The highlight of "Somerville" comes in the opening minutes. A young family (man, woman, child, and dog) living in a remote farmhouse wakes up at night, asleep in front of the TV. You manipulate the man into going to the basement to get food for the dog and carry it to the kitchen. Then boom. An explosion shakes the house and suddenly you are in the middle of an alien invasion.

Like a bolt of lightning from Zeus, pieces of alien red rock begin to rain down from the sky, an opening reminiscent of the drama of "Space Wars." From here, however, "Somerville" quickly reveals itself to be "Space Wars" with its flat direction, irritating puzzles, and Tom Cruise's absence. The film takes an unconvincing turn immediately after the boom, where the course of action to take would be to rush back to the basement and lay low until the bombardment ceases. However, the woman decides that you should flee to the family car and you have no choice but to comply. As you step out the front door, you witness one of the pieces of debris hit the roof of the escape car, and within moments you are out of the car. Yes, hide in the basement.

This is not the only time you will face illogical logic in Somerville. Since this is a puzzle-based adventure, progression is always based on discovering certain solutions, but those solutions tend to be awkward or unintuitive, and sometimes even broken, making surviving this apocalypse a real chore. Take, for example, the following basement scene. As the family cower in the corner, some sort of alien craft crashes through the roof and a space pilot in blue jumps out of the cockpit. The pilot reaches for his hand, almost catching his breath. And it takes a minute or so for the game to find the exact spot where it wants you to stand in order to actually make it happen.

You experience some kind of flashback or hallucination, pass out, and when you regain consciousness, the woman and child are gone. At least the dog is around. Passing the energy of the puzzle McGuffin on your arm through a light source can turn the hard red shards into blue liquid. When you touch the nearby desk lamp, its beam melts the alien rock blocking the basement exit.

You then get another arm power that has the opposite effect, crystallizing a pool of blue liquid onto a hard surface, but again only through the light source. Needless to say, these yin-yang processes combine to create a flexible concept. For example, a puzzle that floods an area with liquid and then freezes it to create a new foothold, or a puzzle in which a light source is pulled by a cord to avoid an obstacle, is also very cleverly designed. [But it's hard not to feel that "Somerville" could have used a few more ideas like this, even if it is four or five hours long, as you traverse a devastated and desolate world with your canine companion. It's as if the calculations required to make the blue and red things work as predicted are so tied up in the level design, with so few ways to interact with the environment, that the protagonist comes across as lethargic and inept. It is frustrating to watch this healthy, adult human being, for example, climb over a small obstacle or pick up an item that looks useful, instead of trying to work with the landscape in front of him or her.

Of course, a story-driven game is only as good as the mechanics it strips away, and "Somerville" falls short when it comes to character, story, and cinematic pretension. As has been the case in the past with games like Playdead's "Limbo" and "Inside" (Jumpship founder Dino Patti was previously the founder of Playdead and produced both games), trying to build a narrative without the use of spoken or written language is a struggle from the start. But what was effective in evoking an eerie otherworld seen through the eyes of a lonely child makes far less sense when dealing with a family in a recognizable reality. For example, the absence of wailing voices as the bombs begin to fall seems strangely unnerving.

A solidly supported sound, animation, and cinematography could have filled this gap, but few things really shine in Somerville's production. The camera is always at a cold distance from the action, sound effects are applied selectively and fail to convey the impact or the intimidating weight of, say, a killer droid, and movement is stiff and conservative, as if trying to contain the emotional pressure of the journey. For example, when a man is injured, the next scene is just a robotic loop of him holding his stomach and coughing.

Throughout "Somerville," there is little indication that we actually care about this man and his family. Even when he is separated or reunited with his dog, he rarely acknowledges that the poor creature has returned. Or when he finally manages to neutralize one of the pursuing robot aliens, the tension does not build, nor is there any space provided for the man to explore his relief or celebrate his victory before the next scene. Meanwhile, one of the stronger plot beats, just over halfway through the story, is unintentionally funny thanks to the lack of affectionate language.

The visual style, one of the game's strong points, ultimately lacks true dynamism. The game's eye for artistic composition culminates in the first act's depiction of quiet rolling hills and fields, but the framing of the city's streets and buildings in the second half is sometimes almost as impressive. Still, many of these landscapes feel like stock images of post-apocalyptic fiction, such as a motorway littered with empty cars or an abandoned refugee tent nearby. The game's longest sequence takes place in a gray mine, where at best you can find interesting rock formations. And even in play areas that take advantage of 3D depth, such as in "Inside,"

there is little use of perspective to create dramatic effects.

Instead, the 3D depth of each scene is arguably Somerville's biggest drawback. While being able to walk around the cars that block your path in this type of game is something of a novelty at first, this freedom quickly becomes a headache. Perspective often gets in the way when trying to complete simple tasks, as in the scene where you try to grab the pilot's hand in the basement. Trying to pull a lever or door handle puts an unnecessary strain on the system. Then they waste five minutes looking for another solution, only to return in desperation and realize that they had the right answer all along, they just didn't position it properly.

There are many inconsistencies in Somerville, such as a scene in which one is arbitrarily restricted to linear movement in a puddle. Various glitches also undermine confidence in the system. If you stumble somewhere, it may be because something is wrong and you need to reload that section (and possibly reinstall the entire game). For example, items don't move the way you want them to or get stuck on the floor. At other times, actions would go into slow motion, or a physics-based puzzle would not move at first and then suddenly click for no reason.

The end of "Somerville" sometimes takes a mildly intriguing and surreal turn that plays on the protagonist's psyche and makes him question what is real and what is not. But it is too little too late behind such an arduous journey, and that opening boom remains an unfulfilled promise. Ultimately, all that is worth considering is whether Somerville was an ambitious project that failed to realize its grand vision, or simply an uninspired idea in the first place.