Timer = anti-exploration. I have seen so many horror games assume that this is a good idea. "It adds urgency!" No, it makes players feel forced to rush the experience. That's the best way I can describe it, I feel like I'm speedrunning this whole thing. While it's not hard to do so, you still have to do so. I would have preffered much deeper, more well thought out combat mechanics for a methodacle experience. "We haven't figured out this AI thing, let's add in escort missions!" And low-and-behold, you get a dummy following you around who gets stuck in walls, waits if you run too far, and loves to get in the way of your line-of-fire. Where do I even begin with this combat? The flintlock pistol is by far the most satisfying, mostly because it kills things in one hit. But everything else is a mess of throwing things and Wii-mote swinging until it dies. It all feels really ungraceful; there's no rythm to it. Just mash-mash-mash because there's no dodging or weaving around any of this. Enemies are like industrial magnets with cheap shot attacks. And you can tell you're supposed to get hit, because it showers you with med-kits. MY. FREAKING. EARS. "How do I make sounds for a horror game? Oh, I'll make the player go deaf every time an enemy shows up!" I get it, it's classic horror music, but it's not "classic", it's outdated. Old horror movies blasted you with headache inducing noise. It's a shame because it occassionally has some atmospheric moments, making me keep toggling music on and off. In conclusion: Don't even bother purchasing. You're getting nothing out of this by playing it yourself. Just watch a video playthrough so that you can see how much time you're wasting with this. It's a game we WANT to be good, but it just isn't. Play Clive Barker's Undying instead. A much better experience for what is roughly the same concept. Procedural generation doesn't mean your game is replayable or even worth playing in the first place.
