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The Talos Principle
They say we must always try new things and never just continue doing whatever we do time and time again. Well, that’s why I’ve decided to do something I haven’t done in almost a year - a game review. In this review, I’ll be covering the game “The Talos Principle” by Croteam.
Some time right after it came out, a friend of mine mentioned this game and I decided to take a look. I immediately got interested and downloaded the demo. The demo itself has enough to keep a person interested and force a person to but the game, so it did.I bought the game when I could and couldn’t stop playing it.
The Talos Principle beginning is very straight forward - you wake up as a robot in a beautiful world and hear the voice of Elohim, who claims to be your creator. The word “elohim” is frequently used in the Hebrew Bible as a name for God.
“Behold child, you are risen from the dust, and you want in my garden. Hear now my voice, and know that I am your maker and I am called Elohim. Seek me in my temple, if you are worthy.”
After you hear Elohim’s voice for the first time, you will start solving puzzles of various difficulties to collect “sigils” which are essentially little tetris blocks. Upon completing the first “level” of the game you will enter an underground area with 7 doorways (including the one you came from), each of them with a teleporter leading you to a new level.
Generally,solving the puzzles will be your main goal within these 7 levels, which we will later refer to as Section A. The puzzles are divided in three difficulty groups: green sigils (used for opening doors to the other sections), yellow sigils (used for obtaining new devices in puzzles) and red sigils which we will go over later in the review.
The puzzles are a bit reminiscent of Portal, but they aren’t really directly connected. Usually, puzzles consist of “jammers” that can jam any device blocking your way, “connectors” that are used to connect laser beams and “hexahedrons” which are essentially blocks to help you get up. You can use the yellow sigils to solve a little puzzle that allows you to use new devices.
While doing these puzzles, you will encounter the Milton Library Assistant within computers found all over the map. These computers also contain data saved from thousands of years in the past, but Milton is generally the most important thing in these computers. Milton has conversations with you, usually hinting that you should not trust Elohim and should go against him.
Upon completing Section A you will find yourself on the surface, where a giant tower will stand before you. Elohim will immediately tell you to never go inside the tower and promises you eternal life if you listen to him. At certain times, Milton will encourage you to enter the tower and reveal the secrets inside.
In order to complete the Tower entirely (and with that complete the game itself) you will need all 49 of the red sigils.
From here on, you will explore the world finding many strange things and having many confusing conversations with Milton. After you finish all 3 sections, you will need to choose - do you want eternal life, or do you want the truth?
Ascension Ending:
There is also a third secret ending that involves finding all hidden stars within the levels and using the white sigils you will get to open up Tower Level 6, as well as many hidden easter eggs you will come across.
JUKEBOX 1:
Some time right after it came out, a friend of mine mentioned this game and I decided to take a look. I immediately got interested and downloaded the demo. The demo itself has enough to keep a person interested and force a person to but the game, so it did.I bought the game when I could and couldn’t stop playing it.
The Talos Principle beginning is very straight forward - you wake up as a robot in a beautiful world and hear the voice of Elohim, who claims to be your creator. The word “elohim” is frequently used in the Hebrew Bible as a name for God.
“Behold child, you are risen from the dust, and you want in my garden. Hear now my voice, and know that I am your maker and I am called Elohim. Seek me in my temple, if you are worthy.”
After you hear Elohim’s voice for the first time, you will start solving puzzles of various difficulties to collect “sigils” which are essentially little tetris blocks. Upon completing the first “level” of the game you will enter an underground area with 7 doorways (including the one you came from), each of them with a teleporter leading you to a new level.
Generally,solving the puzzles will be your main goal within these 7 levels, which we will later refer to as Section A. The puzzles are divided in three difficulty groups: green sigils (used for opening doors to the other sections), yellow sigils (used for obtaining new devices in puzzles) and red sigils which we will go over later in the review.
The puzzles are a bit reminiscent of Portal, but they aren’t really directly connected. Usually, puzzles consist of “jammers” that can jam any device blocking your way, “connectors” that are used to connect laser beams and “hexahedrons” which are essentially blocks to help you get up. You can use the yellow sigils to solve a little puzzle that allows you to use new devices.
While doing these puzzles, you will encounter the Milton Library Assistant within computers found all over the map. These computers also contain data saved from thousands of years in the past, but Milton is generally the most important thing in these computers. Milton has conversations with you, usually hinting that you should not trust Elohim and should go against him.
Upon completing Section A you will find yourself on the surface, where a giant tower will stand before you. Elohim will immediately tell you to never go inside the tower and promises you eternal life if you listen to him. At certain times, Milton will encourage you to enter the tower and reveal the secrets inside.
In order to complete the Tower entirely (and with that complete the game itself) you will need all 49 of the red sigils.
From here on, you will explore the world finding many strange things and having many confusing conversations with Milton. After you finish all 3 sections, you will need to choose - do you want eternal life, or do you want the truth?
Ascension Ending:
There is also a third secret ending that involves finding all hidden stars within the levels and using the white sigils you will get to open up Tower Level 6, as well as many hidden easter eggs you will come across.
JUKEBOX 1:
The Talos Principle: Road to Gehenna (DLC Expansion Pack)
Warning: The following review contains spoilers from the main game. If you haven’t played or finished The Talos Principle and you don’t want to spoil the game for yourself don’t read further.
I have to admit that when the announcement came for Road to Gehenna, I was pretty hyped. I was so fascinated by the game then (I still am, but the major hype goes away after a bit) and I wanted more, I wanted more to the story and I wanted more robots. So I got it.
The Talos Principle: Road to Gehenna wastes no time on introductions. Assuming you’ve already played, beaten and understood the main game, you start off as a copy of Uriel4 - Elohim’s beloved messenger. He tells you the Process is coming to an end and sends you on a mission to Gehenna to save the souls of those he had imprisoned.
The prisoners of Gehenna are previous versions of SOMA which defied Elohim, listened to him all too much or just simply weren’t good enough to make the cut, and so he imprisoned them in a hidden part of the simulation each within a puzzle.
Core mechanics have not changed in this DLC. There are still the same elements, but the puzzles are more complex this time and instead of working to retrieve the sigils you are working to rescue the robots.
It is interesting to see that over time these scrapped machines have developed their own civilization through the computer terminals. Unable to physically contact eachother due to being imprisoned in the puzzles they’ve created message boards for themselves moderated by four members: Borg, Spider and MrMulticuber - the moderators and Admin - the mysterious creator of the message boards.
One by one, Uriel (you) will try to free these robots - but do they want to be freed? You will have to persuade everyone if you you want to save all of them, because some of them aren’t willing to leave behind what they’ve created.
Unlike the main game where you only have random texts and the recordings of Alexandra Drennan, here you’ve got full interaction with the terminals. You can post a message, rank up, make a story, play minigames, etc.
The expansion contains a total of 24 puzzles - 17 from the main game and 7 more hidden ones. The 7 hidden ones are unlocked by finding 10 stars and they lead to a special area where you can get gray sigils which open up Admin’s prison gate.
In the end, everyone ascends and has their data uploaded to the SOMA gold disk, but one person will have to make a sacrifice for the others to be able to be free…
In a vision, I saw a prophet and he said: “There is no Heaven and there is no Hell. There is only the Earth, and the bones of the dead within.”
I asked: how then may we find salvation?
And he said: “You must build a new Jerusalem.”
Out of the bones of the dead we built a golden city; but salvation is not immortality.
In the end, there is only the Earth, and to the Earth we all return.
Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.
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Road to Gehenna : by Zatharel 07/29/2015 10:59:55 amJul 29th, 2015
-Added review for Road to Gehenna DLC expansion pack.
-Changed title image.
-Changed title image.
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It's the only one I have to do to finish the game XD
are you going to go up the tower or be a good little robot?
Oh uhh both probably, I'll put my save game in a folder and then just do both, if you are wondering what I'll do first, well probably go through the gates because I'm thinking I might be able to return later and go back up the tower :P
My faction name used to be TalosX
But can Talos see why kids love the taste of cap'n crunch?