We put ourselves into virtual worlds all the time. Sometimes, the characters we play are open books and we fill in the details with our own experiences. In The Talos Principle: Deluxe Edition, you are playing a character who needs some gaps filled in, and while he may not look human, the game tries to lead to you to question whether or not he is a person.
The Talos Principle is a puzzle game delivered to you in the first person. Constantly compared with the ground-breaking Portal, Talos Principle will challenge your critical thinking skills in a myriad of ways through the use of lasers, echoes of yourself, physics and yes, your very own companion cube hexahedron. The puzzles themselves range from deceptively simple to frustratingly complex with a multitude of “Eureka!” moments that make you feel like a genius – that is until you realize this is exactly how everyone did it. Though, that does not diminish that initial feeling of intellectual mastery.
In playing The Talos Principle, I begin to break it down into 2 narratives or story lines. There are the actual puzzle-solving and critical thinking pieces where you walk into a designated area and have a short-term problem you must solve, and then there is the over-arching design of you being placed in a barren world with a voice coming from the sky named Elohim and a computer AI that is supposed to help you with the computer archives, but while he does that, he questions who you are and what your purpose is in this world. Now, I have studied very little on the philosophy of identity, but it is pretty clear that is where this is going and sometimes, it’s a little heavy-handed.
It’s difficult not to make comparisons between The Talos Principle and Portal: they are both in first-person mode, both have puzzles to solve and both have philosophical implications. And while Talos Principle is a little overly serious about its philosophical questioning and Portal is more tongue in cheek about it, Talos Principle’s puzzles are, in many cases, just as good as Portal’s. Let the comparisons be made, it is in good company.
Overall, The Talos Principle: Deluxe Edition is a solid experience on the PlayStation 4. With more than 120 puzzles to solve and hauntingly beautiful landscapes, it is easy to get pulled into this world of solitude where you aren’t quite alone, but can be lonely. You will also get plenty of bang for your buck with the original game along with the Road to Gehenna DLC boxed in. People looking for some intellectual stimulation will find a challenge in Talos Principle’s puzzles and design.
The Talos Principle: Deluxe Edition is available on PS4 at GameStop, Best Buy, Amazon and other retail locations, and via download at the PlayStation Store, in North and South America.