Samantha Lienhard's Blog, page 80

Celebrating All Things Spooky: Never Apart

Never Apart is a free horror game recommended to me by a friend as being Silent Hill 4 by way of PT. So of course, with a recommendation like that, I had to take a look.

It is a short horror game created for a 48-hour game jam in which the theme was “even apart, we make a great team.” In Never Apart, you are trapped in the repeating halls of an apartment building as radio broadcasts talk about a serial killer named Darren Bar.

I never played PT thanks to not having a PS4 before it was removed from the store, but Never Apart was inspired by PT and can be considered a “PT clone” based on the descriptions people give.

Meanwhile, I can see where the Silent Hill 4 comparison came from, because the basic story of the serial killer has a definite Silent Hill 4 vibe.

Now, you don’t actually do a lot in the game. It’s basically a walking sim with some jump scares and spooky moments, but it does a decent job of building up a spooky atmosphere in spite of that. It also tells an original story despite its clear inspirations, and there are some nice creepy parts. On the other hand, this is probably the shortest game we’ve looked at this year, clocking in at around 15 minutes or so to complete.

Never Apart is a very short horror game, but for a free game made in 48 hours, it’s not bad at all. I’d be interested in seeing what the developer could do with a longer game someday, whether an expansion of this concept or something entirely new.

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Celebrating All Things Spooky: Resident Evil 7

Three years after its release, I’ve finally played Resident Evil 7: Biohazard.

(I’d actually intended for this to be my first spooky game of the season, but due to some computer issues and other factors, it ended up being pushed to near the end.)

When I started the game, I had my doubts. It didn’t feel much like a Resident Evil game at all.

Fortunately, it does end up feeling like Resident Evil once you get through the beginning, at least in terms of gameplay.

Although you play from a first-person perspective and it begins with a section that emphasizes stealth and sneaking around a persistent stalker enemy, it isn’t too long before you reach an area with several locks doors, keys to find, and puzzles to solve – all the things I look for in a survival horror game.

Resident Evil 7 definitely brought the series back to survival horror, and having played the Resident Evil 2 remake, I can see just how much the two have in common despite initially feeling very different.

So when it comes to survival horror, Resident Evil 7 left me satisfied. Keys, puzzles, inventory management, it has it all… and some pretty deadly enemies to face off against, too.

On the other hand, the tone is very different than the rest of the series (although I’d argue Resident Evil lost a consistent tone around Resident Evil 4, if not earlier). You play Ethan, a man who receives a message from his missing wife asking him to come get her. Once he arrives, he finds himself trapped by a family of murderous psychopaths who have decided to make him the latest addition to their little group.

There are monsters and infections, but the major antagonists are infected humans who stalk you around the game’s locations and taunt you. It just doesn’t feel like Resident Evil.

For most of the game, that is. While you might spend most of it wondering why this is Resident Evil and not a new survival horror IP, the connection is established late in the game, and I actually really liked how it finally established itself as part of the series.

Overall, I enjoyed Resident Evil 7: Biohazard and I see why people saw it as Resident Evil’s triumphant return to survival horror. If Resident Evil Village ends up feeling like this, I wouldn’t mind that. I haven’t played the DLC yet, but I intend to look into them. What did you think of Resident Evil 7?

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Celebrating All Things Spooky: DreadOut

There are a lot of Resident Evil clones and some Silent Hill clones, but today we’re going to talk about one of the few Fatal Frame clones out there: DreadOut.

DreadOut follows a teenage girl named Linda, whose school trip goes horribly wrong after she and her classmates become separated from one another in an abandoned, haunted school.

Fortunately Linda’s phone camera (and later a regular camera as well) lets her fight back against these restless and malevolent spirits, as well as take photos of key areas to solve puzzles. As you explore, there are notes to find that provide some story context for the ghosts and the town.

The game is split into three acts. Act 0 is a short prologue, Act 1 takes place in the school, and Act 2 takes place in the surrounding areas.

The camera in Act 1 is terrible. Not the camera you use to fight the ghosts with, but the actual game camera. When you aren’t looking through your phone in first-person, the over-the-shoulder camera is unusually far to the right of Linda, and it goes crazy when you try to go through a doorway. Since the other parts are set in wider areas, it’s not as big of an issue there.

There isn’t a lot of story, although Act 2 adds a bit more, as well as more character interactions. Mainly it’s all about exploring haunted locations and fighting ghosts.

If you die, you travel through “limbo” instead of simply getting a game over, which basically means you need to waste time running toward a blue light while the game inexplicably displays messages like “Thank you for buying a legit copy of DreadOut” and “Winners don’t do drugs” along with an occasional message that’s actually relevant to the story. Then you return to the spot right before you died, so it’s functionally the same as restarting from a checkpoint.

Overall, DreadOut is… fine. It has some frustrating parts and a few illogical puzzles, but there are some genuinely spooky moments and tense boss fights.

I don’t feel compelled to play more from the series, especially since I still have several Fatal Frame games to play, but I do have Keepers of the Dark in my backlog already. Anyway, if you’re looking for a new ghost-fighting horror game, DreadOut can give you a decently spooky few hours if you don’t mind its frustrations.

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Celebrating All Things Spooky: Zero Time Dilemma

Today’s game is another one that stretches the classification of “spooky” quite a bit, but I decided the story has enough horror for me to finally finish the Zero Escape trilogy this October by playing Zero Time Dilemma.

Zero Time Dilemma serves as both a sequel and prequel, since Virtue’s Last Reward ended on a cliffhanger relating to events from the past. At the time, that both annoyed me and left me eager to see how it would all work out in the third game.

Unlike its predecessors, Zero Time Dilemma isn’t exactly a visual novel. All of its scenes are cutscenes instead.

However, it’s structured in the same way, so it still feels somewhat like a visual novel.

Once again, nine people are trapped and forced to participate in a deadly game overseen by a mysterious person named Zero. This time it is the “Decision Game,” with a variety of different situations you’re put into and forced to make choices. They’re split into three groups, and you play as each team rather than sticking with one main protagonist.

The orderly flowchart from the previous game is gone, replaced by “fragments” that connect together into a larger flowchart.

At first, I didn’t like the fragment system at all. I made a choice with each team and expected that to lead to the outcome of that combination of choices, but instead I unlocked a whole bunch of different fragments in different timelines, and I didn’t like it.

But over time, it grew on me. It’s easy to turn on the game, pick a new fragment, and play through it. It also helps mimic the disorientation the characters feel due to losing their memories between fragments.

Like in Virtue’s Last Reward, certain fragments unlock pieces of information you need to progress in others. Sometimes this is information the player enters, while other times it simply unlocks new cutscenes because the characters themselves have more information.

A fragment typically involves an escape room sequence, with puzzles to solve, that then culminates in the choice you need to make for that fragment. These are fun, although some of them lack the urgency they had in the previous games. Their pacing is also a bit strange; I felt like a much smaller fraction of my time was spent in escape rooms and was surprised when I got a trophy for completing them all, since I still had a fair number of fragments I hadn’t seen yet.

Between that and the switch to cinematic cutscenes, I really felt like I spent most of Zero Time Dilemma watching it rather than playing it.

So now let’s talk about the story. I liked the tone a lot. Virtue’s Last Reward often felt to me like it was trying too hard to be funny, but Zero Time Dilemma had a much darker tone again (with a lot of horrible deaths in various branches based on your choices), which made it a fitting choice for October after all.

I enjoyed learning more about the characters over different fragments and seeing how various details start to come together. And in general, I enjoyed the plot. There are some great moments and a few really surprising twists that I didn’t see coming at all. The biggest twist even resolved a few things I’d thought were plot holes up until that point, which I appreciated.

Click for implied major Zero Time Dilemma spoilersMainly lines related to Q, like how characters would reference him in some scenes, but then see “him” in other scenes and seemingly not know who he is.

Yet it wasn’t quite the thrilling conclusion I expected after the Virtue’s Last Reward cliffhanger, and it’s hard to really explain why. Overall I enjoyed playing Zero Time Dilemma, but (even though there are several aspects I liked better than Virtue’s Last Reward), the story didn’t impact me quite as strongly as the first two Zero Escape games.

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Celebrating All Things Spooky: Stowaway

Today we’ll be talking about a short sci-fi horror game called Stowaway.

It seems there are a few different horror games with that name, so this is the one that takes place on a space station and is very clearly Alien inspired.

You play a member of the station’s small crew, and you’re called in suddenly when a seemingly empty ship arrives.

A bit of investigation shows that while there is no human crew alive on it anymore, there is something else… and then it gets loose in the station.

Stowaway uses a low-res style that gives it a very unique appearances, especially since the visuals are largely black and white, with color used only for people and key areas it wants to draw your attention to.

It does a great job building up a tense, unsettling atmosphere, and I never felt quite at ease.

The only problem is there isn’t really a lot you do. You largely spend your time walking to your next objective and pressing a few buttons. At one point I got lost simply because I forgot where the stairs were (I get easily lost in games), but aside from that it’s a fairly guided experience.

Click for Stowaway spoilersI also assume you can’t actually die, since I never ended up in actual danger even when I was wandering around lost. That’s both a point against it (since it takes away the stakes) and in its favor (since its atmosphere is good enough to make you feel vulnerable anyway), so make of that what you will.

But if you’re looking for something creepy with an Alien-esque tone, Stowaway is a nice horror experience that lasts about an hour.

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Celebrating All Things Spooky: MediEvil

I never played the original MediEvil, but when the MediEvil, and I’m glad the remake gave me a chance to play a game I’d missed. Now I just wonder if they’ll remake MediEvil 2…

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Celebrating All Things Spooky: The Manse on Soracca

Today I’d like to talk about a survival horror game I played earlier this year and reviewed at Lovecraft Video Games called The Manse on Soracca.

At the time I played it, it had gotten so little attention online I felt as though I was the only one who knew about it, and while it has a few more reviews and discussions on Steam now, it’s still been overlooked.

The Manse on Soracca begins as a retro survival horror game about a private investigator searching for a missing woman in the mysterious mansion at Soracca, but once you find an eldritch artifact, it becomes much more of a unique experience. Like in my main review, I don’t want to spoil what happens, but I will say it has some fun meta elements that left me surprised the game didn’t get more attention.

It does some pretty cool and clever things with its premise, and although there are some tedious sections, it’s a really interesting game.

If you like cosmic horror and Lovecraftian themes, play The Manse on Soracca. If you like games that try something unusual, play The Manse on Soracca.

I picked this one to discuss today specifically because I want to draw more attention to it. The Manse on Soracca is a neat survival horror game, and it deserves more attention than it’s gotten so far.

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Celebrating All Things Spooky: Veiled

Today we’re going to talk about a short, free horror game called Veiled.

Veiled has no saves and is intended to be played in a single sitting, which should give you an idea of how short it is.

You begin in a room lit by candles, with pentacles and symbols on the walls, and you soon get a phone call from a mysterious entity guiding you to complete an occult ritual.

For such a short game, it does an impressive job of building its atmosphere. It creates this inescapable sense that you shouldn’t be doing what you’re doing, and even when nothing in particular was happening, I felt uneasy the entire time as I played.

Gameplay-wise, you basically solve a series of puzzles in order to complete the ritual, and the puzzles are pretty good.

It’s not perfect – I was disappointed that there’s seemingly no point in replying to most messages you receive, and the ritual referring to rooms in the house by grandiose names can come across as funny – but the atmosphere and general creepiness is great.

So if you’re looking for a short horror game, Veiled will give you an enjoyable, creepy time for about a half hour or so, and you can play it for free.

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Celebrating All Things Spooky – The Order: 1886

When The Order: 1886 was announced, I almost ordered a PlayStation 4 that night.

In the end, I resisted the urge and in fact never ended up buying the game… until this year. With the PlayStation 5 on the horizon, I thought it was fitting to finally pick up The Order: 1886 on sale and see how it stacked up against my initial excitement.

The story premise is fantastic. Steampunk knights fighting werewolves and vampires? How could I not love it?

For starters, the game could do everything in its power to keep me away from its supernatural foes in favor of fighting waves of ordinary humans.

You play as Sir Galahad (or Grayson, his real name), a member of an order of knights that has carried on the names and traditions of the Knights of the Round Table in order to fight the shapeshifting monsters known as half-breeds. Yet despite this awesome premise, you spend so much time fighting humans as Galahad uncovers a conspiracy related to the half-breeds that I started to wonder if The Order: 1886 was even “spooky” enough for our theme.

It’s a cover-based third-person shooter, with a general gameplay flow that reminded me a bit of Uncharted – you walk through levels and climb specific marked areas while getting some dialogue with whichever character you’re with at that point in the story, maybe examine a few collectibles, and then you shoot waves of enemies. There are a couple of cool steampunk guns, but in general it plays like a standard third-person shooter when I really just wanted to see more of the lycans (werewolves) we were supposedly devoted to stopping.

Then again, maybe it’s a good thing that I didn’t get my wish for more monster fights, because the handful of times you do fight lycans, they have such terrible AI that they quickly went from being creepy to the most boring fights in the game.

There are also some QTE fights, because The Order: 1886 is absolutely in love with QTEs.

The pacing is a bit strange, since there are entire chapters that are just cutscenes, and occasionally even multiple cutscene-only chapters in a row. It shows how devoted they were to making The Order: 1886 a cinematic, story-based experience, which I didn’t mind. I like story-heavy games.

And despite my disappointment that it didn’t have as much horror as I expected, I was genuinely enjoying the story. Sure, there are some plot contrivances, and some conflicts seemed to exist solely because characters didn’t communicate with each other, but it was exciting. I liked the plot’s twists and turns, I felt for Galahad in all his stubborn insistence on making terrible decisions, and I was invested in the unfolding conspiracy.

Until it stopped.

The Order: 1886 ends on such a cliffhanger, I couldn’t believe the credits were rolling. In the past, I’ve complained about the ending of Knights of the Old Republic II, but at least that felt like they wrote a full story and just never bothered to give it an ending scene. The Order: 1886 feels like it’s just the setup of a larger story. It is blatantly obvious that they were counting on a sequel.

So many loose ends are unresolved, with only one important part being wrapped up at the end – in such a way that it actually brings up more questions and potential plot points.

The more I thought about it, the more I realized I had a lot of unanswered questions about the world, too, particularly when it comes to the half-breeds. Vampires seem straightforward enough, but what about the lycans? They don’t follow the typical werewolf idea of transforming into mindless monsters under the full moon, so how exactly do they work? Why do they attack people? What is their goal?

Click for major The Order: 1886 spoilersThis wouldn’t be so important except for what happens near the end. The game tries to make Lucan sympathetic, and he claims the Order and the half-breeds aren’t so different. So what exactly are the lycans trying to do? What does Lucan gain from his alliance with Lord Hastings, whose general motivation appears to be “evil”? Do lycans need to kill people to survive? Do they just want to hide from the Order (which would raise a lot of other questions)? Do they simply hate humans much like humans hate half-breeds?

If a sequel to The Order: 1886 existed, I’d be less bothered by the cliffhanger. But this was presented as a full game on its own, and there’s no sign of The Order: 1887 (or whatever The Order: 1886’s sequel would be called) in sight. To end the story like it did, with so much unresolved, is just frustrating.

I’m happy I finally played The Order: 1886. Even if it feels like I spent most of this review complaining, I really did enjoy parts of it. And if a sequel is ever released… well, I’ll probably wait to make sure it has a full story this time and then play it, but I’d be interested. This is Ready at Dawn, the developer who made one of my favorite God of War games; I want to believe in their vision! I want to help Galahad and take down the villain!

But I have to say, I’m glad I didn’t get The Order: 1886 at launch.

How did you feel about The Order: 1886? Do you think there is any hope of the sequel being made? Share your thoughts in the comments!

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Celebrating All Things Spooky: Dino Crisis

Sometimes I wonder if the name of this celebration should be changed, since we often talk about horror games where “spooky” isn’t exactly the right word… such as today, with Dino Crisis.

Although I got into the Resident Evil series quite a while ago, I never actually tried Capcom’s other classic survival horror game until this year. Dino Crisis always struck me as being Resident Evil with dinosaurs instead of zombies, and that’s the general impression it left me with.

There are gameplay differences between the two (and I liked how you have separate inventories for key items vs. consumables, although I prefer Resident Evil’s item boxes), but the general format of solving puzzles and unlocking doors has a flavor very similar to that of the classic Resident Evil games.

So of course I loved it, because that’s one of my favorite parts of survival horror. Some of the puzzles are pretty fun, too.

Dino Crisis might not be exactly scary in the same way as a zombie game, but it definitely had tense moments. I tried to avoid combat whenever possible, so I always felt dread whenever I entered a room and heard the telltale signs of a dinosaur nearby.

Story-wise, it’s basic but entertaining enough, and I liked the characters.

Click for Dino Crisis spoilerAlthough I kept expecting Gail to be a traitor, so I felt a little bad by the end for mistrusting him for the entire game.

Overall, Dino Crisis left me with a single question: why did Capcom leave this series to die? There has to be a market out there for Resident Evil With Dinosaurs.

I know the later games shifted more toward action, which is disappointing, but as I played through the original, I couldn’t help but imagine it remade RE2make-style or with a new Dino Crisis entry that returns to the classic survival horror gameplay.

Dino Crisis is one of the major classics I missed, so I’m happy I finally had a chance to play it. How do you feel about this seemingly-forgotten (by Capcom) survival horror game?

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