The grade is all for the story, which I found mildly intriguing. The game is also often quite gorgeous-looking in a dark, horrorish way. But when it comes to gameplay, it's rubbish, with most of the game having almost nothing for you to do but push forward, and yet the game isn't even brave enough to be a walking sim, instead breaking up the cutscenes and endless shuffling (can't even call it running, especially when they disable the "sprint" button yet again) with meaningless "push a button to continue the story" type of interactions.
The mechanically most involving moments of the game are when you're let loose in a small area and forced to solve some rather easy puzzles in order to proceed, with the one in the Red House being my favourite. It's the only time I felt any intellectual stimulation during the game, even if that too wasn't all that much.
But what's worse is when the game decides to amp up the actions and throw you into some escape sequences with insta-deaths and bad checkpointing. Considering how mediocre I found this game, those were the moments where I asked myself most seriously "why don't I just watch the cutscenes on YouTube?"
So it all falls on the writing, storytelling and acting, to prop up this nothing of a game. To a degree, it succeeds - at least enough that I saw the game through (though not enough to make me want to avoid gameplay videos on YouTube whenever I got stuck). The first half an hour where you're saying goodbye to your step-father was appropriately dramatic and even touching, enough to get me excited what delicious darkness and writing would be waiting for me.
And I did love the dark atmosphere of the game and its old broken-down Soviet hotel setting (even though it's funny hearing everybody talk and write in English in Poland), and I was for the most part legitimately interested in the story, and there were moments and themes where it shocked me and had some nice surprises (though some of the choices are questionable, to say the least, especially in a game that does nothing with them). Part of me even enjoyed playing through this world myself, instead of just watching it on YouTube.
It's just that there were too many moments where I was wondering why I'm even playing it or where I got angry at another aggravating one-hit-death or a meaningless blockade (if I have to cut through another goddamn skin …)
And then, as if the lacklustre mechanics weren't enough, once you arrive at the very ending, the game doesn't have the guts to even end properly, instead going for an ambiguous ending that means absolutely nothing in a game so concentrated on plot and narrative - and I say that as a person who routinely defends ambiguous endings by saying that the story so far has given us the tools to understand what is important to understand about it, that to go on would have actually been meaningless because we already got enough of the story to finish what matters in our heads.
Not here though. But I guess a shocking sound effect on a fade to black makes the game seem more meaningful. Goodness knows this bloody thing needs every support it can get.
Oh, and I wasn't scared even once. Just like in a proper horror game.
The mechanically most involving moments of the game are when you're let loose in a small area and forced to solve some rather easy puzzles in order to proceed, with the one in the Red House being my favourite. It's the only time I felt any intellectual stimulation during the game, even if that too wasn't all that much.
But what's worse is when the game decides to amp up the actions and throw you into some escape sequences with insta-deaths and bad checkpointing. Considering how mediocre I found this game, those were the moments where I asked myself most seriously "why don't I just watch the cutscenes on YouTube?"
So it all falls on the writing, storytelling and acting, to prop up this nothing of a game. To a degree, it succeeds - at least enough that I saw the game through (though not enough to make me want to avoid gameplay videos on YouTube whenever I got stuck). The first half an hour where you're saying goodbye to your step-father was appropriately dramatic and even touching, enough to get me excited what delicious darkness and writing would be waiting for me.
And I did love the dark atmosphere of the game and its old broken-down Soviet hotel setting (even though it's funny hearing everybody talk and write in English in Poland), and I was for the most part legitimately interested in the story, and there were moments and themes where it shocked me and had some nice surprises (though some of the choices are questionable, to say the least, especially in a game that does nothing with them). Part of me even enjoyed playing through this world myself, instead of just watching it on YouTube.
It's just that there were too many moments where I was wondering why I'm even playing it or where I got angry at another aggravating one-hit-death or a meaningless blockade (if I have to cut through another goddamn skin …)
And then, as if the lacklustre mechanics weren't enough, once you arrive at the very ending, the game doesn't have the guts to even end properly, instead going for an ambiguous ending that means absolutely nothing in a game so concentrated on plot and narrative - and I say that as a person who routinely defends ambiguous endings by saying that the story so far has given us the tools to understand what is important to understand about it, that to go on would have actually been meaningless because we already got enough of the story to finish what matters in our heads.
Not here though. But I guess a shocking sound effect on a fade to black makes the game seem more meaningful. Goodness knows this bloody thing needs every support it can get.
Oh, and I wasn't scared even once. Just like in a proper horror game.