A much needed leap forward in near every regard.

I've always been a sucker for silly little narratives and FMV games. While Supermassive doesn't go full FMV, they try to bridge the gap with their character models. Combined with an always wide hokey-horror net being cast, their games are always good fun. But after getting through Until Dawn, Man of Medan, and Little Hope... I was left wanting a little more. Individually they're all that silly, campy fun. But as a whole the gimmick was running dry. There needed to be strides made.

House of Ashes takes those strides.

The story. The controls. The graphics. The scale. The scope. The polish. And more. They all finally stepped forward. Lessons were finally learned. Things finally evolved. I was impressed. Don't get me wrong, it's still a irrational logic defying horror romp and stumble. You still laugh aloud and shoot riffs from the hip at it all. That b-movie charm is far from gone. But the game concept, finally, progressed. Which makes me all the more excited to check out Devil in Me and The Quarry eventually. All the lost steam has been found.

This is even taking into account that I did a super sloppy rushed playthrough. I'm letting my SONY-price-gouged PS+ Premium subscription lapse. I don't play enough and they didn't offer me anything new with the new gouged price. So I was churning this out as the deadline looms. I set out to kill certain characters and save others. Supermassive as they are, ruined my plans as always. Which is why I will enjoy revisiting all these some day. An impressive feat for a narrative game.

Supermassive got some well earned confidence back from me here. A welcomed improvement on the formula.

"Final Girl" was my ending trophy.

Amei demais esse jogo, tem uma história bacana, atmosfera legal, ambientação diferente, bons personagens, boas criaturas e um final bem Until Dawn das idéias.
Eu consegui manter todo mundo vivo e eu fiquei muito feliz kkkkkkkkkk inclusive foi meu primeiro jogo de escolhas que eu consegui essa proeza

Until Dawn é um dos meus jogos favoritos e House of Ashes se juntou a ele e se tornou um dos que eu mais gostei de jogar com toda a sinceridade! Bem melhor que aquela porcaria de Man of Medan e Little Hope

After a terrible Man of Medan and disappointing Little Hope, House of Ashes finally hits. The characters all work. The dynamics between them are interesting. The threat is interesting and the decisions taken in the story feel more important.

Setting the game during a war and having the group be composed of characters from both sides was quite smart and did a lot to amplify the intercharacter relationships. The antagonistic force is also much more intriguing with a cooler mythology behind it.

Playing this with a friend was a great experience. Yeah this is not very well written and the decisions aren't actually that impactful, I'm sure it would be worse on a repeat playthrough, but this is the best in the anthology by a mile and some of the most fun I've had playing co-op with a friend and making decisions together.

7.3/10

Two men approach a ledge. They are underground in an incredibly hostile environment that neither could foresee arriving in when they woke up that morning. They are tired, mentally frayed and have an uneasy trust in each other based entirely on circumstances. The first man reaches the ledge, after an awkwardly long second staring he finally drops down the 3ft drop to continue along the dimly lit path. The second man approaches the ledge but rather than drop down he freezes, staring at it whilst his comrade looks at him perplexed. The man walks away from the ledge before coming back to it freezing again. He refused to jump down to continue their trek. Was it fear preventing him? Had the ordeal and horrors he'd witnessed finally pushed his mind to far?

No, it's just that playing House of Ashes in online co-op was a miserable buggy experience.

You see I played this with a friend, we play together nearly every evening and are always looking for a new Playstation co-op experience. We had enjoyed Man of Medan despite some issues and heard this game was supposedly all around the better of the two. We ran into constant technical problems though. Characters getting stuck, locking up for no reason. The game taking forever to actually perform an action, even picking up an item to look at was a complete chore of waiting 10 seconds to see if they would actually move. We had to quit out and restart half a dozen times to get past various sections and by the end we were frustrated by it all. The thing is it wasn't just the technical problems but a variety of issues built up leaving a bitter taste in our mouths. We beat the game, kind of hated it and moved onto Wild Hearts. The thing is, I decided to go back to it to see if the game was better playing it on my own and my second experience has left me softer towards it overall though certain flaws continue regardless of player occupancy.

For those unaware The Dark Pictures Anthology is a series of horror games by developer Supermassive Games that are more like quick time event interactive movies. Your inputs decide the outcome and the wrong move at the wrong time can see characters permanently die and adjust the story outcome slightly. Our first issue with this game is the button prompts for these events. They are based on the PS5 controller with white buttons with the Cross, Triangle, Square and Circle symbols overlayed in grey. They aren't clear without colour to tell them apart and when you only have a second to work it out...well the design is awful. I went into the accessibility options to change them all to cross because it was implemented so badly when playing on my own. I will at least give them credit for those features.

A lot of the rest of the game has it's ups and downs as well. I really liked the setting going with a Mesopotamian historical influence which isn't something seen in games all too much. The modern plot setting there of the 2003 invasion of Iraq looking for chemical weapons however certainly is...a choice. It did allow a good relationship build up between two characters of Jason a lieutenant in the US marines and Salim a sergeant in the Iraqi army. Their characters and relationship are the two best parts of the whole game with some well written dialog and voice acting that bring them to life as being both professional and empathetic. If only the rest of the writing was as good or even competent because most of the other characters are just unrelatable buffoons. I didn't care for the forced interpersonal drama between 3 of them and was quite happy for them to die. They are needlessly confrontational, rude and in a lot of cases completely inconsistent. In one scene as an example:

Character 1: "What's there to think about? We go and save him"
Character 2: thinks about it for a second
Character 1: "He isn't one of us lets leave him"

It's like they are different people from line to line at times completely breaking immersion when they 180, never mind in the same conversation. Frankly except Jason and Salim they are all extremely unlikeable. I understand the developers want to build a varied cast that will leave difficult decisions for the player with conflict but they went overboard leaving a negative experience in a lot of scenes because I just didn't care about what happened to any of them.

The story also kind of lacks suspense and scares which I was surprised by. It has an interesting setting and atmosphere but it never really uses them to build up any tension or fear of the unknown. Except for a few scenes early on the game is more just a military shooter than a horror title. The magic is gone when the monster is revealed and the curtain gets drawn back. In this case it just happens all too early.

I will say my second playthrough was far more enjoyable overall regardless of the issues above. The only bugs playing solo was a trophy not unlocking (I had to disconnect from the internet and restart my PS5 replaying the scene to unlock it as a work around found by the community). I really like the visuals and general ideas presented here, they just needed more polish and to iron out the cast to a better degree. Still I am glad I went back to it as it has convinced me to play the second game in the series Little Hope which I had initially written off after my first playthrough of House of ashes, I just won't play it online...

+ Jason and Salim are great characters with an excellent comradery.
+ Visuals are gorgeous.
+ Mesopotamian setting is a nice choice.

- The other characters could all rot for all I care.
- Playstation quick time buttons are unclear.
- Online is a constant buggy mess and a semi bugged trophy.
- Not scary, no tension or build up.
- War setting is...a choice.

House of Deaths kkk

Certo, adimito, me impressionei com a qualidade desse jogo, tudo nele parece tão bem polido, sinceramente valeu muito a pena joga-lo, eu te pergunto, o que esperar de um jogo de escolhas?

Meu maior medo, quando se fala desse tipo de entretenimento, é de ser aquela formula cansada de Until Dawn, onde tem um assassino entre um grupo de jovens que saem pra viajar, ou seja, igual aos filmes genéricos de terror, porem meus amigos, nesse game, a historia é totalmente diferente e interessante, aquela historia que te prende, que te faz querer jogar mais, os personagens são bem carismáticos, que faz você pegar um carinho enorme por eles.

Sobre os gráficos, eu não estava com muitas expectativas, mas acredite se quiser, ele me impressionou, não é nada absurdo, mas é interessante, o fogo é chamativo, a agua cumpre seu papel muito bem, e os terrenos são completamente detalhados, senti um pouco de falta de detalhes mais precisos, como por exemplo, alguns detalhes de reflexos não parecem corresponder com a cena atual, e falando de erros, a Expressão facial dos personagens é ridiculo, totalmente exageradas e com pouquíssimos detalhes, as vezes presenciei alguns bugs bem feios, e muitas vezes durante minha gameplay, senti que em algumas cenas, o jogo ficava lento, como se a cena tivesse travado.

Se você esta procurando um jogo de escolhas que realmente o que você seleciona faz a diferença, esse é o jogo pra você, da pra perceber o carinho nesse quesito, realmente ele tem uma historia que me cativou, personagens bem desenvolvidos e todos com suas individualidades e características, vale a pena testar.

tendo em vista tudo isso dito, não vejo outra nota a não ser

3,5/5

Мне было страшно от уныния этой залупы.

Полная рецензия: Не очень люблю игры в жанре интерактивного кино, хотя безусловно есть примеры хороших проектов, которые любят и уважают до сих пор.

Quantic Dream мастодонты на этом поприще и сместить их могли лишь Telltale Games, но последние сдохли к хуям давным-давно, да и сами Квантики судя по всему отойдут от данного жанра (если верить слухам про создание игры по Звездным Войнам от них). Иной поставщик подобного контента Supermassive Games, разрабы нашумевшей Until Dawn (лично меня не особо впечатлившей) и их Антология The Dark Pictures. Лично я ничего не знал об этой франшизе пока мне про нее не рассказала моя подруга с предложением сыграть, ведь это кооперативное интерактивное кино и мне стало интересно как они смогли реализовать все это дело. Спойлер: хуево, правда я играл лишь в 3 игру серии про которую и рассказываю. Как по мне, главная задача подобного рода игр - проработка сюжета до мельчайших подробностей и максимальное вовлечение игрока в историю (потому что геймплеем завлечь здесь попросту будет невозможно) и конечно же продуманная вариативность или создание грамотной иллюзии выбора.

Здесь же с этим большие проблемы, ибо история это набор клише про группу людей, застрявших в каком-то месте с какими-то монстрами (про это снят каждый третий ужастик мира, это просто невыносимо смотреть) с абсолютно унылыми и не прописанными персонажами, которых не то что спасти не хочется, их хочется всех максимально быстро перехуярить, чтобы закончить этот поток безвкусицы. У игры в жанрах есть слово хоррор, но хоррора здесь буквально на 20 секунд, потому что тут было примерно 3 скримера которые смогли меня смутить на краткое время и все, общая атмосфера полностью нерабочая. Помимо этого здесь почти что нет никакой вариативности кроме "сколько человек выживет под конец", но и то как она сделана вызывает вопросы. Один из персонажей за которого я играл - умер, потому что моя напарница допустила ошибку за своего персонажа. По логике, в такой момент шанс на спасение должны дать мне, но у меня просто не было даже возможности как-то исправить ошибку и я просто смотрел за тем как мой персонаж умирает, как по мне это максимально несправедливо.

Так же в игре все плохо с графонием (хотя это просто блядь сиджай кинцо, а графон уровня 2011 года), а так же с анимациями, камерой и всем прочим. Да и к тому же в игре максимально предугадываемые и однообразные QTE на протяжение всех 5 часов геймплея, поэтому когда в очередной раз когда меня заставляли жать кнопку в такт с пульсом я уже истерил в бешенстве.

Да, в какие-то моменты QTE действительно заставляли меня вжаться в кресло, но это было только в самом начале и только на 20 минут из 300, поэтому вердикт очевиден.

À la première bande-annonce j'apprécié beaucoup l'aspect du jeu problème il a les mêmes défauts que sont précédents voir +. Lors de ma première partie avec un ami nous avons fait les choix qui nous paraissent logique, mais cela nous a emmenés vers une histoire moue et nul à jouer. Alors que lors de ma 2e partie avec un ami, nous avons regardés certains choix sur internet pour avoir une partie beaucoup plus intéressante et spoiler ça a bien marché, car cette fois-ci notre partie était mouvementé et on sentait bien l'action. Les autres points négatifs du jeu, c'est que l'horreur n'en fait pas du tout partie ce qui est assez dommage et c'est surtout qu'une personne a de meilleures scènes que le 2e joueurs =/ Le gameplay est assez mal réparti