Spooky Season list 2023
The spooky season is apon us FEAR IT.
Just felt like making a list of "the spookies" I wanna play around the autumn season. Normally I like having this list only be part of games I'm playing during the month of October; but trying to cram in 8 or 9 different games in one month is kinda hard unless you have absolutely no life. Unfortunately I'm not at that point yet so I'm splitting it up between September all the way to November.
If American stores can put out their Halloween crap as soon as the summer ends why the hell can't I god dammit.
Just felt like making a list of "the spookies" I wanna play around the autumn season. Normally I like having this list only be part of games I'm playing during the month of October; but trying to cram in 8 or 9 different games in one month is kinda hard unless you have absolutely no life. Unfortunately I'm not at that point yet so I'm splitting it up between September all the way to November.
If American stores can put out their Halloween crap as soon as the summer ends why the hell can't I god dammit.
28 Games
10/10
Every October 1st I always carve out a time to replay Luigi’s Mansion, it’s one of those very few games that I think is near perfection that I have zero problems with. Everything is probably atmospheric, the gameplay loop is satisfying enough for consistent replaying to get a higher score each new playthrough, it’s bursting with that early 6th gen Nintendo charm before they sanded down and fit everything in a box with 7th gen. It’s just a super cozy game that I just love returning to each year; I can’t think of a better way of starting off the spooky season than playing through one of my favorite spooky games of all time.
Every October 1st I always carve out a time to replay Luigi’s Mansion, it’s one of those very few games that I think is near perfection that I have zero problems with. Everything is probably atmospheric, the gameplay loop is satisfying enough for consistent replaying to get a higher score each new playthrough, it’s bursting with that early 6th gen Nintendo charm before they sanded down and fit everything in a box with 7th gen. It’s just a super cozy game that I just love returning to each year; I can’t think of a better way of starting off the spooky season than playing through one of my favorite spooky games of all time.
7/10
It feels weird finally playing a game that set the foundation for a lot of games I admire.
Silent Hill is a game I really really liked but didn’t really leave as much of an impact on me then I thought it would’ve. I think that might be from the fact that I’ve seen so many games in the past decades do what SH did either better or worse cough cough BlooberTeam cough cough.
Now that’s not to say the game itself is unoriginal because of time because it’s not. For PS1 the visuals still hold up extremely well and almost every location of Silent Hill has this intense foreboding atmosphere that looks so thick and cold, the mere action of just walking down the lone street of Silent Hill left me with such an intense feeling of dread and loneliness I almost felt the urge to turn on music in the background to calm my nerves. Speaking of music, the atmosphere is made ten times more unnerving thanks to the score made by Akira Yamaoka who just…..how do I even describe what the music made me feel? Scared isn’t the term I’d use but I can’t say it made me calm either, the tracks he made leave me with this lingering sense of paranoia; like at any moment something will jump out from the foggy darkness to get me. All the while for the quieter moments to have no music at all, you can hear your own footsteps and your radio occasional stuttering out with garbled static whitenose, which is a warning sign for monsters being nearby but that’s it. Just that dead silence of nothing but your own footsteps and radio, in sometimes pitch black darkness for minutes on end, it’s horrifying, and I love it.
I don’t know if I always expected Silent Hill 1 to have the same kind of psychological horror in the same vein as 2 and 3 but needless to say I was a little disappointed that it didn’t go nearly as in depth into the psychological aspect that I guess I was expecting but that’s not a fault of the game that’s a me thing. There are still small little bits scattered throughout the game that gave me a small taste of what I was expecting from this game but that’s mostly all they are, small bits from a story I honestly didn’t really like. I don’t wanna say I didn’t like the story and character because honestly I don’t hate it. I think Harry Mason is a great protagonist and audience surrogate, I thought Cybil was a great as one of the only level headed people in the town helping Harry keep himself grounded, I thought Kaufmann had that proper amount of untrustworthy slime you’d want from a self-centered sketchy individual like him, and Lisa……well…….I think the less told about her the better. All the characters are memorable and well written, and even if the voice acting is very 5th gen it’d argue it adds more to their characters regardless if it was good or not. Now about that comment I made about not liking the story; well that’s kinda true but also not, I don’t hate the story because honestly besides the aspects I think deflates the narrative I still think the backstory and paranoiac nature of the town and it’s residence draws me in so much more than what's actually going on during the events of the game, and once I got a ferm understand of the events unfolding and why the town was in the state that's it in I lost all interest, it just fell apart like a house of cards. I can’t say what it is without spoiling but if you know me and my distaste in a certain trope that a lot of horror narratives use then you can probably guess what is it, and if you know nothing about me and can’t guess you’ll just have to take me at my word and play the game yourself and form your own opinion.
Even though the game didn’t stick with me as much as other players and the main story left me really disappointed I still think this is a pretty great time and I’d still recommend it, it has it’s fair share of PS1 jank but I think most players will get used to it and once you get past that hurdle your in for one of the most paranoia inducing games in the PS1.
It feels weird finally playing a game that set the foundation for a lot of games I admire.
Silent Hill is a game I really really liked but didn’t really leave as much of an impact on me then I thought it would’ve. I think that might be from the fact that I’ve seen so many games in the past decades do what SH did either better or worse cough cough BlooberTeam cough cough.
Now that’s not to say the game itself is unoriginal because of time because it’s not. For PS1 the visuals still hold up extremely well and almost every location of Silent Hill has this intense foreboding atmosphere that looks so thick and cold, the mere action of just walking down the lone street of Silent Hill left me with such an intense feeling of dread and loneliness I almost felt the urge to turn on music in the background to calm my nerves. Speaking of music, the atmosphere is made ten times more unnerving thanks to the score made by Akira Yamaoka who just…..how do I even describe what the music made me feel? Scared isn’t the term I’d use but I can’t say it made me calm either, the tracks he made leave me with this lingering sense of paranoia; like at any moment something will jump out from the foggy darkness to get me. All the while for the quieter moments to have no music at all, you can hear your own footsteps and your radio occasional stuttering out with garbled static whitenose, which is a warning sign for monsters being nearby but that’s it. Just that dead silence of nothing but your own footsteps and radio, in sometimes pitch black darkness for minutes on end, it’s horrifying, and I love it.
I don’t know if I always expected Silent Hill 1 to have the same kind of psychological horror in the same vein as 2 and 3 but needless to say I was a little disappointed that it didn’t go nearly as in depth into the psychological aspect that I guess I was expecting but that’s not a fault of the game that’s a me thing. There are still small little bits scattered throughout the game that gave me a small taste of what I was expecting from this game but that’s mostly all they are, small bits from a story I honestly didn’t really like. I don’t wanna say I didn’t like the story and character because honestly I don’t hate it. I think Harry Mason is a great protagonist and audience surrogate, I thought Cybil was a great as one of the only level headed people in the town helping Harry keep himself grounded, I thought Kaufmann had that proper amount of untrustworthy slime you’d want from a self-centered sketchy individual like him, and Lisa……well…….I think the less told about her the better. All the characters are memorable and well written, and even if the voice acting is very 5th gen it’d argue it adds more to their characters regardless if it was good or not. Now about that comment I made about not liking the story; well that’s kinda true but also not, I don’t hate the story because honestly besides the aspects I think deflates the narrative I still think the backstory and paranoiac nature of the town and it’s residence draws me in so much more than what's actually going on during the events of the game, and once I got a ferm understand of the events unfolding and why the town was in the state that's it in I lost all interest, it just fell apart like a house of cards. I can’t say what it is without spoiling but if you know me and my distaste in a certain trope that a lot of horror narratives use then you can probably guess what is it, and if you know nothing about me and can’t guess you’ll just have to take me at my word and play the game yourself and form your own opinion.
Even though the game didn’t stick with me as much as other players and the main story left me really disappointed I still think this is a pretty great time and I’d still recommend it, it has it’s fair share of PS1 jank but I think most players will get used to it and once you get past that hurdle your in for one of the most paranoia inducing games in the PS1.
10/10
This just in, autistic gamer says a critically acclaimed game is a masterpiece. Surprises no one.
This just in, autistic gamer says a critically acclaimed game is a masterpiece. Surprises no one.
6/10
It’s very much one of “those” older NES games. Where the game is less focused with giving the player a reasonably balanced experience and more focused with busting the players balls and wasting their time to make them feel like they got their money's worth.
Normally when it comes to NES games like this one I’d probably just not bother and move on but the only reason I kept playing to the end was because of the sheer amount of charm this game is leaking.
Please I need to know where else are you gonna play as a human boy/alien pterodactyl hybrid shooting Jinmenken, fighting The plant from Little Shop of Horror but as an eggplant to avoid copyright, and fight a giant bouncing Tempura Shrimp and onion rings; all while the background as devolved to look like hell, with bleeding skulls and fire erupting from the ground. The amount of strange stuff they were able to pack into an NES game is honestly impressive, like sometimes when you enter a boss room you won’t even fight a boss, sometimes it’ll already be dead so you get the points regardless; or maybe you’ll come upon some zombies who just want to show you their strange dance, and if you watch their funny little dance you’ll just win the fight because that’s all the zombies wanted. Between the strange but fun bosses and the bizarre enemy choices in between the boss rooms you never really know what kind of weird monster or enemy choice you're gonna come upon next.
When replaying an NES game I find that most of them don’t hold up as well as I think a lot of people like to think they do, and what I mean by that is “Most of these games were always bad and if you think NES era difficulty wasn't complete BS then you were either a rich kid who got Nintendo Power and has false nostalgia of the past, or your just a sadomasochist”. That is mostly the case here too but unlike most NES games where the sprite work is either pretty great to shoot at best; the charm and personality this game oozes almost outweighs the poor hit detection, bad weapons, and the bullshit maze level.
It’s very much one of “those” older NES games. Where the game is less focused with giving the player a reasonably balanced experience and more focused with busting the players balls and wasting their time to make them feel like they got their money's worth.
Normally when it comes to NES games like this one I’d probably just not bother and move on but the only reason I kept playing to the end was because of the sheer amount of charm this game is leaking.
Please I need to know where else are you gonna play as a human boy/alien pterodactyl hybrid shooting Jinmenken, fighting The plant from Little Shop of Horror but as an eggplant to avoid copyright, and fight a giant bouncing Tempura Shrimp and onion rings; all while the background as devolved to look like hell, with bleeding skulls and fire erupting from the ground. The amount of strange stuff they were able to pack into an NES game is honestly impressive, like sometimes when you enter a boss room you won’t even fight a boss, sometimes it’ll already be dead so you get the points regardless; or maybe you’ll come upon some zombies who just want to show you their strange dance, and if you watch their funny little dance you’ll just win the fight because that’s all the zombies wanted. Between the strange but fun bosses and the bizarre enemy choices in between the boss rooms you never really know what kind of weird monster or enemy choice you're gonna come upon next.
When replaying an NES game I find that most of them don’t hold up as well as I think a lot of people like to think they do, and what I mean by that is “Most of these games were always bad and if you think NES era difficulty wasn't complete BS then you were either a rich kid who got Nintendo Power and has false nostalgia of the past, or your just a sadomasochist”. That is mostly the case here too but unlike most NES games where the sprite work is either pretty great to shoot at best; the charm and personality this game oozes almost outweighs the poor hit detection, bad weapons, and the bullshit maze level.
6/10
I’ve been told the gameplay is super simple but man you guys weren’t joking.
I’m not gonna go super in depth with this game because quite frankly there isn’t anything I can really talk about besides how well the game captures that gross 80’s slasher look.
From the beginning of level one the sprite work is absolutely doing the heavy lifting with how many grotesque monsters and gruesome imagery they can put in a single level, and man does this scream 80’s. Everything from wacking a monster against a wall and watching them splatter, or picking up a shotgun seeing the buckshot literally melt enemies into piles of goo. Everything from the obvious reference to Evil Dead’s cabin; to the bootleg Leatherface enemy are so lovingly crafted to fit this gratuitous world of blood and gore that’d you see ripped right out of a garbage Full Moon Feature or a Roger Corman production. Besides the gameplay and levels being as basic as basic comes you’re really coming here just for the slimy sprite work and fun monster designs, so some way it captures 80s slashers perfectly.
I’ve been told the gameplay is super simple but man you guys weren’t joking.
I’m not gonna go super in depth with this game because quite frankly there isn’t anything I can really talk about besides how well the game captures that gross 80’s slasher look.
From the beginning of level one the sprite work is absolutely doing the heavy lifting with how many grotesque monsters and gruesome imagery they can put in a single level, and man does this scream 80’s. Everything from wacking a monster against a wall and watching them splatter, or picking up a shotgun seeing the buckshot literally melt enemies into piles of goo. Everything from the obvious reference to Evil Dead’s cabin; to the bootleg Leatherface enemy are so lovingly crafted to fit this gratuitous world of blood and gore that’d you see ripped right out of a garbage Full Moon Feature or a Roger Corman production. Besides the gameplay and levels being as basic as basic comes you’re really coming here just for the slimy sprite work and fun monster designs, so some way it captures 80s slashers perfectly.
9/10
For starters I honestly don’t know what I was expecting going on. I knew that the game was taking homage from psychological Japanese horror movies and the action spectacle of John Woo movies, and I knew it was more shooter than horror but that was about it. But man I was not ready for the absolute blast that was FEAR.
Just wanna get the negative stuff out of the way first since I have very few complaints. For starters the horror isn’t very scary, hell I’d even say at times it’s honestly very laughable at times. Whenever Alma did her little spookie light trick it never failed to not scare me, and whenever it tried to pull a proto-Outlast 2 flashback scene it’s the funniest thing in the whole goddamn game.
Ok so if the horror of this “horror game” didn’t really work on me then why am I giving this game a 9? Well that’s because the FPS side of this “Horror Shooter” is quite possibly one of the best FPS’s of the 2000’s. For starters the visuals hold up extremely well, I sometimes forget that Lithtech’s Jupiter EX had the same abilities to make lighting and visual effects almost on par with IdTech4 and Source, which for a studio like Monolith who were just getting off titles like AVP2 and Tron 2.0 it’s really impressive that their in house engine was able to compete with IdTech 4 and a lot better than their stuff made on the Build engine. Everything from the really impressive lighting and reflective flashes from the muzzle of your gun really help give each area of the game such a cold and isolated atmosphere; which I think is the closest the game ever got to being “scary” and I mean that in a good way. The environments all look really well detailed (for 2005), all the areas feel really well designed both as levels and places in the game. It’s about as perfect a game could look for 2005.
The actual combat however thought, OOOOOOH BOY; that’s where the real fun begins. All of the guns feel and sound so satisfactory in a way I can’t properly describe through words. Everything from your basic assault rifle to your bone dissolving Type-7 Particle gun that sounds like a mix between a blender and a microwave. They just feel good I don’t know a better way of tying it out, you know when your just playing a game and the guns just click for you and they feel and sounds like you have the power of god in your hand, that’s what it felt like when I was playing the first level of FEAR. The crown jewel of the guns however would have to be the shotgun, my god the shotgun. Not only is it extremely overpowered and took the second gunspot in my arsenal for most of the game, but it just feel so fucking good to use I will gladly award it the “𝒮𝒯𝑅𝑀'𝓈 𝒷𝑒𝓈𝓉 𝒮𝒽𝑜𝓉𝑔𝓊𝓃 𝑜𝒻 𝓉𝒽𝑒 𝓂𝒾𝒹𝟤𝟢𝟢𝟢'𝓈 𝒶𝓌𝒶𝓇𝒹” for being just so fucking great, the power to just send enemies flaying away with their ragdolled dead body hitting walls to the way stray bullets will hit contrest walls and leave dents midfight, it’s just allaround a master piece in gun form.
That brings me to what is possibly my favorite part of the game, the reactive environments and the game’s AI. I will not pretend like I know what I’m talking about when discussing the game’s AI so I’ll just go with the very simplistic way of explaining it. So all of the enemies work on a system called ‘goal oriented action planning’. The AI is set with predetermined ways of executing their goal for said area they're placed in; in which the goal is to stop you from reaching the next area. The AI can achieve this goal by trying to bum rush you, flank you by running around your cover, they’ll take cover from your gunfire, and a lot more I’m probably forgetting. The AI takes all the predetermined points given to them depending on the area and forms a possible plan on the spot to try and kill you. If you enter a room and a bunch a enemies before the other AI’s can react their first response is to either go for cover or try to kill you, if the AI survives its first encounter it will survey the situation and determine whether or not it’s previous plan is still worth it and if the AI deems it’s not then I’ll try something else like throwing a grenade to get you out of cover to bum rush you or try to flank you to shot you from behind. The enemies also have callouts so you can determine what their gonna do next and to make it feel as if the squads of enemies are all working in sequential but if I’m remembering it correctly that’s not how it works, the call outs are just a simple trick to make the player think the AI are working together when in reality each enemy is it’s own AI making their own plan depending on the situation. Again I’m probably scraping the basic surface of how this AI works. If you want to learn more about it from someone who actually understands computer programming I’d suggest reading an article about it or watching a video. From my perspective however as the simple video game enjoyer everything I just described made for an amazing experience, with the AI basically making up their plan as they go along with the fight; making almost every fight in the game almost completely unique then the other.
The other part of the game that really solidifies
The game’s combat as legendary is the reactive environments. What I mean by reactive environments is that almost everything in arenas you shoot besides enemies have a real tangible outcome mid battle. Blood from your enemies will splatter the walls, glass from shot out windows will litter the ground, dust will get kicked up from explosions while bullets still fly through them, bullets will ricochet off metal walls and leave holes in the walls of concrete it hit, if a bullet hits an electric power boxes it will shoot out electrical sparks and smoke or when shooting explosive barrels will lead to enemies going flying along with items around it flying of or breaking apart. Now take all of this, and give the player the ability to go into slow motion, with this you can see the force coming off the bullets from your gun, you can see the particles and heat coming off of the explosion, when you fire your shotgun you can watch and see the spreading bullets send an enemy ragdolling away while also hitting the walls around it leave bullet holes in the wall. Take all of that, plus the well crafted AI and a really well done OST, and you have a full proof combat system that never got old even 8 hours into the game.
Go play FEAR. Do it now. It’s a little hard to get the game working on modern hardware and having WB lock the game behind a bundle of FEAR 2 and 3 is honestly really shitty but please go play it, it’s honestly one of the best FPS’s I’ve played in a while and I’m so glad I was able to get it working.
For starters I honestly don’t know what I was expecting going on. I knew that the game was taking homage from psychological Japanese horror movies and the action spectacle of John Woo movies, and I knew it was more shooter than horror but that was about it. But man I was not ready for the absolute blast that was FEAR.
Just wanna get the negative stuff out of the way first since I have very few complaints. For starters the horror isn’t very scary, hell I’d even say at times it’s honestly very laughable at times. Whenever Alma did her little spookie light trick it never failed to not scare me, and whenever it tried to pull a proto-Outlast 2 flashback scene it’s the funniest thing in the whole goddamn game.
Ok so if the horror of this “horror game” didn’t really work on me then why am I giving this game a 9? Well that’s because the FPS side of this “Horror Shooter” is quite possibly one of the best FPS’s of the 2000’s. For starters the visuals hold up extremely well, I sometimes forget that Lithtech’s Jupiter EX had the same abilities to make lighting and visual effects almost on par with IdTech4 and Source, which for a studio like Monolith who were just getting off titles like AVP2 and Tron 2.0 it’s really impressive that their in house engine was able to compete with IdTech 4 and a lot better than their stuff made on the Build engine. Everything from the really impressive lighting and reflective flashes from the muzzle of your gun really help give each area of the game such a cold and isolated atmosphere; which I think is the closest the game ever got to being “scary” and I mean that in a good way. The environments all look really well detailed (for 2005), all the areas feel really well designed both as levels and places in the game. It’s about as perfect a game could look for 2005.
The actual combat however thought, OOOOOOH BOY; that’s where the real fun begins. All of the guns feel and sound so satisfactory in a way I can’t properly describe through words. Everything from your basic assault rifle to your bone dissolving Type-7 Particle gun that sounds like a mix between a blender and a microwave. They just feel good I don’t know a better way of tying it out, you know when your just playing a game and the guns just click for you and they feel and sounds like you have the power of god in your hand, that’s what it felt like when I was playing the first level of FEAR. The crown jewel of the guns however would have to be the shotgun, my god the shotgun. Not only is it extremely overpowered and took the second gunspot in my arsenal for most of the game, but it just feel so fucking good to use I will gladly award it the “𝒮𝒯𝑅𝑀'𝓈 𝒷𝑒𝓈𝓉 𝒮𝒽𝑜𝓉𝑔𝓊𝓃 𝑜𝒻 𝓉𝒽𝑒 𝓂𝒾𝒹𝟤𝟢𝟢𝟢'𝓈 𝒶𝓌𝒶𝓇𝒹” for being just so fucking great, the power to just send enemies flaying away with their ragdolled dead body hitting walls to the way stray bullets will hit contrest walls and leave dents midfight, it’s just allaround a master piece in gun form.
That brings me to what is possibly my favorite part of the game, the reactive environments and the game’s AI. I will not pretend like I know what I’m talking about when discussing the game’s AI so I’ll just go with the very simplistic way of explaining it. So all of the enemies work on a system called ‘goal oriented action planning’. The AI is set with predetermined ways of executing their goal for said area they're placed in; in which the goal is to stop you from reaching the next area. The AI can achieve this goal by trying to bum rush you, flank you by running around your cover, they’ll take cover from your gunfire, and a lot more I’m probably forgetting. The AI takes all the predetermined points given to them depending on the area and forms a possible plan on the spot to try and kill you. If you enter a room and a bunch a enemies before the other AI’s can react their first response is to either go for cover or try to kill you, if the AI survives its first encounter it will survey the situation and determine whether or not it’s previous plan is still worth it and if the AI deems it’s not then I’ll try something else like throwing a grenade to get you out of cover to bum rush you or try to flank you to shot you from behind. The enemies also have callouts so you can determine what their gonna do next and to make it feel as if the squads of enemies are all working in sequential but if I’m remembering it correctly that’s not how it works, the call outs are just a simple trick to make the player think the AI are working together when in reality each enemy is it’s own AI making their own plan depending on the situation. Again I’m probably scraping the basic surface of how this AI works. If you want to learn more about it from someone who actually understands computer programming I’d suggest reading an article about it or watching a video. From my perspective however as the simple video game enjoyer everything I just described made for an amazing experience, with the AI basically making up their plan as they go along with the fight; making almost every fight in the game almost completely unique then the other.
The other part of the game that really solidifies
The game’s combat as legendary is the reactive environments. What I mean by reactive environments is that almost everything in arenas you shoot besides enemies have a real tangible outcome mid battle. Blood from your enemies will splatter the walls, glass from shot out windows will litter the ground, dust will get kicked up from explosions while bullets still fly through them, bullets will ricochet off metal walls and leave holes in the walls of concrete it hit, if a bullet hits an electric power boxes it will shoot out electrical sparks and smoke or when shooting explosive barrels will lead to enemies going flying along with items around it flying of or breaking apart. Now take all of this, and give the player the ability to go into slow motion, with this you can see the force coming off the bullets from your gun, you can see the particles and heat coming off of the explosion, when you fire your shotgun you can watch and see the spreading bullets send an enemy ragdolling away while also hitting the walls around it leave bullet holes in the wall. Take all of that, plus the well crafted AI and a really well done OST, and you have a full proof combat system that never got old even 8 hours into the game.
Go play FEAR. Do it now. It’s a little hard to get the game working on modern hardware and having WB lock the game behind a bundle of FEAR 2 and 3 is honestly really shitty but please go play it, it’s honestly one of the best FPS’s I’ve played in a while and I’m so glad I was able to get it working.
2/10
I always try being nice to indie games since most of the time what people perceive a crappy looking game can be rather an artistic choice due to low funds compared to the big AAA games, there have only been a handful of times where I’ve had to agree with the general consensus that an indie game looked and played bad but even with the shittest indie games I could always find something. Looks like I’m gonna have to add this game to that list.
I think the idea of a horror game taking place in rural america where you need to escape from the Grey Aliens is a premiseI haven’t seen done before and after hearing this game tried to do that premise I got really interested in it. I sat on the game for a while and finally got around to playing it only to find a barely functional ugly game that’s boring as hell and a waste of its potential. When I mean the game looks ugly I mean that in the literal sense, everything is casted in barely visible gray and most of the houses and cars look like pre-bought assets from the unity store and all of the NPCs look really rough. The voice acting is also really bad and not in the same RE1 “so bad it’s funny” kind of bad, it just straight up sounds like the va’s were given zero direction from the voice director so most of their lines sound monotony and fake.
The worst part of the game to me however is the beat for beat gameplay, it’s fucking boring as hell. Now I know calling something boring is like the worst possible way to word an issue but I’m not joking when I say that for 90% of the game I was bored out of my mind. The game tries to do the Amnesia approach to stealth horror but where Amnesia’s levels and areas all felt really well thought out both in a gameplay and story perspective, Greyhills however just plops down houses and cornfields and just expects you to maneuver through them without any real satisfying gameplay loop. Along with the progression being boring the stealth the main thing you’ll be doing through the whole game is busted as hell. Since a majority of your time will be spent roaming the rural streets filled with empty cornfields and maybe one or two houses it’s very easy to get spotted by the Aliens roaming around the area, the problem is how inconsistent the detection rate is for the Aliens AI.
Sometimes they can’t see jack shit even if you're right next to them or right in front of them, but so help me if you turn on your flashlight for even a second when an Aliens around they’ll know right where you are at all times, sometimes even cross nearly half the map to get you. On top of the flashlight being a deathtrap most of the time sometimes Aliens will be able to spot you from far distances even without using the flashlight so if you ever have to travel to another house or a new area you’re always going to be dealing with the Aliens regardless on how stealthy you are, oh and the combat yeah it sucks. The guns feel pathetic to use and the melee bat you’re given has almost now impact and it’s windup takes way too long to be resourceful, I’d be ok with this since the game isn’t really combat focused but when the stealth systems don’t work the way their supposed to and the Aliens are ten times faster than your sprint, having to rely on the combat that was never meant to be used all the time makes the overall experience ten times worse than it already was.
I couldn’t find much about the development or the developers at all so I don’t know if this was a small 3 person team or a semi-large team but man I just didn’t like this game at all. I don’t really don’t like shitting on indies and I genuinely think the devs tried to make a quirky homage to 60's B-movies, but instead what we got was a poorly put together mess of a game that feels more like an unorganized idea made into a game.
I always try being nice to indie games since most of the time what people perceive a crappy looking game can be rather an artistic choice due to low funds compared to the big AAA games, there have only been a handful of times where I’ve had to agree with the general consensus that an indie game looked and played bad but even with the shittest indie games I could always find something. Looks like I’m gonna have to add this game to that list.
I think the idea of a horror game taking place in rural america where you need to escape from the Grey Aliens is a premiseI haven’t seen done before and after hearing this game tried to do that premise I got really interested in it. I sat on the game for a while and finally got around to playing it only to find a barely functional ugly game that’s boring as hell and a waste of its potential. When I mean the game looks ugly I mean that in the literal sense, everything is casted in barely visible gray and most of the houses and cars look like pre-bought assets from the unity store and all of the NPCs look really rough. The voice acting is also really bad and not in the same RE1 “so bad it’s funny” kind of bad, it just straight up sounds like the va’s were given zero direction from the voice director so most of their lines sound monotony and fake.
The worst part of the game to me however is the beat for beat gameplay, it’s fucking boring as hell. Now I know calling something boring is like the worst possible way to word an issue but I’m not joking when I say that for 90% of the game I was bored out of my mind. The game tries to do the Amnesia approach to stealth horror but where Amnesia’s levels and areas all felt really well thought out both in a gameplay and story perspective, Greyhills however just plops down houses and cornfields and just expects you to maneuver through them without any real satisfying gameplay loop. Along with the progression being boring the stealth the main thing you’ll be doing through the whole game is busted as hell. Since a majority of your time will be spent roaming the rural streets filled with empty cornfields and maybe one or two houses it’s very easy to get spotted by the Aliens roaming around the area, the problem is how inconsistent the detection rate is for the Aliens AI.
Sometimes they can’t see jack shit even if you're right next to them or right in front of them, but so help me if you turn on your flashlight for even a second when an Aliens around they’ll know right where you are at all times, sometimes even cross nearly half the map to get you. On top of the flashlight being a deathtrap most of the time sometimes Aliens will be able to spot you from far distances even without using the flashlight so if you ever have to travel to another house or a new area you’re always going to be dealing with the Aliens regardless on how stealthy you are, oh and the combat yeah it sucks. The guns feel pathetic to use and the melee bat you’re given has almost now impact and it’s windup takes way too long to be resourceful, I’d be ok with this since the game isn’t really combat focused but when the stealth systems don’t work the way their supposed to and the Aliens are ten times faster than your sprint, having to rely on the combat that was never meant to be used all the time makes the overall experience ten times worse than it already was.
I couldn’t find much about the development or the developers at all so I don’t know if this was a small 3 person team or a semi-large team but man I just didn’t like this game at all. I don’t really don’t like shitting on indies and I genuinely think the devs tried to make a quirky homage to 60's B-movies, but instead what we got was a poorly put together mess of a game that feels more like an unorganized idea made into a game.
7/10
There are two ways I can look at this game in retrospect.
One way is a game on its own, taken away from the overwhelming influence it had on the survival horror genre in the 2010s, and in that way of viewing it, I would say that Amnesia is really fun and tens for the first half of the game; the rest is still fun but not particularly scary. The other way is looking at it through the retrospective lens of seeing the effect it had on survival horror; that being what I like to call the "Sit and Hide" subgenre. Where you have no real way of defending yourself so your only choice is to hide and hope to god the monster chasing you can go away. This style of horror has been done well I’m not saying it’s an awful sub-genre, this game did it pretty well like Alien Isolation where it understood that having no way of fighting the monster stalking you makes it scary but still gives the player options of crafting tools to use against the monster by distracting it or scaring it away. On the other end of that spectrum you have pretty much everyone else but for the sake of simplicity I’ll be using Outlast. Outlast is a game made for youtubers and no one else. It’s a game that saw the meteoric rise of Amnesia on YouTube and wanted to cash in on that surge of popularity and as a result they took all the wrong ideas that Amnesia had.
Amnesia works well because it understands what kind of game it is, it’s not a survival horror game it’s honestly more adjacent to an adventure/point and click game, at least to me. The main objective is to keep moving downwards through this magnificently horrifying looking castle and as you go down deeper and deeper into the darkness you’ll need to mix together acid to get past flesh walls or repair broken elevators, and to do so you’ll need to read notes to find where in the area items are and solve puzzles that sometimes require you to interact with the environmental physics. Many people call these parts the "boring bits" but I honestly prefer this over the monster stuff, drudging through this moody and dark castle looking for the parts you need while finding notes that reveal more of your lost past and the dark history of Brennenburg Castle was such a fun and suspenseful experience, along with the resource management of having to constantly find oil for your lantern and tinderboxes to light the darks halls of the castle in order to keep your sanity and stay out of the darkness left me feel more than satisfied with the gameplay; it’s horror however was just kinda eh. In-between exploring the castle’s moody gothic architecture you’ll have to deal with the monsters that are roaming the dark corridors they inhabit, and besides the first time they show up in the wine cellar; they never they never cease to not scare me.
With their first introduction in the wine cellar they had built up thanks to notes explaining what happened to these kidnappers and the fates they befell them; turning into monster that will hunt you down and kill you, and once you see what these people had become it’s honestly a bit scary and the amazing sound design adds so much to the horror of the situation. Outside of that one section however every other time the monsters showed up it usually just devolved into, me either impatiently waiting for them to leave and despawn so I can get back to exploring, or me getting impatient and just running past them and then hiding in the spot I needed to go to regardless. Once you get a real good look at these fuckers and learn that they despawn ones they finish their very simple patrol it becomes very monotonous the deal with, it’s like the vail just gets thrown away once you get to the second area and by the third area it just becomes trivial. Of course what people find scary is very subjective so it’s 100% a me thing but there's not much I can do about it so idk.
Besides the lack of scares it gave me, Amnesia left me feeling very fulfilled and makes me wanna try out the rest of the series really badly. I’m honestly surprised I enjoyed this as much as I’ve played the majority of other games like Amnesia and I never really cared for them, and in the case of something like Outlast; for what little time I put into that game I genuinely despised it. So maybe this is one of those cases where Amnesia worked really well but everyone else took the wrong reasons for why it worked.
There are two ways I can look at this game in retrospect.
One way is a game on its own, taken away from the overwhelming influence it had on the survival horror genre in the 2010s, and in that way of viewing it, I would say that Amnesia is really fun and tens for the first half of the game; the rest is still fun but not particularly scary. The other way is looking at it through the retrospective lens of seeing the effect it had on survival horror; that being what I like to call the "Sit and Hide" subgenre. Where you have no real way of defending yourself so your only choice is to hide and hope to god the monster chasing you can go away. This style of horror has been done well I’m not saying it’s an awful sub-genre, this game did it pretty well like Alien Isolation where it understood that having no way of fighting the monster stalking you makes it scary but still gives the player options of crafting tools to use against the monster by distracting it or scaring it away. On the other end of that spectrum you have pretty much everyone else but for the sake of simplicity I’ll be using Outlast. Outlast is a game made for youtubers and no one else. It’s a game that saw the meteoric rise of Amnesia on YouTube and wanted to cash in on that surge of popularity and as a result they took all the wrong ideas that Amnesia had.
Amnesia works well because it understands what kind of game it is, it’s not a survival horror game it’s honestly more adjacent to an adventure/point and click game, at least to me. The main objective is to keep moving downwards through this magnificently horrifying looking castle and as you go down deeper and deeper into the darkness you’ll need to mix together acid to get past flesh walls or repair broken elevators, and to do so you’ll need to read notes to find where in the area items are and solve puzzles that sometimes require you to interact with the environmental physics. Many people call these parts the "boring bits" but I honestly prefer this over the monster stuff, drudging through this moody and dark castle looking for the parts you need while finding notes that reveal more of your lost past and the dark history of Brennenburg Castle was such a fun and suspenseful experience, along with the resource management of having to constantly find oil for your lantern and tinderboxes to light the darks halls of the castle in order to keep your sanity and stay out of the darkness left me feel more than satisfied with the gameplay; it’s horror however was just kinda eh. In-between exploring the castle’s moody gothic architecture you’ll have to deal with the monsters that are roaming the dark corridors they inhabit, and besides the first time they show up in the wine cellar; they never they never cease to not scare me.
With their first introduction in the wine cellar they had built up thanks to notes explaining what happened to these kidnappers and the fates they befell them; turning into monster that will hunt you down and kill you, and once you see what these people had become it’s honestly a bit scary and the amazing sound design adds so much to the horror of the situation. Outside of that one section however every other time the monsters showed up it usually just devolved into, me either impatiently waiting for them to leave and despawn so I can get back to exploring, or me getting impatient and just running past them and then hiding in the spot I needed to go to regardless. Once you get a real good look at these fuckers and learn that they despawn ones they finish their very simple patrol it becomes very monotonous the deal with, it’s like the vail just gets thrown away once you get to the second area and by the third area it just becomes trivial. Of course what people find scary is very subjective so it’s 100% a me thing but there's not much I can do about it so idk.
Besides the lack of scares it gave me, Amnesia left me feeling very fulfilled and makes me wanna try out the rest of the series really badly. I’m honestly surprised I enjoyed this as much as I’ve played the majority of other games like Amnesia and I never really cared for them, and in the case of something like Outlast; for what little time I put into that game I genuinely despised it. So maybe this is one of those cases where Amnesia worked really well but everyone else took the wrong reasons for why it worked.
8/10
Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs is a bad sequel. Compared to Dark Descent it has no item management, no inventory, less stuff you can interact with in the environment, a significantly shorter run time, and much MUCH simpler puzzles. It took most of the aspects I liked from Dark Descent and threw them all away to make a horror game trapped inside of a walking simulator. Now here’s the real interesting question, why do I like this more then Dark Descent?
Realistically I should be annoyed or even angry that my favorite aspects of DD are missing and have been replaced with the “horror” and narrative of the game primarily. But here’s the thing, DD had an amazingly beautiful and spooky mood and architecture; but besides a few areas near the beginning and last hour of the game I can’t remember the details of each area, and I’m gonna be real here chief I don’t think any of the monster look scary in DD. Now put that into context for AMFP, not only do I love the setting more than DD (turn of the century Victorian London is one of my favorite places in historic storytelling) but I love the architecture and scope of the titular machine.
In DD Brennenburg castle was a joy to get lost in but a huge complacent I still have with it is that after a while the dark cobblestone halls or the bloody dungeons all start looking kinda samey. I’m not saying they look bad on an artistic level but just after more then 7 or so hours of exploring this castle all the areas start bleeding together in my head, and I just finished the game a few weeks ago. In comparison I find the incomprehensive large machine I explore left me with a much more long lasting sense of dread and horror. The sound of the hissing and groning of this machine as I plunged ever deeper into the darkness never failed to unnerve me and make me feel small and insignificant. This machine is so large and wide reaching I left almost like a small insect crawling deeper and deeper into a lovecraftian nightmare. I’m not normally scared of things like gore or monsters or even psychological horror to an extent; no what I’m more afraid of is something I don’t know if you’d call relatable or pathetic but it’s darkness, I know that sounds stupid like yeah no shit everyone is afraid of darkness it's a basic human fear; but I don’t know how to explain it but the darkness is just something that creeps me out. It’s that pitch black nothingness that really gets to me, that sense of anything could be out there, that feeling of hopelessness closing in around you suffocating the last bastion of life before nothing is left, the quiet emptiness; that’s what scares me, DD didn’t really give me that vibe shockley but AMFP absolutely did.
The machine itself is loud, large, and claustrophobic, as you enter the church where your descent begins the quiet night of the london night and the moonline that beamed down upon you disappears, replace with the sounds of firing pistons, grinding gears,, squealing sounds from inhuman monsters, and the hissing of steam from the pips. The longer you descend into a monstrosity of copper and steel the darker it gets, with the only light coming from your lantern reflecting on the hot metal of the machine as everything else is drowned out by the machine, it a literal descent into the man made hell of our protagonist much more so than daniel’s decent in DD.
Maybe I’m on some strong ass copium but idk I just really liked this game man. Sure it’s not a great sequel to DD but honestly I’d love it if this series went the way of what John Carpenter tried to do with the Halloween series after Halloween 2. Instead of each game being a sequel to one another following the same world, lore and monsters, I’d love to see something more like what AMFPs tried to do. Reincorporating some of the same ideas and cour themes from DD but spinning off and making your own thing completely with a new setting, monsters, and story, something like Creepshow or Twilight Zone but for video games. I’m pretty sure an idea like that would never work for video games since gamers are entitled little shits but I think if executed the right way an idea like that has potentially boundless potential, yeah I know there are 2 other sequels in this series that I’m pretty sure fellow in the same world and lore of DD; what with all the lovecraftian orbs and interdimensional ghost bullshit. But I’m serious, an idea like that could potentially be a gold mine of creative ideas to flourish not just for Amnesia.
Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs is a bad sequel. Compared to Dark Descent it has no item management, no inventory, less stuff you can interact with in the environment, a significantly shorter run time, and much MUCH simpler puzzles. It took most of the aspects I liked from Dark Descent and threw them all away to make a horror game trapped inside of a walking simulator. Now here’s the real interesting question, why do I like this more then Dark Descent?
Realistically I should be annoyed or even angry that my favorite aspects of DD are missing and have been replaced with the “horror” and narrative of the game primarily. But here’s the thing, DD had an amazingly beautiful and spooky mood and architecture; but besides a few areas near the beginning and last hour of the game I can’t remember the details of each area, and I’m gonna be real here chief I don’t think any of the monster look scary in DD. Now put that into context for AMFP, not only do I love the setting more than DD (turn of the century Victorian London is one of my favorite places in historic storytelling) but I love the architecture and scope of the titular machine.
In DD Brennenburg castle was a joy to get lost in but a huge complacent I still have with it is that after a while the dark cobblestone halls or the bloody dungeons all start looking kinda samey. I’m not saying they look bad on an artistic level but just after more then 7 or so hours of exploring this castle all the areas start bleeding together in my head, and I just finished the game a few weeks ago. In comparison I find the incomprehensive large machine I explore left me with a much more long lasting sense of dread and horror. The sound of the hissing and groning of this machine as I plunged ever deeper into the darkness never failed to unnerve me and make me feel small and insignificant. This machine is so large and wide reaching I left almost like a small insect crawling deeper and deeper into a lovecraftian nightmare. I’m not normally scared of things like gore or monsters or even psychological horror to an extent; no what I’m more afraid of is something I don’t know if you’d call relatable or pathetic but it’s darkness, I know that sounds stupid like yeah no shit everyone is afraid of darkness it's a basic human fear; but I don’t know how to explain it but the darkness is just something that creeps me out. It’s that pitch black nothingness that really gets to me, that sense of anything could be out there, that feeling of hopelessness closing in around you suffocating the last bastion of life before nothing is left, the quiet emptiness; that’s what scares me, DD didn’t really give me that vibe shockley but AMFP absolutely did.
The machine itself is loud, large, and claustrophobic, as you enter the church where your descent begins the quiet night of the london night and the moonline that beamed down upon you disappears, replace with the sounds of firing pistons, grinding gears,, squealing sounds from inhuman monsters, and the hissing of steam from the pips. The longer you descend into a monstrosity of copper and steel the darker it gets, with the only light coming from your lantern reflecting on the hot metal of the machine as everything else is drowned out by the machine, it a literal descent into the man made hell of our protagonist much more so than daniel’s decent in DD.
Maybe I’m on some strong ass copium but idk I just really liked this game man. Sure it’s not a great sequel to DD but honestly I’d love it if this series went the way of what John Carpenter tried to do with the Halloween series after Halloween 2. Instead of each game being a sequel to one another following the same world, lore and monsters, I’d love to see something more like what AMFPs tried to do. Reincorporating some of the same ideas and cour themes from DD but spinning off and making your own thing completely with a new setting, monsters, and story, something like Creepshow or Twilight Zone but for video games. I’m pretty sure an idea like that would never work for video games since gamers are entitled little shits but I think if executed the right way an idea like that has potentially boundless potential, yeah I know there are 2 other sequels in this series that I’m pretty sure fellow in the same world and lore of DD; what with all the lovecraftian orbs and interdimensional ghost bullshit. But I’m serious, an idea like that could potentially be a gold mine of creative ideas to flourish not just for Amnesia.
4/10
I have no problem when it comes to horror games mostly aimed at kids;, kids deserve good horror just as much as the rest of us. Unfortunately this game isn’t all that interesting by itself and as a stepping stone for kids to want to try more horror games, I think everything this game tries to do is either painfully uninspired or just really boring.
The moment to moment stealth gameplay is….serviceable. It’s not doing anything amazing nor is it really godawful to play; it’s just very very basic, The AI is also just very very basic, it gets the job done and the variety of enemies that hunt you down over the course of this very short game is quite impressive even if their designs are just ok. The real problem with the game though is how unbelievably easy it is, yeah yeah I know complaining about a kids game being too easy is a stupid argument but let me explain.
The game is split up into small areas throughout the parallel universe school you explore. In those areas you do some light puzzles but mostly stealthing around monsters, and for the first hour or so it was pretty alright. The game gives you different pathways to avoid the monsters and the school's layout feels like a real school and not just a video game level that looks like a school which is pretty impressive, then you get the flashlight and the game just starts falling apart gameplay wise. See the flashlight works more then just lighting your path, it also help you fight the monster so stealthing around them isn’t that big of a problem anymore; the flashlight works in the same way as the flashlight in Alan Wake where you shine the light on the monster until they explode only in this game replace the guns with shining the light on specific parts of the monsters body. It’s a little tricky at first but you get used to it and it quickly takes away any sense of danger for 99% of the stealth areas, sure you’ll need to refill your flashlight with batteries in order to keep killing the monsters but the game basically gives them to you at almost every turn so you’ll always have enough ammo to kill whatever in your path. On top of that the flashlight also gives you the ability to stealth kill nearly every single monster without alerting any other monsters in the area, making the stealth areas that were already easy just a cake walk.
Half way through the game you get a stun flash that stuns all enemies around you momentarily so you can run away and rather than it only being a temporary item you can only use once it’s unlimited and recharges pretty quickly. The most egregious item you get however is the fire extinguisher, see it’s mostly used for putting out fires to reach new areas and fighting one boss; but it can also be used as a way to freeze all monsters you come across in these stealth areas. Yes it used for puzzles and bosses and yes it has to recharge after being used too much but still this breaks in the game in ways I can’t even imagine, why would you makes a basic stealth system when you give the player so many different tools and ammo that fighting the enemies head on is actually a better much more efficient solution then stealthing around them. By the half way point (3 hours in) I was so fucking bored because I don’t even need to try to stealth past these monsters because the game holds the players hand so much that any real challenge is just gone and it becomes monotonous. The last few hours almost put me to sleep with how dull and uninteresting the game had devolved into and by the last area I just wanted to be done with it.
See I have no problem with it when it comes to games giving their kids a slightly easier experience but when it’s so easy that it’s messing with the overall design of levels and the feel of the game then it starts being a real problem. One of the reasons I really liked My Friendly Neighborhood was it kept the core of what makes a good survival horror game intact while also having the game be a great stepping stone for younger kids who want to get into the medium but are either too young or too scared to play the more popular ones. Here besides some of the neat looking monsters the game offers nothing of real substance that other games of its kind do much better, and as a representation of the genre for a younger crowd it’s just bland and forgettable. Hell the only reason I even remember this game was just because it was one of a few originale games released exclusively for Google Stedia’s launch, and I guess having a flashship game like this go along with Google Stedia release is ironic.
I mean no ill will towards the devs, I just didn’t like the game.
I have no problem when it comes to horror games mostly aimed at kids;, kids deserve good horror just as much as the rest of us. Unfortunately this game isn’t all that interesting by itself and as a stepping stone for kids to want to try more horror games, I think everything this game tries to do is either painfully uninspired or just really boring.
The moment to moment stealth gameplay is….serviceable. It’s not doing anything amazing nor is it really godawful to play; it’s just very very basic, The AI is also just very very basic, it gets the job done and the variety of enemies that hunt you down over the course of this very short game is quite impressive even if their designs are just ok. The real problem with the game though is how unbelievably easy it is, yeah yeah I know complaining about a kids game being too easy is a stupid argument but let me explain.
The game is split up into small areas throughout the parallel universe school you explore. In those areas you do some light puzzles but mostly stealthing around monsters, and for the first hour or so it was pretty alright. The game gives you different pathways to avoid the monsters and the school's layout feels like a real school and not just a video game level that looks like a school which is pretty impressive, then you get the flashlight and the game just starts falling apart gameplay wise. See the flashlight works more then just lighting your path, it also help you fight the monster so stealthing around them isn’t that big of a problem anymore; the flashlight works in the same way as the flashlight in Alan Wake where you shine the light on the monster until they explode only in this game replace the guns with shining the light on specific parts of the monsters body. It’s a little tricky at first but you get used to it and it quickly takes away any sense of danger for 99% of the stealth areas, sure you’ll need to refill your flashlight with batteries in order to keep killing the monsters but the game basically gives them to you at almost every turn so you’ll always have enough ammo to kill whatever in your path. On top of that the flashlight also gives you the ability to stealth kill nearly every single monster without alerting any other monsters in the area, making the stealth areas that were already easy just a cake walk.
Half way through the game you get a stun flash that stuns all enemies around you momentarily so you can run away and rather than it only being a temporary item you can only use once it’s unlimited and recharges pretty quickly. The most egregious item you get however is the fire extinguisher, see it’s mostly used for putting out fires to reach new areas and fighting one boss; but it can also be used as a way to freeze all monsters you come across in these stealth areas. Yes it used for puzzles and bosses and yes it has to recharge after being used too much but still this breaks in the game in ways I can’t even imagine, why would you makes a basic stealth system when you give the player so many different tools and ammo that fighting the enemies head on is actually a better much more efficient solution then stealthing around them. By the half way point (3 hours in) I was so fucking bored because I don’t even need to try to stealth past these monsters because the game holds the players hand so much that any real challenge is just gone and it becomes monotonous. The last few hours almost put me to sleep with how dull and uninteresting the game had devolved into and by the last area I just wanted to be done with it.
See I have no problem with it when it comes to games giving their kids a slightly easier experience but when it’s so easy that it’s messing with the overall design of levels and the feel of the game then it starts being a real problem. One of the reasons I really liked My Friendly Neighborhood was it kept the core of what makes a good survival horror game intact while also having the game be a great stepping stone for younger kids who want to get into the medium but are either too young or too scared to play the more popular ones. Here besides some of the neat looking monsters the game offers nothing of real substance that other games of its kind do much better, and as a representation of the genre for a younger crowd it’s just bland and forgettable. Hell the only reason I even remember this game was just because it was one of a few originale games released exclusively for Google Stedia’s launch, and I guess having a flashship game like this go along with Google Stedia release is ironic.
I mean no ill will towards the devs, I just didn’t like the game.
7/10
Kinda crazy that Monolith was able to release two banger games in 1 year alone.
I feel conflicted with this game, not in the sense where I’m conflicted with the game’s overall quality. That's not the case at all; it’s a pretty solid game with great look investments and a surprisingly good first person melee system, but what I’m more confused about is what this game what to be.
What I mean is the game is obviously influenced by movies like Seven and Saw. Everything from the game going out of it’s way to have the player hunt down serial killers with a heavy emphasis on the detective side of the game, where you use almost science fiction level tools to uncover the string of on going serial killers and the murder of said serial killers; while also having the setting and gameplay rely heavily on that grungy grotesque hyper violent look and feel that was everywhere in post 9/11 horror movies like Saw or Hostel, and when the game tries going for those influences it succeed with flying colors. Everything from the dilapidated buildings you explore to the cracked out violent denizens that live in these forgotten places really add to a sense of “you don’t belong here, and if you wanna get out alive your going to need to fight for your life”, the melee combat for as simple as it is it does a tremendous job reincorporated the visual themes of the game into the gameplay. It’s not a pretty or stylish system, it's very simple and animalistic; all you do is hit the enemy and block his attacks until he dies and depending on the weapon you grabbed around the environment that might take awhile; resulting in you sometimes beating someone to a point where it’ll feel overkill. Yeah sure you can use guns to shoot your enemies but once a gun runs out of ammo that’s it for it; so what are you just gonna throw it away, fuck that your gonna take the butt of the gun and then beat the shit out of your enemies with the gun itself. The combat is loud, it’s violent, it’s gratuitous, and it perfectly captures the sense of this city going to hell and everything around it decaying in the process.
Now all of that is great and I love it when my video games have intertwined themes that work for both the narrative and gameplay; but once I got to the halfway point of the game stuff starts happening that honestly really bothered me.
So around the point where I hunting the mysterious Serial Killer X I started noticing these weird anorexic pseudo-cenobites looking creatures that scuttle on all fours, at first they seemed really out of place in this somewhat grounded setting but I just kind of assumed it was the game’s addition of a new enemy type of violent crackheads and after that I didn’t really question them. Then the main character started having these strange visions of future events or visions of possible events which I also stupidly didn’t give much thought to. Then the visions of this weird metal jawed ghost…thing started showing up and an underlying supernatural side of the game started showing its ugly head and after that the game just kinda lost me. It’s not that I don’t have a problem with a crime horror game taking a paranormal route but the thing that bothers me so much is that the game never really builds to it. The game is so forced on delivering this gritty setting with this violent combat system and then out of nowhere the game drops no so subtle hints that something other than an uprise in crime is going on in this city, that maybe something supernatural is causing this disturbance in people; and honestly I’d like to know that info too because the game never fucking tell you anything about it. I don’t know if I missed an autolog explain it or theres a 100% ending that explains more that I didn’t get but the game just drops all this supernatural ghost crap really half heartedly and expects me to just go along with it even thought it fits into the game’s pre-existing motifs about as well as round peg in a square hole. Nothing about these supernatural visions or the metal chin ghost that follows the main character around really hit into the game’s thematic elements and they fit into the story of the game even less. I don’t think I’d be as harsh towards the supernatural elements of the game if the game didn’t already do a tremendous job locking in this grounded gritty setting and tone all for this supernatural to bum rush in to ruin the suspense, tone, and especially the ending, which after finishing the game and sitting on my overall thoughts I still don’t understand the ending???? Was the finale boss the spirit that was causing the whole city to go crazy? Why did the ending suggest that a cult was behind this demotic entity even though no cults were referenced in the game’s story? How is Ethan connected to this cult and why does he have all these visions and high strength? They bring up his highly classified medical records during the game’s story but they never elaborate on it and it’s just kinda dropped from the story as soon as it’s brought up so what was the point of it’s inclusion?
All of the supernatural story elements the game throws in not only does not fit within the game’s thematic elements it's worked in but it also doesn't work for the sake of the game’s overall plot. You learn through one sentence of dialogue during the last 10 minutes of the game that this metal jaw ghost guy is the cause of the city’s meteoric rise of violence and serial killers and after that it’s straight to the final boss and then it’s never brought up ever again. There is no build up to it’s supernatural elements and there's no clear answer to why it’s even happening, it turns what could’ve been a fun and suspenseful crime horror game, into a disjointed mess of a story held together by great gameplay and a solid execution of the developer’s inspirations.
I know that whole rant seemed like I don’t like the game because it’s story was a fucking mess but I still enjoyed what I played in retrospect. I don’t think I’ve seen a game before that has such an effortlessly simple yet fun first person melee system, and the environments are still amazingly haunting since it’s on the same engine FEAR was made on and my god it’s lighting is almost as good as Id tech 4’s lighting. Again the whole story might just be me not fully understanding what the game was going for or maybe there was something I missed but at the end of the day I still wanna recommend the game because I still don’t think you’ll find any other game like Condemned out there.
Kinda crazy that Monolith was able to release two banger games in 1 year alone.
I feel conflicted with this game, not in the sense where I’m conflicted with the game’s overall quality. That's not the case at all; it’s a pretty solid game with great look investments and a surprisingly good first person melee system, but what I’m more confused about is what this game what to be.
What I mean is the game is obviously influenced by movies like Seven and Saw. Everything from the game going out of it’s way to have the player hunt down serial killers with a heavy emphasis on the detective side of the game, where you use almost science fiction level tools to uncover the string of on going serial killers and the murder of said serial killers; while also having the setting and gameplay rely heavily on that grungy grotesque hyper violent look and feel that was everywhere in post 9/11 horror movies like Saw or Hostel, and when the game tries going for those influences it succeed with flying colors. Everything from the dilapidated buildings you explore to the cracked out violent denizens that live in these forgotten places really add to a sense of “you don’t belong here, and if you wanna get out alive your going to need to fight for your life”, the melee combat for as simple as it is it does a tremendous job reincorporated the visual themes of the game into the gameplay. It’s not a pretty or stylish system, it's very simple and animalistic; all you do is hit the enemy and block his attacks until he dies and depending on the weapon you grabbed around the environment that might take awhile; resulting in you sometimes beating someone to a point where it’ll feel overkill. Yeah sure you can use guns to shoot your enemies but once a gun runs out of ammo that’s it for it; so what are you just gonna throw it away, fuck that your gonna take the butt of the gun and then beat the shit out of your enemies with the gun itself. The combat is loud, it’s violent, it’s gratuitous, and it perfectly captures the sense of this city going to hell and everything around it decaying in the process.
Now all of that is great and I love it when my video games have intertwined themes that work for both the narrative and gameplay; but once I got to the halfway point of the game stuff starts happening that honestly really bothered me.
So around the point where I hunting the mysterious Serial Killer X I started noticing these weird anorexic pseudo-cenobites looking creatures that scuttle on all fours, at first they seemed really out of place in this somewhat grounded setting but I just kind of assumed it was the game’s addition of a new enemy type of violent crackheads and after that I didn’t really question them. Then the main character started having these strange visions of future events or visions of possible events which I also stupidly didn’t give much thought to. Then the visions of this weird metal jawed ghost…thing started showing up and an underlying supernatural side of the game started showing its ugly head and after that the game just kinda lost me. It’s not that I don’t have a problem with a crime horror game taking a paranormal route but the thing that bothers me so much is that the game never really builds to it. The game is so forced on delivering this gritty setting with this violent combat system and then out of nowhere the game drops no so subtle hints that something other than an uprise in crime is going on in this city, that maybe something supernatural is causing this disturbance in people; and honestly I’d like to know that info too because the game never fucking tell you anything about it. I don’t know if I missed an autolog explain it or theres a 100% ending that explains more that I didn’t get but the game just drops all this supernatural ghost crap really half heartedly and expects me to just go along with it even thought it fits into the game’s pre-existing motifs about as well as round peg in a square hole. Nothing about these supernatural visions or the metal chin ghost that follows the main character around really hit into the game’s thematic elements and they fit into the story of the game even less. I don’t think I’d be as harsh towards the supernatural elements of the game if the game didn’t already do a tremendous job locking in this grounded gritty setting and tone all for this supernatural to bum rush in to ruin the suspense, tone, and especially the ending, which after finishing the game and sitting on my overall thoughts I still don’t understand the ending???? Was the finale boss the spirit that was causing the whole city to go crazy? Why did the ending suggest that a cult was behind this demotic entity even though no cults were referenced in the game’s story? How is Ethan connected to this cult and why does he have all these visions and high strength? They bring up his highly classified medical records during the game’s story but they never elaborate on it and it’s just kinda dropped from the story as soon as it’s brought up so what was the point of it’s inclusion?
All of the supernatural story elements the game throws in not only does not fit within the game’s thematic elements it's worked in but it also doesn't work for the sake of the game’s overall plot. You learn through one sentence of dialogue during the last 10 minutes of the game that this metal jaw ghost guy is the cause of the city’s meteoric rise of violence and serial killers and after that it’s straight to the final boss and then it’s never brought up ever again. There is no build up to it’s supernatural elements and there's no clear answer to why it’s even happening, it turns what could’ve been a fun and suspenseful crime horror game, into a disjointed mess of a story held together by great gameplay and a solid execution of the developer’s inspirations.
I know that whole rant seemed like I don’t like the game because it’s story was a fucking mess but I still enjoyed what I played in retrospect. I don’t think I’ve seen a game before that has such an effortlessly simple yet fun first person melee system, and the environments are still amazingly haunting since it’s on the same engine FEAR was made on and my god it’s lighting is almost as good as Id tech 4’s lighting. Again the whole story might just be me not fully understanding what the game was going for or maybe there was something I missed but at the end of the day I still wanna recommend the game because I still don’t think you’ll find any other game like Condemned out there.
2/10
I like the Saw movies for the garbage WWE tier plot line they haphazardly intertwined through all the awful sequels, what I don’t like is the gratuitous amounts of gore, the cheap looking visuals, and the god awful character dialogue. Unfortunately all the stuff I love from the Saw movies are nowhere to be seen here and instead we have all the crap I hate heightened thanks to it being an interactive experience.
I’d go into more detail about the game’s issues but I can think of ten more games I’d like writing about more than this one so I’m just leaving it here.
I like the Saw movies for the garbage WWE tier plot line they haphazardly intertwined through all the awful sequels, what I don’t like is the gratuitous amounts of gore, the cheap looking visuals, and the god awful character dialogue. Unfortunately all the stuff I love from the Saw movies are nowhere to be seen here and instead we have all the crap I hate heightened thanks to it being an interactive experience.
I’d go into more detail about the game’s issues but I can think of ten more games I’d like writing about more than this one so I’m just leaving it here.
6/10
After a few days of sitting on the game I wish I had more to say about it but I don’t really have anything I wanna go super in-depth with.
As a whole I think the game is pretty good with an amazing style that goes well beyond a stylistic gimmick and does some pretty unsettling body horror imagery with the rotoscoped pixel art, on the story front however is where I’m more uninterested with and have no strong feeling one way or the other. The game is split into 3 chapters and each chapter follows the events of a preacher trying to save the life of a possessed woman enraptured in a sinister cult. Now that is a super simplistic breakdown of the story and there is a lot more meat to find in the game through lore logs and secret enemy encounters but to be honest I find possession narratives and evil cults like the least interesting stories in the horror medium. Not to say these stories are bad; hell Exorcist and Hereditary are some of my favorite horror movies of all time, but outside of the rare few exceptions they mostly follow the same story just with a new gimmick. Possession are over done to death and personally I think evil secret cults are the lamest antagonistic force you can have for your story, like think of a time where you really liked where a movie or story is going and then you find out “oh all of the events that are happening are because of a evil satanic cult” it feels like getting all the fun just sucked right out of you, and if I’m being honest that’s how this game made me feel too.
Apparently the game was released chapter by chapter and I can see that in the story because it FEELS like it was being written as it was going along. I’m sure the lead dev had an idea of where he wanted the story to go over time; but there isn’t a good narrative flow going from chapter 1 to 2, and especially three.
Chapter 1 feels very much like a story reaching the end with the player only having a small idea of the greater narrative, chapter 2 gives a little more context of the events in chapter 1 but starts introducing new shit that was never felt like it fit into the pre-existing narrative, and then chapter 3 just goes full in on the cult stuff and then when I honestly stopped paying attention to the overall narrative because like I said before I personally don’t like it when stories throw in evil satanic cult where they really didn’t need to be there, I’ve always just seen it as a lazy story trop.
Before you ask why I felt like it had a bad narrative flow when what I describe was a kind of basic sounding 3 act structure; well it technically is, but chapters 1 and 2 are full of so many pointless red herring that go nowhere and serve no purpose to the main character arc or the overall story; the only explanation I can think of for why their in the game is the lead dev had ideas and plans for these plot threads but didn’t fall thought with them for one reason or another; which is fine if true and to be fair can be natural problem when it comes to releasing a game episodically, but it still leaves the game feeling really unsure of what the overall story is trying to be all the way up too chapter 3.
I know it sounds like I didn’t like the game’s story and while I don’t like cult twist or most possession stories I could honestly care less about the story, I was never as invested in the game’s story from the start so when it started going down the evil cult road I just kind of accepted it and stopped paying as much attention as I was before. I know that makes a lot of my criticism disingenuous since I really didn’t see the game on its level after awhile but I’m just writing what the game made me feel and I feel apathetic towards the game’s narrative. That’s honestly why I don’t like qualifying my more recent stuff as “reviews” more so just personal thoughts on games I’ve been playing recently. Now with all of that being said; I’d still recommend the game to people who are interested in the game, manly because most of my “issues” are not with the game and more of a personal thing, plus the game is oozing with so much style and talented work that I’d be crazy not to recommend it to someone if it at least looked interesting from a passing glance, after all that’s why I decided to play it. I’m sorry if this reads like I’m writing my thoughts as I go along, it’s 3AM as I write this and I’m about to go to bed so to make a long story short; this is one of those case where it’s not the game’s fault for me not fulling vibing with it, it’s just a me thing.
Trust me this has happened more than once and I kinda hate it, especially when it was something I wanted to love.
After a few days of sitting on the game I wish I had more to say about it but I don’t really have anything I wanna go super in-depth with.
As a whole I think the game is pretty good with an amazing style that goes well beyond a stylistic gimmick and does some pretty unsettling body horror imagery with the rotoscoped pixel art, on the story front however is where I’m more uninterested with and have no strong feeling one way or the other. The game is split into 3 chapters and each chapter follows the events of a preacher trying to save the life of a possessed woman enraptured in a sinister cult. Now that is a super simplistic breakdown of the story and there is a lot more meat to find in the game through lore logs and secret enemy encounters but to be honest I find possession narratives and evil cults like the least interesting stories in the horror medium. Not to say these stories are bad; hell Exorcist and Hereditary are some of my favorite horror movies of all time, but outside of the rare few exceptions they mostly follow the same story just with a new gimmick. Possession are over done to death and personally I think evil secret cults are the lamest antagonistic force you can have for your story, like think of a time where you really liked where a movie or story is going and then you find out “oh all of the events that are happening are because of a evil satanic cult” it feels like getting all the fun just sucked right out of you, and if I’m being honest that’s how this game made me feel too.
Apparently the game was released chapter by chapter and I can see that in the story because it FEELS like it was being written as it was going along. I’m sure the lead dev had an idea of where he wanted the story to go over time; but there isn’t a good narrative flow going from chapter 1 to 2, and especially three.
Chapter 1 feels very much like a story reaching the end with the player only having a small idea of the greater narrative, chapter 2 gives a little more context of the events in chapter 1 but starts introducing new shit that was never felt like it fit into the pre-existing narrative, and then chapter 3 just goes full in on the cult stuff and then when I honestly stopped paying attention to the overall narrative because like I said before I personally don’t like it when stories throw in evil satanic cult where they really didn’t need to be there, I’ve always just seen it as a lazy story trop.
Before you ask why I felt like it had a bad narrative flow when what I describe was a kind of basic sounding 3 act structure; well it technically is, but chapters 1 and 2 are full of so many pointless red herring that go nowhere and serve no purpose to the main character arc or the overall story; the only explanation I can think of for why their in the game is the lead dev had ideas and plans for these plot threads but didn’t fall thought with them for one reason or another; which is fine if true and to be fair can be natural problem when it comes to releasing a game episodically, but it still leaves the game feeling really unsure of what the overall story is trying to be all the way up too chapter 3.
I know it sounds like I didn’t like the game’s story and while I don’t like cult twist or most possession stories I could honestly care less about the story, I was never as invested in the game’s story from the start so when it started going down the evil cult road I just kind of accepted it and stopped paying as much attention as I was before. I know that makes a lot of my criticism disingenuous since I really didn’t see the game on its level after awhile but I’m just writing what the game made me feel and I feel apathetic towards the game’s narrative. That’s honestly why I don’t like qualifying my more recent stuff as “reviews” more so just personal thoughts on games I’ve been playing recently. Now with all of that being said; I’d still recommend the game to people who are interested in the game, manly because most of my “issues” are not with the game and more of a personal thing, plus the game is oozing with so much style and talented work that I’d be crazy not to recommend it to someone if it at least looked interesting from a passing glance, after all that’s why I decided to play it. I’m sorry if this reads like I’m writing my thoughts as I go along, it’s 3AM as I write this and I’m about to go to bed so to make a long story short; this is one of those case where it’s not the game’s fault for me not fulling vibing with it, it’s just a me thing.
Trust me this has happened more than once and I kinda hate it, especially when it was something I wanted to love.
8/10
I think I got this game in a humble bundle a year back and thought nothing about it until I picked it out of my library for this marathon and man I'm glad I did because Stories Untold surprised the hell out of me.
The game unfolds (haha) through 4 short stories where you as the player use an old ass computer to type out and solve puzzles, these stories range from psychological horror, sci-fi horror, and the gift that keeps on giving lovecraftian horror.
The horror of the game at least for me really didn’t really come from the events that were unfolding but more how your actions and lack of mobility really added to a feeling of hopelessness. I really don’t wanna spoil anything about the later stories but the first one is not only a real standout and probably my favorite; but it also has all the best aspects of the game rolled into one great first story.
It starts you off stuck at a desk with only a dinky little desk lamp, a keyboard, and a tv where you play through a text adventure game going through your old family holiday home, but the longer you play through the text adventure game the more you start to realize that the house in the game has a striking resemblance to the house you’re currently in, and then the worst possible thing starts happening; the actions you do in the game start having a real tangible action in the real world along with your surrounding becoming more corrupted and moldy as you continue. Now I’m sure you're reading this and rolling your eyes at the concept, I mean it sounds hokey and honestly really lame. Well the thing that really made the horror work so well at least for me was the story taking the game within a game approach, and what I mean by that is you are still playing a game Stories Untold where you sit at a desk and play a text adventure game; but your also playing the text adventure game The House Abandon sitting at a deck as the world around you changes depending on the actions you type in. As you type out the action to have the character turn on the generator the light on your dinky little lamp flickers with a faint glow, as your character opens the door you’ll hear loud footsteps echoing downstairs talking through the living room and kitchen. If you type in the game for the character to walk upstairs you’ll hear it walking up with quite possibly the loudest footsteps imaginable, you can hear whatever's in your house right outside your room door, and sometimes the phone in your room will go off sending a message into the game with the character wondering where that ringing noise it just heard. That disconnect between the “real world” and The House Abandon game really solidify the horror to me, yes you are playing a game within a game but if you got as sucked into the atmosphere as I did you won’t even notice that “oh those footsteps are just parts of the game” you’ll think “OH GOD OH SHIT THERE'S SOMEONE RIGHT OUTSIDE MY DOOR WHAT THE FUCK DO I DO???!!?!”. It’s a feeling that I’m sure is hard to pin down with games like this but man does it do a great job.
Honestly if I could compare this game to any other ones I’d compare it most with The Stanley Parable. Yeah they're not one for one, this game is trying to be a horror game and the other one is a meta comedy on the nature of video games; but they both have that disconnect from the player and the game but because it’s still a game that disconnect ironically sucks the player in more where you’re not just playing The Stanley Parable as Stanley, you ostensibly are Stanley. Your playing through as game as Stanley, but also playing as Stanley the person holding the controller and you get to pick where to go as the narrator yells at you for picking pathways and options you were never supposed to pick because this is a video game with pre-laid out design choices where you can’t just go wherever you want. Obviously Stories Untold doesn't do the same kind of deconstructed narrative that Stanley Parable does but it tries reaching for that same kind of feeling that Stanley Parable gave the player only this time rather than a funny meta deconstructed; it’s to scare the crap out of them, and personally I think the game succeeded. Please go play the game, I think this game deserves a lot more attention then it got at launch and you can pick it up pretty cheap during most steam sales and it’s only 3 or 4 hours long.
I think I got this game in a humble bundle a year back and thought nothing about it until I picked it out of my library for this marathon and man I'm glad I did because Stories Untold surprised the hell out of me.
The game unfolds (haha) through 4 short stories where you as the player use an old ass computer to type out and solve puzzles, these stories range from psychological horror, sci-fi horror, and the gift that keeps on giving lovecraftian horror.
The horror of the game at least for me really didn’t really come from the events that were unfolding but more how your actions and lack of mobility really added to a feeling of hopelessness. I really don’t wanna spoil anything about the later stories but the first one is not only a real standout and probably my favorite; but it also has all the best aspects of the game rolled into one great first story.
It starts you off stuck at a desk with only a dinky little desk lamp, a keyboard, and a tv where you play through a text adventure game going through your old family holiday home, but the longer you play through the text adventure game the more you start to realize that the house in the game has a striking resemblance to the house you’re currently in, and then the worst possible thing starts happening; the actions you do in the game start having a real tangible action in the real world along with your surrounding becoming more corrupted and moldy as you continue. Now I’m sure you're reading this and rolling your eyes at the concept, I mean it sounds hokey and honestly really lame. Well the thing that really made the horror work so well at least for me was the story taking the game within a game approach, and what I mean by that is you are still playing a game Stories Untold where you sit at a desk and play a text adventure game; but your also playing the text adventure game The House Abandon sitting at a deck as the world around you changes depending on the actions you type in. As you type out the action to have the character turn on the generator the light on your dinky little lamp flickers with a faint glow, as your character opens the door you’ll hear loud footsteps echoing downstairs talking through the living room and kitchen. If you type in the game for the character to walk upstairs you’ll hear it walking up with quite possibly the loudest footsteps imaginable, you can hear whatever's in your house right outside your room door, and sometimes the phone in your room will go off sending a message into the game with the character wondering where that ringing noise it just heard. That disconnect between the “real world” and The House Abandon game really solidify the horror to me, yes you are playing a game within a game but if you got as sucked into the atmosphere as I did you won’t even notice that “oh those footsteps are just parts of the game” you’ll think “OH GOD OH SHIT THERE'S SOMEONE RIGHT OUTSIDE MY DOOR WHAT THE FUCK DO I DO???!!?!”. It’s a feeling that I’m sure is hard to pin down with games like this but man does it do a great job.
Honestly if I could compare this game to any other ones I’d compare it most with The Stanley Parable. Yeah they're not one for one, this game is trying to be a horror game and the other one is a meta comedy on the nature of video games; but they both have that disconnect from the player and the game but because it’s still a game that disconnect ironically sucks the player in more where you’re not just playing The Stanley Parable as Stanley, you ostensibly are Stanley. Your playing through as game as Stanley, but also playing as Stanley the person holding the controller and you get to pick where to go as the narrator yells at you for picking pathways and options you were never supposed to pick because this is a video game with pre-laid out design choices where you can’t just go wherever you want. Obviously Stories Untold doesn't do the same kind of deconstructed narrative that Stanley Parable does but it tries reaching for that same kind of feeling that Stanley Parable gave the player only this time rather than a funny meta deconstructed; it’s to scare the crap out of them, and personally I think the game succeeded. Please go play the game, I think this game deserves a lot more attention then it got at launch and you can pick it up pretty cheap during most steam sales and it’s only 3 or 4 hours long.
𝟗/𝟏𝟎
What an outstanding game, probably the best 5 dollars I’ve ever spent on…well….anything.
The way the small claustrophobic rusted sub sounds as it swims through the blood ocean as it creaks and moans barely being held together, and the lack of visibility on what really out there with your only source available being a crappy camera that only shoots in black and white along with a one second delay, it’s such an unreliable piece of junk that it’s only real way to know where you're going is by using the latitude and longitude coordinates on your map of the whole area. Too fucking bad the map is barely legible at time because whoever printed out that map musti’ve had their printer run out of ink; so most of the top have are just splotches that look like canals. The best part however is the hunting sounds that you’d hear periodically outside your sub. Keep in mind this is an ocean of blood on a random moon; what could possibly be down here? The stuff you do find with your camera honestly just makes things slightly more worrisome along with the sounds of the sub’s pipes bursting and the possible monsters outside in the blood ocean along with everything else wrong with the sub itself; makes for an extremely nerve-wracking experience.
And that’s where I’m gonna stop because describing any more about the game itself kinda defeats the purpose of it a little. I’d honestly just rather have this review be one big recommendation and a call to action telling you to play it rather than my words doing the game justice, trust me you’ll thank me after finishing the game.
What an outstanding game, probably the best 5 dollars I’ve ever spent on…well….anything.
The way the small claustrophobic rusted sub sounds as it swims through the blood ocean as it creaks and moans barely being held together, and the lack of visibility on what really out there with your only source available being a crappy camera that only shoots in black and white along with a one second delay, it’s such an unreliable piece of junk that it’s only real way to know where you're going is by using the latitude and longitude coordinates on your map of the whole area. Too fucking bad the map is barely legible at time because whoever printed out that map musti’ve had their printer run out of ink; so most of the top have are just splotches that look like canals. The best part however is the hunting sounds that you’d hear periodically outside your sub. Keep in mind this is an ocean of blood on a random moon; what could possibly be down here? The stuff you do find with your camera honestly just makes things slightly more worrisome along with the sounds of the sub’s pipes bursting and the possible monsters outside in the blood ocean along with everything else wrong with the sub itself; makes for an extremely nerve-wracking experience.
And that’s where I’m gonna stop because describing any more about the game itself kinda defeats the purpose of it a little. I’d honestly just rather have this review be one big recommendation and a call to action telling you to play it rather than my words doing the game justice, trust me you’ll thank me after finishing the game.
5/10
𝟏𝟕# 𝐒𝐚𝐫𝐚 𝐢𝐬 𝐌𝐢𝐬𝐬𝐢𝐧𝐠
Awwww good old 2016 youtube fodder content.
I wanted to go back at this game out of a curiosity to see if it still held any value as game rather than a short footnote in the history of shock indie game fodder for content hungry youtubers, and while I think the concept is genuinely interesting and a spooky concept, it’s bogged down by a very liner structure, not taking full use of it’s concept only scratching the surface of it’s own potential, and a very lame story that stretches its concept way too far past the realm of believability. (looks like I’ll be adding this game to the list of media where an interesting idea is ruined by the “oh it was a cult the whole time” trop.)
I know there's other versions of this game and I might try them out later to see if they ironed out the issues I have but that’s for another day, as for Sara is Missing; it’s a neat concept game.
(maybe the Doctor Who version will be better………..what you think I’m joking no theres a version of this game but it’s set in the Doctor Who universe, I don’t know if it’s good or bad I just it’s really interesting that some obscure indie devs were able to work on officially licensed Doctor Who game just because their demo concept game got popular. That’s like the shit dreams are made of.)
𝟏𝟕# 𝐒𝐚𝐫𝐚 𝐢𝐬 𝐌𝐢𝐬𝐬𝐢𝐧𝐠
Awwww good old 2016 youtube fodder content.
I wanted to go back at this game out of a curiosity to see if it still held any value as game rather than a short footnote in the history of shock indie game fodder for content hungry youtubers, and while I think the concept is genuinely interesting and a spooky concept, it’s bogged down by a very liner structure, not taking full use of it’s concept only scratching the surface of it’s own potential, and a very lame story that stretches its concept way too far past the realm of believability. (looks like I’ll be adding this game to the list of media where an interesting idea is ruined by the “oh it was a cult the whole time” trop.)
I know there's other versions of this game and I might try them out later to see if they ironed out the issues I have but that’s for another day, as for Sara is Missing; it’s a neat concept game.
(maybe the Doctor Who version will be better………..what you think I’m joking no theres a version of this game but it’s set in the Doctor Who universe, I don’t know if it’s good or bad I just it’s really interesting that some obscure indie devs were able to work on officially licensed Doctor Who game just because their demo concept game got popular. That’s like the shit dreams are made of.)
2/10
𝘐 𝘳𝘦𝘮𝘦𝘮𝘣𝘦𝘳 𝘸𝘩𝘦𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘞𝘪𝘪𝘜 𝘌𝘴𝘩𝘰𝘱 𝘧𝘪𝘳𝘴𝘵 𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘳𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘴𝘦𝘭𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘴𝘩𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘭𝘸𝘢𝘳𝘦.
𝘚𝘸𝘦𝘦𝘵 𝘴𝘸𝘦𝘦𝘵 𝘚𝘩𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘭𝘸𝘢𝘳𝘦
𝙄 𝙖𝙡𝙬𝙖𝙮𝙨 𝙃𝘼𝙏𝙀𝘿 𝙄𝙏
𝘐 𝘳𝘦𝘮𝘦𝘮𝘣𝘦𝘳 𝘸𝘩𝘦𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘞𝘪𝘪𝘜 𝘌𝘴𝘩𝘰𝘱 𝘧𝘪𝘳𝘴𝘵 𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘳𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘴𝘦𝘭𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘴𝘩𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘭𝘸𝘢𝘳𝘦.
𝘚𝘸𝘦𝘦𝘵 𝘴𝘸𝘦𝘦𝘵 𝘚𝘩𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘭𝘸𝘢𝘳𝘦
𝙄 𝙖𝙡𝙬𝙖𝙮𝙨 𝙃𝘼𝙏𝙀𝘿 𝙄𝙏
7/10
You never appreciate good sound design until you hear one of the most disgusting grabbing sounds known to humanity, a sound so wet and foul the mere thought of it makes my stomach churn.
I haven’t played or even heard of most of Yame’s other work until I played this, and the only reason I even played this was from a blind recommendation from a friend and seeing Markiplier play a little bit of it. Now that I’ve finished what is honestly a very short game I can say that it sure was a grotesque horrible experience, and I mean that in a good way.
The reason why I’d categorize this as one of those “experience” games is because once you finish the game there's really no reason to ever replay the game, and it’s core gameplay loop is not really all that engaging; you pretty much just pick up trash in the same 4 or 5 spots and collect items to do the same objectives for 5 nights. It’s not the most engaging game I’ve ever played but for what the game lacks in a fulfilling gameplay loop it makes up for it with an immaculate sense of atmosphere.
The game itself has that low poly look with a grimy crusty pixelated filter coated on so everything looks so crusty it’s hard to get a good grasp on what your even looking at, add in the lowpoly models and some impressive body horror for Grandpa’s growing phases and it creates such an uncomfortable and off putting environment that some of the best horror game’s wish they could create. The body horror is what really sells the game for me thought, watching all of grandpa's growing phases go from barely conceivable lumps of wet and riving flesh to a somewhat human looking figure that still looks too monstrous to be but human. The sound Grandpa makes is even more unsettling, since for most of the game grandpa hasn’t grown its own tongue, lungs or lips so whenever you try to each grandpa's words they either come out as raspy cries or wet incomprehensible throat noises. Any interaction with Grandpa is truly unsettling but when you can have full on conversations with Grandpa is when it gets so unnerving I had to take a 5 minute break because I was having a mini panic attack.
I don’t think this is the scariest game I’ve ever played or hell even the scariest game I’ve played for this marathon, more so it gave me the same feeling that FNAF gave me when I first played it, a horrifying rush of anxiety that caused me to question everything around me and worry much more than I should’ve. But even if I don’t really think the game itself is scary I can’t deny the genius artistry on display here, I’d say it’s worth it just for that first playthrough even if the core gameplay leaves a little to be desired.
You never appreciate good sound design until you hear one of the most disgusting grabbing sounds known to humanity, a sound so wet and foul the mere thought of it makes my stomach churn.
I haven’t played or even heard of most of Yame’s other work until I played this, and the only reason I even played this was from a blind recommendation from a friend and seeing Markiplier play a little bit of it. Now that I’ve finished what is honestly a very short game I can say that it sure was a grotesque horrible experience, and I mean that in a good way.
The reason why I’d categorize this as one of those “experience” games is because once you finish the game there's really no reason to ever replay the game, and it’s core gameplay loop is not really all that engaging; you pretty much just pick up trash in the same 4 or 5 spots and collect items to do the same objectives for 5 nights. It’s not the most engaging game I’ve ever played but for what the game lacks in a fulfilling gameplay loop it makes up for it with an immaculate sense of atmosphere.
The game itself has that low poly look with a grimy crusty pixelated filter coated on so everything looks so crusty it’s hard to get a good grasp on what your even looking at, add in the lowpoly models and some impressive body horror for Grandpa’s growing phases and it creates such an uncomfortable and off putting environment that some of the best horror game’s wish they could create. The body horror is what really sells the game for me thought, watching all of grandpa's growing phases go from barely conceivable lumps of wet and riving flesh to a somewhat human looking figure that still looks too monstrous to be but human. The sound Grandpa makes is even more unsettling, since for most of the game grandpa hasn’t grown its own tongue, lungs or lips so whenever you try to each grandpa's words they either come out as raspy cries or wet incomprehensible throat noises. Any interaction with Grandpa is truly unsettling but when you can have full on conversations with Grandpa is when it gets so unnerving I had to take a 5 minute break because I was having a mini panic attack.
I don’t think this is the scariest game I’ve ever played or hell even the scariest game I’ve played for this marathon, more so it gave me the same feeling that FNAF gave me when I first played it, a horrifying rush of anxiety that caused me to question everything around me and worry much more than I should’ve. But even if I don’t really think the game itself is scary I can’t deny the genius artistry on display here, I’d say it’s worth it just for that first playthrough even if the core gameplay leaves a little to be desired.
5/10
I think the concept of this game is honestly a lot more interesting then the actual game itself unfortunately. I love the idea of flipping through cameras trying to find any paranormal anomaly popping up through this house, the problem or at least to me is that there are too many types of anomalies in this game and most of them range from a simple chair moving or a tiny pixel you never noticed slowly turning into a black hole; so a lot of the time I didn't even know some rooms had anomalies until the house had too many forcing me to retry. It causes most games to be scary for a little bit with the one or two genuine fright and the rest being small inconsequential things you're not going to notice until you eventually die.
I think the game would’ve benefited with trimming maybe a quarter of the anomaly types and having better visual indication that something is in the house or something in a room moved.
I think the concept of this game is honestly a lot more interesting then the actual game itself unfortunately. I love the idea of flipping through cameras trying to find any paranormal anomaly popping up through this house, the problem or at least to me is that there are too many types of anomalies in this game and most of them range from a simple chair moving or a tiny pixel you never noticed slowly turning into a black hole; so a lot of the time I didn't even know some rooms had anomalies until the house had too many forcing me to retry. It causes most games to be scary for a little bit with the one or two genuine fright and the rest being small inconsequential things you're not going to notice until you eventually die.
I think the game would’ve benefited with trimming maybe a quarter of the anomaly types and having better visual indication that something is in the house or something in a room moved.
