Board 8 > Snake Talks About Stuff *occasional spoilers*

(+) Yeah! (+)

Felt like have a little topic to just write about stuff. Was initially going to discuss The Devil in Me in my horror topic but it just purged so whoops. Here it is instead.

The Devil In Me + The Dark Pictures Anthology Overview

This original horror anthology video game series developed by Supermassive Games is such a baffling franchise. Why? Perhaps because they're a developer who keep riding off a very successful one-hit wonder - that being Until Dawn. Maybe they just don't have the same Sony budget they had back then, maybe different creators within the company shifted around or left, or maybe the focus was always on cheap scares and wacky fun, so this new direction just works better for them.

Either way, the Dark Pictures series is a franchise I find myself playing with each new release. I'm hopelessly devoted to horror games, the good and the bad. And I do think there is some good in these games to go along with the vast globs of terrible. I think they try to make each game stand out on their own, even if they are never as scary as the inspiration they're based on. There is always something interesting to take from each, even if you won't be scared to death by the end of them. They present decent mysteries the keen-eyed player can make their way through if they're diligent enough.

There are four games in the series currently - Man of Medan, Little Hope, House of Ashes, and the most recent, The Devil in Me. This series has been cheap to get into, with the releases costing around $40. It's a nifty idea, really, a small anthology of creepy video game horror stories with mid-sized budgets. I approve and it feels perfectly line with the anthology film format in franchises such as V/H/S or Creepshow. It's easy to see why they hook so many player, whether you're a horror fan or not.

But to me, it's also a franchise that needs better quality control. For example, this most recent instalment, The Devil in Me, boasts expanded gameplay features like platforming and balancing. Each character also comes equipped with their own unique abilities - Mark, for example, has a camera you can use to take photos, and a monopod to reach items just out of your grasp.

Except these features only serve to pad gameplay, not drive the narrative forward. It would have been better to drop these entirely and let the story come through. Maybe it's just how I played but I only really found most of these abilities to be used three times at best throughout the game's six hour runtime. Hell, the example I used in Mark's camera isn't even something necessary you need to use to complete the game or to contribute to any endings, it's merely for collectible purposes only.

The Devil in Me, like the rest of the franchise, also relies too heavily on jump scares and it's constantly the same one throughout the game. There was one or two I found clever throughout but overall it just gets tired. There's no variation to the jump scares sound either, they're just the same bone-chilling sound effect re-purposed to the point of being redundant.

The jump scares are only a fraction of the problem of the game's horror. The plot bites off way more than it can chew, and the writing is an utter mess. The killer's ambiguity is presented as a compelling mystery, but despite being present on screen for most of the game's runtime, I never really cared about the killer's identity and his mixed bag of motives that run the gamut of "trophy kills" to a "troubled youth" or "abused child". If it was meant to be an intriguing take on the idolization of serial killers, mission failed because I found everything to do with the killer slapdash, lazy, and almost entirely devoid of any connection to the game's main cast. This type of storytelling is unfortunately all too familiar in this series.

Dark Pictures got away with doing the same twist twice initially - both Man of Medan and Little Hope have the horror playing out almost entirely in your head. I dislike this concept especially for replayability purposes, but the games just make less sense when you realize how little there was to be scared of to begin with. It's always these late-stage, last-hour twists that make the games all the more infuriating. These horror game stories really need to learn when to stop, lest they continue to drag out tired clichs for gameplay and narrative momentum's sake.

As expected, The Devil in Me also fails in its terrible directing. Terrible cuts, confusing character placement, overwrought horror cinematography, and terrible dialogue can sometimes leave the player being baffled as to who, what, why, where, how and when something happened. You know, I'm so sick of the magical teleporting killer who's omnipresent and can just appear as the plot needs. The Devil in Me suffers from this issue in no small way - it very much leads to even the characters wondering if it's more than one killer - because he just keeps appearing without any real logic.

The Devil in Me is not the worst entry in the series by any means. I adore the environments here, and despite all the clunky writing, the game's art design manages to hold it together as a whole, and actually impressed me greatly with its lighting and claustrophobic interiors in particular. The game stars Jessie Buckley as Kate, and well, she's one of those actresses who could star in just about anything and ace her role with immense talent. She takes an otherwise pretty bland character and infuses her with strong individuality, vulnerability, and charm. She almost single-handedly saves the games' case for me.

One way or another, Dark Pictures will continue to lumber on with a whole new season in the works. Next year, we already have two games to look forward to (or to suffer through, your choice) - Directive 8020, which looks to be a sci-fi horror tale, and Switchback VR, which is a spiritual successor to the horror rail-shooter Until Dawn: Rush of Blood, which was actually a pretty fun experience. I wish both games well, and I will be playing both, and I hope this franchise can take its storytelling to the next level instead of rehashing its same old predictable beats and tired horror tropes.

Damn, Devil in Me actually looked like it might be competent by the trailer.

I liked House of Ashes a lot more than Little Hope. I was honestly pretty impressed by how Little Hope got me invested in trying to figure out the connections and what was really going on, and we know how that ended up. Houses of Ashes didn't pull a fakeout, to its credit, and I didn't mind how it wasn't terribly scary because it was clearly going for a thriller angle based on how early the monsters are revealed, and I was pretty tense for a lot of it. Of course, this depended a lot on my actually caring about the characters (ie Salim, and to a lesser extent Jason), so the game couldn't skate by on shallow stereotypes like everybody in Little Hope was and the writing just barely managed to succeed.

The gameplay is shallow but somehow it still manages to be compelling (a friend mentioned that he'd play a game like this where the decisions are what to buy in a grocery store). It's a shame how half-assed a lot of the games' aspects are when they really do seem to care about at least some of it. They really should put in a lot more effort for the second season because they're just wasting potential.

Working on Callisto Protocol write-up

Skimmed passed the review until I check it out soon, but Little Hope > House of Ashes > Man of Medan

I think they're all decent at least. I know some people hate Little Hope for its twist but I find it to be a good narrative and one I feel you can't really see coming despite it following a similar experience to Medan. Character wise, House of Ashes is the best with its cast. Jason and Salim are amazing and some of the best new characters in gaming I've seen in a couple of years.

The Callisto Protocol

The Callisto Protocol is a survival horror game and the first game developed by Striking Distance Studios. The game takes place in a Lockout-style moon prison - on the titular Callisto to be exact, one of Jupiter's numerous moons. Players have to survive a viral outbreak in the sinister facility, as the prison degrades and becomes more and more unhospitable and dangerous with each passing hour.

What's interesting is that Striking Distance Studios' and the game's primary directors Glen Schofield & Scott Whitney were both originally responsible for Dead Space, with the former creating the sci-fi horror property and the latter working on some post-production for the first game in the series.

If it weren't for that fact, it would be easy to view The Callisto Protocol as a straight plagiarism of Dead Space - on the surface, The Callisto Protocol is a sci-fi horror game that takes place on a derelict space station where the main character arrives on a ship and is thrust into a conspiracy revolving around undead virus-like monsters. Yeah, it's Dead Space to a tee. It's also a game trying desperately to create its own universe with its own setting, and in doing so, Striking Distance Studios tries with all its might to escape the monolithic shadow of Dead Space as a franchise and in its looming remake just around the corner to admittedly mixed results.

The game still deserves a fair shake however. I have issues with the title for sure, but in general, I enjoyed my time with The Callisto Protocol - for one thing, the game's setting is inherently interesting, the small-scale claustrophobia of the prison walls juxtaposes with the larger-scale fact that you're on a basically inhospitable planet with no escape beyond those said walls anyway. There's never any point in the game where you feel safe (not even for a moment) and the prison actually becoming more and dilapidated worked well as you eventually return to areas that at one point looked completely different and more closely resembled an alien nest a prison. The atmosphere is also superb in the sense that while the prison itself is utterly bleak and gloomy, the outside world holds a surreal beauty that you feel you could only admire from a dreamy distance - the sheer aesthetics of Jupiter looming over your character is something awe-inspiring and cosmically frightening at the same time. You feel small and miniscule in the large expanse of the solar system.

It is then a damn shame that the actual mechanics of The Callisto Protocol falter so greatly. First, the control scheme itself is a real mess. I was never really comfortable with how menus functioned, always clumsily tripping over myself on the d-pad to do even the most simple of maneuvers like switch weapons or check my inventory. I think a radial wheel menu would've better served this game well. Then, there's the combat itself. It's melee focused, which I was joyed to see as getting up close and personal to the creatures in any horror game is always welcome. Unfortunately, the dodging mechanics do not work past one creature. It's one of the most baffling systems I've ever seen in a video game - at once too easy and yet astoundingly difficult once things start getting even the least bit hectic. Fighting one enemy is a breeze, even if most of the time you're awkwardly awaiting the enemy's attack, shimmying left or right as the dodge system it uses it semi-automatic; as long as you're holding a direction on the left analog stick, you will dodge in that direction, and it works on every enemy in the game from the grunt force to large bosses. You dodge, counter with melee, and finish off your combo with the game's snap aiming system. All hell breaks loose though when a second enemy enters your periphery. It's so easy for combat to become jumbled messes of spamming attacks at monsters instead of using any real strategy, as the dodging systems' general usability is revealed to be too clunky and rigid for any real flow to be achieved.

A dedicated dodge button would've been a simple fix to make this game's combat outstanding I feel. As attacks are appropriately weighty and satisfying, I would've loved to be given more control over my movements and truly unlock the game's potential as an excellent horror brawler. Unfortunately, it fell short of those ambitions, and generic gunplay with a pretty boring arsenal of standard weaponry withers it even more as combat becomes a rote chore instead of a high octane, thrilling horror experience. By the end, it's merely a tepid array of enemy mobs that become more and more frustrating as the game throws more and more enemies at you with more and more haste. It becomes overwhelming not in a survival horror sense as it should, but in a punch-to-the-gut, crash-and-burn, failure-to-fulfill sort of way.

The other, even weaker part of this title is the game's story, or rather, lack of one. Jacob is a milquetoast lead who is a purely reactionary character, a stereotypical everyman who is a good guy but also not really, and the characters he interacts with are also stereotypical but likable enough I guess. Unfortunately, I found myself utterly uninterested in Jacob and his supporting cast. Conflicts are resolved in eye blinks - Dani, the leader of an extremist group and the catalyst for Jacob's imprisonment eventually teams up with you in what seems like mere moments after just minutes prior treating you as an enemy in a stand-offish manner. The pacing is all over the place but the exposition dumps of lore near the game's climax were the most disappointing part for me. You are fed absolute breadcrumbs up to that moment until Doctor Hologram bursts on to the scene to finally give some semblance of world building. The writing was clunky and stilted to say the least, and the characters were all extremely one-dimensional; if this game was trying to set-up a brand new sci-fi universe to be interested in, then I'd say it was a failure, as I have no real desire to learn more about the mutations, the tech, or the conspiracy behind it all. And then there is the clichd ending, one that's so closely plucked from Dead Space I have to wonder what the point of this game even was.

I have gripes for days with this game. And yet, as I said, I still liked The Callisto Protocol despite its many, many warts. Its grim tone and macabre setting works for the most part; at the end of the day, it doesn't try to try to be more than what it is, which is just a silly horror game, one that provides enough thrills to last its relatively short run time. Its high production values in graphics & sound were more than enough to keep me hooked. So, I recommend The Callisto Protocol even as it stands; it's one of those games that doesn't really deliver on its promises, but it still feels like it put in the effort to be a worthwhile game and try some different things, and at the end of the day that's what's important even if most of it didn't pan out quite like how they imagined it. It's not a bad game, but it's nothing to write home about either, and if you like space horror, I'd say give it a try. Just ignore the story for the most part.

I don't know much about these games, but I've very much enjoyed reading your write-ups so far!

NFUN posted...

Damn, Devil in Me actually looked like it might be competent by the trailer.

I liked House of Ashes a lot more than Little Hope. I was honestly pretty impressed by how Little Hope got me invested in trying to figure out the connections and what was really going on, and we know how that ended up. Houses of Ashes didn't pull a fakeout, to its credit, and I didn't mind how it wasn't terribly scary because it was clearly going for a thriller angle based on how early the monsters are revealed, and I was pretty tense for a lot of it. Of course, this depended a lot on my actually caring about the characters (ie Salim, and to a lesser extent Jason), so the game couldn't skate by on shallow stereotypes like everybody in Little Hope was and the writing just barely managed to succeed.

The gameplay is shallow but somehow it still manages to be compelling (a friend mentioned that he'd play a game like this where the decisions are what to buy in a grocery store). It's a shame how half-assed a lot of the games' aspects are when they really do seem to care about at least some of it. They really should put in a lot more effort for the second season because they're just wasting potential.

Oh man, strongly disagree about the characters in House of Ashes. Jason and Salim were fine, but I HATED Eric and Rachel. I felt like I was stuck in the backseat with a couple who wouldn't stop sniping at each other and I desperately just wanted to open the door and jump out the car. Also I'm not sure what it was but the characters looked straight up ugly to me. Particularly the female character models looked very uncanny valley level visuals to me for some reason.

They've just never been able to get anywhere close to Until Dawn for me. That cast was just straight up tropes, but they were fun at least. I keep playing these games (and I'm going to get The Devil In Me) but my hope is getting less and less the further I get in.

MetalmindStats posted...

I don't know much about these games, but I've very much enjoyed reading your write-ups so far!

Thank you!

Suprak_the_Stud posted...

Oh man, strongly disagree about the characters in House of Ashes. Jason and Salim were fine, but I HATED Eric and Rachel. I felt like I was stuck in the backseat with a couple who wouldn't stop sniping at each other and I desperately just wanted to open the door and jump out the car. Also I'm not sure what it was but the characters looked straight up ugly to me. Particularly the female character models looked very uncanny valley level visuals to me for some reason.

They've just never been able to get anywhere close to Until Dawn for me. That cast was just straight up tropes, but they were fun at least. I keep playing these games (and I'm going to get The Devil In Me) but my hope is getting less and less the further I get in.

Oh I just liked Salim and some of the time Jason. The rest can all die for all I care (Clarice and Rachel had a nice moment at least.). Eric was inoffensive I guess. We played him pretty soy so he mostly came across as a domestic abuse victim.

My friend observed that they make all of the characters tropes so you don't have to pay attention to the writing, which is... a strategy. House of Ashes seemed to at least attempt to skirt this

we also gave ourselves very silly names in theater mode which helped a bit. You have to be at least a little attached to Squeebles and Reggie Q

Man, I wish I had the foresight to call Eric Squeebles because it would've made him 100% more likeable.

Here's something for you that's relevant:
The Quarry (no spoilers - sell me, someone who isn't the biggest horror fan, on playing it, though I know a few things related to the girl in the hat, who is why I noticed the game)

Sure, I can attempt that. Though non-game spoilers (I actually didn't like Quarry very much either and don't think it's worth playing honestly)

@BlueCrystalTear

The Quarry (from the positive perspective) *SPOILER FREE*

When Supermassive Games made Until Dawn, they tapped in to several modes of horror. Some of the game's scares came from the tension between the wayward teens in your party. On top of that, you had the threat of a killer looming in the shadows. And then even more beyond that, you had a supernatural element to the story. These twisted entities could be anywhere and anyone could be a victim. The tension and fear was palpable. Keeping your entire party alive was difficult and definitely a cause for stress.

Supermassive also understood that horror's precision and effectiveness is achieved through cryptic clues and a disorienting lack of clarity. There were a few moments in Until Dawn where I was genuinely caught off guard by the game's numerous twists. And even though you could find these clues or hints, there was still the chance you could be in grave danger by misinterpreting it. It was a great horror game that captured several types of genres perfectly at the same time.

7 years later, in the midst of The Dark Pictures experiment, Supermassive went back to their horror roots. The Quarry captured dark 80s nostalgia to produce a scarily compelling game. Grotesqueries lurked about. The group of teens were even more stereotypical than Until Dawn, but they fit the mold and tone of the game perfectly. And finally, you had that distinct sense of space in Hackett's Quarry. You knew the unseen forces that were drawing you closer to your demise were different and powerful. The soundtrack evoked otherworldly scares with pulse-pounding synthwave compositions. The atmosphere was consistently unnerving.

Hackett's Quarry isn't far removed Blackwood Mountain's psych-out atmosphere, but instead of the depressive freeze of the mountain resorts it's the last gasps of summer heat on your typical camp grounds. The set-up is this - one of the camp counselors sabotages the group's van in order to spend one last night with his girlfriend, well ex-girlfriend that is as she recently dumped him. The kids become stranded in the camp, though it doesn't seem all bad at first. A group of unsupervised teens can always lead to a fun night of shooting, truth or dare around a bonfire, beer drinking, and skinny dipping. The Quarry takes its time building up its characters and relationship dynamics, throwing in all the stereotypical tropes of camp and teenage life. The cast is well acted and the dialogue is cringe but fits what the game is trying to achieve. And then of course, it brings in that supernatural horror element once everything is lined up perfectly. The Quarry is pretty much 80s horror honed to a nightmare fueled edge, every typical slasher and horror trope perfected and exaggerated to chilling effect.

If this sounds like a lot of setup and beating around the bush, you're right. Anything past here is really spoiling the game's many (and arguably best) details. The Quarry goes in ways you'd never expect, keeping a sense of mystery throughout the experience. There are some clever twists that play with your expectations, as a game of decisions should.

I'd love to go in to more detail but I can't do that without giving away major plot points. This is, after all, a game that's better experienced than explained. It works as both a horror fan's wet dream and for someone totally unfamiliar with the genre, as it clues you in on everything you need to know. The developers at Supermassive have once again created an experience so good and unique that it begs to be experienced again and again.

Wait do you actually like the Quarry or not

I own it and haven't played it yet

I don't I was just keeping it positive for BCT as it's what he requested. I have WAY more negative complaints. Though I will say you'll probably get enough enjoyment out of it for what it is.

Sorry for the delay... trying to get myself out of this rut I've been in.

It sounds like Until Dawn is the one you want me to play, and The Quarry is trying to be stereotypical because it's a formula proven to work - and because, that way, the characters don't feel as unique, but everyone has someone to attach to in some way (i.e. I like Laura because the hat, even though I know she loses it... and an eye [that's the extent of spoilers I am aware of]). This is both a good and bad thing, though it makes it clear it's not worth the $60 price tag. I should wait for a price drop. Just like I should try to get Until Dawn on sale. I'm broke, so I gotta be extra-frugal right now. May have to rob a loan shop to make rent. Worked fine in Saints Row (2022).

The setting is probably the most important part in a survival horror game; without an unnerving atmosphere, scares don't stick. They may catch a player off guard, but surprising and scaring aren't the same thing. You need to be surprised to be scared. Unnerving people makes them legit fearful when they're caught off guard, instead of just jumping and going "Don't startle me like that!"

Thank you for not spoiling, by the way. And thanks for selling me on it. I definitely plan to buy it when I have money and the price is more reasonable. For now... I'll have to see about Until Dawn. You think that's better, right? (No need to elaborate)

Yes I do!

Fears to Fathom

You're home alone when you hear a knock at your door. You see a person on your front step, and your heart starts pounding.

You open the door. No one is there. You're safe.

But you keep hearing noises and knocking. You go to your room and hide under your bed, knowing that if you come out, you will die. You don't know when they will come in. All you know is that they will.

You want to wake up, go back to a life without fear. But it's too late. It's already here.

Sounds scary, right? Frightening situations like the one described above and more are depicted in the episodic video game Fears to Fathom. The game comes from the developer Rayll, a one-man team with the idea to create short games based around supposedly true events and universally common fears. Their first title, Home Alone, kickstarted the series, depicted a teen home alone while their parents are on a work trip, then has an encounter with a shadowed individual.

The series has since evolved, and has branched out to include two other episodes that reference even darker or unsettling fears in our day-to-day lives. I was hooked on this series from Home Alone - Fears to Fathom utilizes lo-fi aesthetics to create a work of horror that fits in perfectly with today's horror gaming climate. By preying on your own nostalgia and memories, the game makes you realize just how much you still harbor those fears from long ago and brings you back to your child-like imagination with surprising scares.

Part of what makes this series interesting is the fact that the scares are so built up through tension and suspense; in each of the horror game's episodes you never quite know when or where the next scare will be. When you're at the beginning of the episode, the complacent normalcy of everything that's going on feels like it's not that bad. But the closer you get to the actual scare, the more a sense of dread spreads throughout your mind and everything around you. In any given episode, Fears to Fathom transforms itself from ordinary life to a surrealist, ethereal nightmare at a pace that is perfectly paced to highlight the tension of just how scared you probably are at that point in the game.

Another intriguing part of Fears to Fathom is the attention to detail the developer paid to the gameplay and general design. They have a very minimalist aesthetic to everything that they do, but the world is highly interactable - you can cook & eat food, drive vehicles, shop, watch TV, play on the computer, etc. This added layer of realism, along with a sense of familiarity to your own experiences, really helps to deepen the game's horror. The game world feels tactile while still mixing in with these atypical architectures found in a bad dream.

If I had to pick the most stand-out episode so far, it would be Norwood Hitchhike, which plays on so many creepy fears and improves the gameplay found in the original episode. You're a 19-year old woman driving back home from a gaming convention; in one particular section, your car break downs in the middle of nowhere. As your car remains stationary, another truck rolls up, and you're unsure if it's help or simply a looming presence that wants to get the jump on you. It's these types of situations that Fears to Fathom gets so much mileage out of - there's so much to unpack behind the scenes; your vulnerability as a young woman, the motives of a stranger, the thought of leaving your car behind, fear of unknown dangers, and how it all comes together - there's so much potential there in that snapshot alone. It's disturbing, stressful, and certainly a sharp departure from the usual psychological thriller horror games that are becoming more and more prevalent today. The fact the game makes you get over your own fears and use your own intuition is what makes it so damn scary.

Fears to Fathom slowly but surely gained traction in the internet gaming community and it's clear that the developer has delivered on their ideas in a spectacular way. The entire series makes for a good gateway to newer horror games, and it's also a great example of how frightening the modern world can be. With unique character perspectives that put you in the viewpoint of actual teens and young adults, with absent parents and shady stalkers, Fears to Fathom is a solid entry into a genre that has grown up to be a booming trend in the indie space.

Give it a try for yourself as the first episode is free and only takes about 20 minutes to finish!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1671340/Fears_to_Fathom__Home_Alone/

Fears to Fathom is pretty good. Will be checking out episode 3 soon.

Speaking of indie games, have you checked out any of Chilla's Art's games? I mean presumably The Convenience Store since that is probably the most well known thing they've put out, but I think a lot of their other stuff is better.

Yeah, they're fantastic! The Convenience Store store was definitely my favorite, really interesting and scary concept.

Night Delivery was another great one, loved how that one slowly unfolded the horror and played with psychological tricks.

They're not all bangers (The Night Way Home was pretty bland) but in general their games are great.

up

Up, I want to write something on M3gan soon, and maybe some pieces on Something in the Dirt and Eraserhead. Unfortunately had a shitty weekend but hopefully it's passed now.

It's a little early, but M3GAN will be a contender for my horror film of the year I think.