The Park

The Park is a short, creepy, slow burn game about a single mother who lost her son in an amusement park. Its limited play time helps keep the slow tension build up from getting stale. Aside from some tech issues its a good game. The +'s: Looks good, well voice acted, easy to learn interface, decent story. The -'s: If you are using an ATI graphics card make sure you get the latest patch. The game was unplayable for me without it. You cannot get the items for the Secret World with the GOG version.

Go play Secret World instead, this theme park is in the full game and as a full game it has combat in it too! Its an erie setting and I can see why they made a small stand alone mini game from it. But get the original instead https://www.secretworldlegends.com/ GL

Let's start with a warning: This game is SHORT. Don't expect more than a few hours of gametime, and it's NOT replayable. Consider that when looking at the price point. Now that's out of the way... Watching video games lurch their way off the kid's shelf and into the realm of literature is very exciting, and this was a passing fair shot at that target which fell sadly short of it's mark. Kids will call this a walking simulator and wave their little fists with cries of, "It's not a game!" It is a game, of course, if you look at the strict definition of the word, but in all fairness "walking simulator" is a pretty accurate description. It's a linear story with an inevitable end. It's a frightening story to be sure, but still just a story. The only ageny the player has in this game is how well he understands what's happening, and this is where the game falls terribly short of it's mark. It could have been more. Most games shooting for this target can't be any more than "walking simulators." We just don't have the programming language to describe non-player characters as actual people, and until we do the idea of "games as literature" in a truly interactive sense is simply not possible. This game could have done more. It was a personal journey, but even the most personal journeys are not travelled without making choices. This game could have been great. The end could have been truly devastating if player choice had a hand in it. Instead it comes off as predictable and a little bit hackneyed. The devs settled for making a game that was just "okay," and that's actually infuriatingly sad.

What ever happened to reviewer HitoZeto happened exactly to me! Practically verbatim! Is that part of the design? Weird. Once I finally got past the weird controls, the the story wizzed by in practcally no time. About 75 minutes in fact. Others have been pretty harsh on this one, I wasn't expecting a whole lot, I picked it up on sale for like a dollar. It was a generally entertaining "walking simulator" that felt like a interactive psychological horror movie. In that regard, I've played a lot worse. I say if you find it on sale and keep your expectaions of what you're getting to that of a short, narrative-driven experience, you shouldn't be disappointed.

Game world is beautiful, gameplay is smooth and atmospheric, Story is pieced together as you discover notes and ride the rides, finding out more until you quickly get to the dark conclusion, the game could be longer but I wasn't disappointed. Note: I Played the Switch release. The end video on the switch version was very compressed not sure if that's the same on PC, this had not affected my rating.