The Blood Omen gamepad controls are kind of nonsensical. Sometimes the Select button selects things, sometimes the B button, sometimes, as in the bat form, the…right trigger? Things work or don’t work seemingly totally without rhyme or reason.
Is Visage any good? Looks like it dropped recently on Game Pass, I don’t know much about it.
I remember reading a bit about this one when it was still in early access, and it sounded good at the time. Reading the Steam reviews it seems like it’s only gotten better. This excerpt from one has me mulling it over:
Highly recommended if you’re an avid horror fan with a solid pair; highly recommend you avoid if you’re not.
My pair may not be solid enough.
I’ve been playing the Last Door on the couch with my girlfriend nearby, and it’s a nicely gothic little adventure game that’s easy to do an episode in an hour and mostly doesn’t have obtuse puzzles.
All right so I’ve started playing Visage and I’m not finding it terribly scary. I am, however, finding it terribly annoying. I seem to keep running afoul of the sanity meter (yeah, it’s got one of those) and I seem to be out of meds, which I think are the only permanent way to keep your sanity, you know, sane. And there’s this weird old lady who keeps popping up out of nowhere and sticking a knife in my gut, which is really slowing down my progress. Speaking of which, I have no idea what I’m supposed to be doing or where I’m supposed to be doing it, so I’m mainly wandering around this absurdly designed house, occasionally picking things up and/or getting shivved by aforementioned old lady. I guess this terrifies some people, but so far, not me so much.
Lately what has passed for Halloween gaming for me is a Vampire Counts campaign in Total War: Warhammer.
I hate it when that happens.
I had some odd bugs with Golden Krone Hotel, but they are fixed now with a reinstall; probably were old save/update corruption related. Fun little roguelike that forces you to deal with vampirism. Pretty tough in the early levels.
I’ve continued to play Visage, though I’m finding it a bit of a slog. It’s not a bad game really, just a fairly nonsensical one. I have no idea what’s going on in this game, as far as any kind of overarching plot. I don’t know who my character is, or why he’s stuck in this large house living through episodes of other people’s lives, presumably former residents of this house. And I continue in failing to find the game very scary.
It tries, and it probably works for some people. But I haven’t really been afraid of the dark, or the boogeyman, in quite some time. It helps if the boogeyman has some context, like the xenomorph in Alien Isolation. I know what’s going on there, I know why I’m there and what I’m trying to accomplish. In Visage, you wander around doing random stuff and eventually finding items that will unlock chapters. I’ve found three of those, completed two of them. My save progress says I’m at 50% completion, so I assume there are two more chapters.
The game is good at evoking mood, it’s kind of like playing a video game version of ‘House of Leaves.’ The house is huge and twisty and becomes even more huge and twisty as you explore it. It’s not explained how this is possible, just your garden variety haunted house I guess. I’m not really sure how the subjects of the chapters I play through relate to me either, but I’m hoping I’ll find some kind of underlying logic or story to tie it all together.
Also, fair warning, this game has what I consider to be a pretty seriously distasteful opening cutscene. It’s far more dire than any of the content I’ve seen so far in the actual game. Just a heads up. So far, kind of hard to recommend this one.
OK, wrapped up Visage tonight and since it doesn’t appear to have its own thread, I’m going to just put my final impressions here. I’ll spoiler tag some of the stuff that might be something folks want to find out on their own. But overall, my impressions are still mostly unfavorable. Obviously scary is a moving target, and a very subjective one. But my problem with the game, the reason I didn’t find it that scary, is that there’s very little context provided. You will be hunted by evil spirits (can’t imagine that’s a spoiler) but there is no real reason given why these spirits are in this house and why they are after you. Maybe it’s a Grudge kind of thing, where people who die under terrible circumstances just become revenge ghosts? I dunno! There’s no explanation given!
The game is broken up into three chapters, each focusing on events in the lives of these three evil spirits back when they were alive, and events leading up to their deaths. And it’s relatively interesting I guess, but since we don’t know how they’re tied to the protagonist they’re basically just boogey men who pop up and kill you, back to checkpoint. That may be scary to some people but I find it lacking. It’s just your bog-standard jump scare and I won’t deny those work on me but they also don’t stick with me. After the adrenaline wears off I’m back to wondering what’s next.
The protagonist too is a cipher. We see this person gun down his tied up family before turning the gun on himself in the opening cinematic. So the game is … purgatory for this person? Why are spirits killing me if I’m already dead? At first I thought the cutscene was maybe just some whole other person, maybe yet another previous tenant of the house, but at the end you can find all these videotapes that help you find a mask that will open a door that leads to a reunion ending with the family. And yeah, it makes exactly that much sense.
I can’t recommend the game. I’m glad Game Pass let me check out a virtual copy, basically, and didn’t cost me any additional money to play. I just feel like there are so many better horror video games out there that are much more worth your time.
Found this video of someone explaining a lot more details around what’s going on with Visage. I don’t know that I agree with every conclusion but he definitely picked up more details from the background than I did. Spoilers, obviously though.
People keep talking about Tainted Grail as a good Halloween game. It does have a heavy atmosphere, but what’s more the voice acting is quite good!
I keep meaning to check out Tainted Grail on Game Pass!
Well I finished the Outer Wilds DLC which was a tremendous way to start the spooky season. Arguably too tremendous because it’s more than likely going to be my 2021 game of the year. They don’t miss at Mobius, whew.
I thought “Echoes of the Eye… hmm, I haven’t played ECHO yet” so I played that last week and… promising first couple of hours aside, it just doesn’t really go anywhere, mechanically or narratively. At the 3-4 hour mark the repetition sets in and it never really shakes that. It’s such a shame because there’s a confidence and vision here, with heart. It’s got some excellent voice acting, grand almost Manifold Garden-esque megastructures and architecture, and some very interesting ideas (particularly with regards to the ‘Echoes’). The presentation is impeccable too. Unfortunately, the developers, ULTRA ULTRA, shuttered after this.
Next I’ll be playing Chasing Static which I bought earlier this month:
Then… maybe Prey.
Since sort of falling out with Song of Horror (the heartbeat mini game sucks so bad), I’ve tried several spooky-themed games, although none of them has really grabbed me as much as Total Warhammer.
On for $4 at Fanatical right now. Mixed reviews but good atmosphere and seems like a real roleplaying game. You choose a belief system and are rewarded with sanity for choosing dialogue that accords with that system. Not too far into this one.
Free! Very nice pixel art. I was drawn to this one because: a.) it’s free, b.) the Calvino reference (one of my favorite books). Doesn’t seem to have anything to do with the book, but I’m only halfway through. Short point and click with some very light puzzling, more of an interactive movie than a game. Decent atmosphere!
I’ve also poked at Silent Hill Downpour, and although I like the atmosphere a lot I don’t know if I’ll persevere. The actual walking around doing stuff isn’t too exciting. Don’t think it deserves its bad reputation, though. Fans are awful.
Having watched someone play the entirety of Downpour, yes it does. It starts strong, and it’s better than the other stuff that came from western teams after Konami stopped wanting to do it in house, but it’s still got a lot of problems.
Well nuts.
I mean, if you want to play a post-original-team Silent Hill, it’s the one I’d recommend. And it’s still probably better than 90% of the horror games out there (because so many are utter garbage). But is it good? Not really.
Fanatical having a Build Your Own Spooktacular Bundle sale:
https://www.fanatical.com/en/pick-and-mix/build-your-own-spooktacular-bundle-2
I’m probably in for $3 for five games because I want to try both Detention and Omen Exitio, but I’m not sure which three(!) other games to get.
I played through Murder House (recently released on the Switch) last night, and had a lot of fun.
I played it just like I played the PS1/PS2 Silent HIll games, white-knuckling the controller with a walkthrough at the ready once the spooky stuff showed up. For $12 it was a satisfying 3-hour throwback game for Halloween. Minimal frustrations and great atmosphere.
Plus, the credits list every sound effect used in the game (metal_on_concrete-REAL_VERSION.wav - John Smith).
Man, I love all these new PS1-looking games.
Can vouch for both Stasis and The Fall. Have heard great things about The Cat Lady and Downfall.