about The Occupation that is really great, and for that reason I hope it gets the update patch it deserves. Unfortunately, as it exists now, this promising mystery thriller isn’t worth spending your time or money on. Unless, of course, you really, really like getting stuck inside of vents.

The Occupation is now available for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Windows. 

Editor‘s note: HumbleBundle and Mashable are both owned by Ziff Davis.