There's a really satisfying edge to solving Red Matter 2 puzzles that can really feel like your galaxy brain's kicked in when the penny drops. That's partly because of how this very slightly Bioshock tinged space adventure uses its VR gameplay to lead you along. Often you'll see schematics or clipboards that you can pick up and look at to work out how to get some piece of weird space machinery working. If it was a normal game you'd be reading notes or dipping into menus to scan bits of text in a completely boring way - but in Red Matter 2 you're often standing next to whatever it is you're trying to solve with the instructions in hand, looking hopefully at anything you can grab up that might help.
It's a little bewildering at first because the game gives you nothing initially to help, including even guiding you through how any of it works. I definitely threw the 'this is how you solve it' clipboard away while investigating at least one puzzle to begin with. However, once you settle into the right groove there's a satisfyingly tangible feel to working out and solving the puzzles at hand. Instead of looking for prompts and glowing things to interact with, you're looking at physical clues in the world around you - picking up vital information from computer screens, or realising that a bottle in a cupboard looks exactly like the one on a helpful diagram. There's an escape room feel to some of the better puzzles here, and one late game challenge got an excited 'oh my God, WHAT?' moment when I pieced together something. I'm still strutting around thinking 'I'm smart' days later after that.
All this big braining is happening in a 60's style Soviet space base, hence that Bioshock call earlier. There's no genetic powers here,
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