Darkwood

This is one of the most immersive horror game I have ever played! The music sets the tone perfectly, and the minimalistic graphics leaves much up to the player´s own imagination. Highly recommended for any fan of horror games, especially if you want your daily dose of lovecraftian horror with a twist!

This is one of those cases where the sum of the parts is much less than the whole. The game has good graphics, a good soundtrack and you can see that the development team worked hard to polish the final product. However, the combination of problematic gameplay and excessive difficulty end up making the gaming experience meaningless. The impression one gets is that of participating in an experiment in which there is never a right answer and, therefore, the only guarantee is some type of "punishment". Furthermore, by taking the horror genre to its ultimate consequences, it seems that the development team's desire to cause discomfort is much greater than the perception that it is, ultimately, a game - and that it should be enjoyable.

This is what a survival horror game should be. Terrifying visuals, unnerving atmosphere, being thrusted into creepy situations where you don't know if you will make it out alive or have to fight for your life. All of this puncuated by the morning sun which provides fleeting respite in what is a very hopeless world, a breather that makes your hard journey feel rewarding, even if only for a little while. Darkwood is a game that plays heavily on the unknown. You are never going to feel quite sure what is banging on your door in the middle of the night. You are never going to feel completely prepared for the horrors creeping outside your bed room. It's masterfully done. It's hard to find a horror game like this anymore.

Is it me or anyone else struggling with the controls, I am usually quite adaptable to either a controller or mouse/keyboard. With many positive reviews I felt it would be a worthy try, somehow though using a controller feels clumsy and when I use mouse I keep wanting to 'click' to move instead of arrows keys. Yes you can program buttons but still feels limited. I shall persevere as really want to enjoy this one.

Its like reading Animal Farm if it was written by the Grimm brothers. You can enjoy the game without caring much about the story arcs but the one thing I don't like about these types of games is all the repetition needed to try all the different story branches. I wanted to see the different choices but the non-story gameplay takes too much time to go through another playthrough. That said, I was content with my choices and I really enjoyed the ending.