Introduction
35MM is a walking sim that was released for PC in 2016. It was brought to consoles by publisher Sometimes You in March 2022.
*A code was provided by the developer for the purpose of this review. This doesn’t affect the review, as my thoughts are mine and mine alone.
Review
If you were alone with someone in an apocalyptic world, would you talk amongst each other constantly? Or live in silence? How well would you want to know your companion? Well in Russia, apparently nobody talks much, and keeps their stories hidden. This made for a very boring ride.
The game is set in Russia after a virus kills off most of the population. But it was really unclear if it was just the population of Russia or the world. Maybe the fact was hidden in lore you find throughout the game, but the writing was so small I couldn’t even read it without getting up to press my nose against my television. Every note was hand written too, in different ways. Which was a nice touch to the world, but I wish there was an option to bring up a window with a normal computer font so you could read it properly. I honestly had no idea what the story was about. Between no good descriptions, no motivations, and no character building, I felt I was just strolling down roads for no reason. Even when the credits rolled I still had no idea what had happened or what the point was.
As you progress throughout the game, you end up in quite a few large areas. This is where I ended up getting very frustrated, as I was never quite sure what to do. The characters would talk about getting x, y, or z, and you might get a notification in the bottom corner of the screen of what you might have to do, but there was no sure fire way to check. You never know if you can truly interact with something unless it’s dead in your face. So I ended up missing an important item a few times, until I slowly got up close to every item, to see if it got a faint glow, to show I could interact with it. So I was left running in circles for hours in frustration because of this design.
There are a few combat encounters in the game, but mostly near the end. The combat is not great. You get the tiniest little reticule if you’re using a gun, and you have to hip fire. If you need to heal, you then have to open your inventory, which doesn’t stop the game, and heal. Or if you waste all your ammo and need to switch to a terrible melee weapon, good luck. It was a painstaking ordeal. The very last combat encounter of the game, even made no sense. Unless I was just really not paying attention to anything. Which, in all honesty, it’s kind of hard not to let your attention wander. Sure there’s a photo mode built into the game, with the use of an in-game camera if you care, but the fact that everything is just grey, doesn’t give you much to photograph to help hold your attention.
Rating
Pros:
- Hand Written Notes
Cons:
- Dull Gameplay
- Confusing Story
- Hard To Read Text
Summary
35MM shows what a game shouldn’t be. It has an interesting concept for its story, but it doesn’t build on it, there’s no character building, the story goes nowhere, the world is dull and bland and grey, and the combat encounters are atrocious. Just don’t bother playing this.
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Game & Developer Information
Developer Website: Носков Сергей
Developer Socials: Twitter
Publisher Website: Sometimes You
Publisher Socials: Twitter
PSN Store Links: TBA
Trophy Information: 21. 
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Images – Sometimes You Official Press Kit
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