... and I couldn't be more pleased, although it seems that the kids who want exploding zombie heads every three seconds may be a bit annoyed by the intentionally languid pacing. And the fact that there are NO zombies in the game, only really annoyed ghosts and more pissed off demonic things (that can still kill as quickly, mind you). The game layers on the gloomy mood right away and the overall sense of dread combined with the brilliant score makes for some nicely creepy moments. The game's general atmosphere has the feeling of the last depressing section of Robert Altman's McCabe & Mrs. Miller crossed with a dash of Masaki Kobayashi's classic K(w)aidan and the lonelier moments of Kubrick's The Shining. Hopefully, that will help some of you reading this in terms of placing the game's tone.As I said in my hands-on a while back, this isn't a typical survival horror game - you NEED to throw away your preset notions and just enjoy the ride, not listen to some kid on a message board who thought he was getting the second coming of Resident Evil or some other less cerebral game. That 'Mature' rating actually means a mature, literate story, not tons of gore and tits. What's here so far is very nicely done and once you let yourself get taken away by the game's flow, it's a pretty chilling trip up Chomolonzo.
There's a VERY deliberate attempt to tell a good story here, not just dump you into an action-packed game where you're not thinking about anything but the next boss battle. Eric Simmons isn't a "hero" in the traditional video game sense at all. He's just one man with an awfully depressing journey that probably won't have the happiest of endings, I'm thinking...
But that's a good thing. Review should be up this weekend - I'm headed back to the mountain for now...
No comments:
Post a Comment