History VideoGame / Observation

* ActorAllusion: S.A.M. is an artificially intelligent computer that supports a female lead character, and is voiced by Anthony Howell. Anthony previously did the voice work for Samuels, an artificially intelligent android who supported the lead character Amanda Ripley in ''VideoGame/AlienIsolation''.

* ForcedToWatch: There are a couple of instances where things are going downhill with you being unable to do anything about it because your controls are disabled.

* BrandX: One laptop [[spoiler: belonging to Emma-2]] shows a Windows 98-esque desktop, with "BEGIN" in place of the start menu. The laptops themselves are manufactured by a fictional Futuro company, which might be a riff on Lenovo and similarly sounding real-world companies.

* MinimalistCast: With a headcount of six, the Observation's crew is fairly small already. Of these three women and three men, one is found dead but has some voice logs at least, and another [[TheGhost never appears at all]]. That leaves a grand total of six voiced characters - five humans, one AI - only five of which interact on screen, and for the vast majority of the game it's just Emma and SAM.

* BrandX: One laptop [[spoiler: belonging to Emma-2]] shows a Windows 98-esque desktop, with "BEGIN" in place of the start menu.

* ArtisticLicenseAstronomy: Justified. [[spoiler:Though Saturn is a gas giant and thus ''has'' no solid surface, the obvious alien presence and Emma's ability to breathe on the surface means that wherever they landed was purpose-made for the encounter.]]

* OneHundredPercentCompletion: S.A.M. can collect or assemble a total of 85 memory files throughout the game, consisting of documents, schematics, and crew voice logs.

* OneHundredPercentCompletion: S.A.M. can collect a total of 85 data downloads throughout the game, consisting of documents, schematics, and voice logs from all members of the crew, to rebuild his complete database.

** Collecting all data points requires players to provide station alerts in a specific order to prevent advancing the story to a point where certain areas are no longer accessible.

** During the exploration of the [[spoiler:second station]], S.A.M. encounters [[spoiler:his alternate's mainframe]] and is able to link to it, downloading critical mission data that was previously classified. He learns [[spoiler:that the mission was assembled and launched because he identified unnatural radiance variations that were linked between 23 pairs of stars whose link lines all converged on a point in space that Earth would be closest to in 4 years. Even more whammy, he learns that the variations in stellar output, when arrayed in series, identically matched the chemical structure of female human chromosomes - implying that the entire plot, if not all of humanity, is the result of some extremely powerful extraterrestrial manipulation.]]

*** The ''2001'' novel has the ''Discovery'' travel to one of Saturn's moons, the same planet that ''Observation'' ends up in orbit around. This extends even further [[spoiler:when the station enters the eye of the storm in Saturn's atmosphere, much like Dave Bowman's pod entering the Stargate on Titan.]]

* GuideDangIt: Certain actions in the game can only be performed if you report them to Emma first, even if you already have the needed tools to solve them. This is most obvious with the coolant system repair in the main hub. Unless you report the alert to Emma, you can only get as far as repairing the three damaged modules. The main control system will remain unavailable until Emma is informed.

It's February 2026, and the multinational low-orbit space station ''Observation'' has encountered a bit of a problem. Dr. Emma Fisher, one of the astronauts onboard, awakens inside of an airlock after a mysterious incident has rocked the station, sending it spinning. Houston, the other crew members, and the stations' artificial intelligence S.A.M. ('''S'''ystems, '''A'''dministration and '''M'''aintenance) are not responding.

It's February 2026, and the multinational low-orbit space station ''Observation'' has encountered a bit of a problem. Dr. Emma Fisher, one of the astronauts onboard, awakens inside of an airlock after a mysterious incident has rocked the station, sending it spinning. Houston, the other crew members, and the stations' artificial intelligence S.A.M. ('''S'''ystems, '''A'''dministration and '''M'''anagement) are not responding.

It's February 2026, and the multinational low-orbit space station ''Observation'' has encountered a bit of a problem. Dr. Emma Fisher, one of the astronauts onboard, awakens inside of an airlock after a mysterious incident has rocked the station. She gets to work rebooting S.A.M. ('''S'''ystems, '''A'''dministration and '''M'''anagement), the station's artificial intelligence, and together they take stock of what's happened: Houston is non-responsive, she has no idea where they are in relation to Earth, the station's power has largely gone out, and S.A.M.'s memory drives are corrupted.

While attempting to fix these issues, [[HellIsThatNoise a strange, extremely loud noise]] causes both S.A.M. and Emma to black out (or go offline). Sometime later, they awaken once more, link up some systems, put out a fire, and finally activate the outside cameras so they can assess the situation and figure out where they are.

A sci-fi thriller in the same vein as ''Film/TwoThousandOneASpaceOdyssey'', ''Observation'' changes up the formula from that film: Instead of controlling the human character Emma Fisher, the player controls S.A.M., the A.I. that has a potentially dangerous amount of control over the entire station. Controlling cameras, re-establishing links with the station, and interacting with the station's components and systems form the bulk of the gameplay, with the closest comparison being a point-and-click adventure from a first-person perspective. Small minigames are often used to accomplish system tasks.

* ShoutOut: A few to ''2001'':
** Emma at one point mentions hearing about someone who crossed through space using the velocity provided by explosive bolts.
** Additionally, the explosive bolt cover S.A.M. removes to ditch a module is in the same format and typeface as the hatch in ''2001's'' workpods.
** The ''2001'' novel has the ''Discovery'' travel to one of Saturn's moons, the same planet that ''Observation'' ends up in orbit around. This extends even further [[spoiler:when the station enters the eye of the storm in Saturn's atmosphere, much like Dave Bowman's pod entering the Stargate on Titan.]]

The game is available for [=PS4=] via the PlayStation Store and PC via Steam and the Epic Games store.

* ArtisticLicenseAstronomy: Justified. [[spoiler:Though Saturn is a gas giant and thus ''has'' no solid surface, the obvious alien presence and ability for Emma to breathe on the surface means that wherever they landed was purpose-made for the encounter.]]

** The mini game to set off the exploding bolts requires dexterity in the sense of "fast, precise movement." You have to select eight locations around a circle, with a ten second time limit. If you get one wrong, the sequence re-sets, but the timer doesn't. There are three sets of bolts, and they all have different patterns. This all rather stressful with a controller.

* BitchInSheepsClothing: [[spoiler: The version of Jim]] that Emma finds on the other space station at first seems to be scared, confused, and doing his best just to survive after his ship's AI and one of his crewmates went AxeCrazy and started killing the rest of the crew. [[spoiler: Actually, he was the one who murdered his crew's Emma and Joshua, and who tried to kill "prime" Joshua. Whem Emma tries to help Jim by bringing him back to her more functional station, he abandons her in space with a broken helmet.]]