I've become so very tired of horror games with great potential which squander it on pandering to the OCD generation these days. Just when you think you've found that great horror experience you've been searching for since the good old days of atmosphere and great design over "OMG I need combat or things to shoot at least every five minutes" and you feel you're in for a terrifying ride, along comes another combat section. Along comes another chase scene. Along comes another quick time event. Yawn. Layers of Fear is just fantastic. You know what sold me on the game? The negative reviews. The ones that complained there was too little to do, or it's a walking simulator, or there's not enough in the way of good scares. To me, all I read was "I don't have the attention span for this, where's the monsters, where's the guns, where's the health bar, where's the challenge?!?!?" Perfect. Beautiful. This one's for me, without question. Layers of Fear has been accused of running out of ideas in the later chapters. I disagree - it's an exhausting game, almost mentally draining as you approach it's conclusion. But the journey - the things it gets right, it gets SO very right, and it's a completely unique experience, unlike any other to be found anywhere in the current gaming landscape. Comparisons to the Silent Hills demo are apparent for me - the game is just beautiful in the way it moves through the twisted corridors and bizarre rooms. It's smooth, and gorgeous. You can imagine this being the type of game that could single handedly sell VR; it's just a magnificent experience. You will walk around, and you will not die. You need to isolate yourself playing this, in the dark, ideally with a pair of headphones. You will not fight anything, you will not face any QTE's. You will pick up notes, you will piece together the story bit by bit. You will be scared. And not like the dogs through the windows in the Spencer mansion type of oh my god I did not expect that, but the old Silent Hill, holy **** followed by a relieved laugh at how brilliant the thing you just witnessed was type of jump. It's choc full of great ideas, and in my opinion, far far from as cliched as some of the reviews have made out. Yes, you'll be familiar with the type of scare tactics used in Layers of Fear - but it uses them so very well, they will have the desired effect every time. I would go so far as to say, this is one of the finest horror experiences of the past ten, maybe fifteen years. I simply cannot think of a single instance of breathing a sigh of relief after an incredibly predictable yet somehow still superbly tense scare punches you in the gut playing any other game than I have with Layers of Fear. it's a short game, granted. But it just does it's own thing so very well. If you can play this on a big screen, and shut the world out, you'll enjoy a remarkable experience. It has it's flaws, of course, and it's far from perfect, but having found myself frustrated for more years than I can think of waiting for a great, simple, well designed horror game which relies on atmosphere and great sound design to unsettle you and make you jump (but still feel confident you will be able to progress knowing there are no silly chase scenes or unnecessary monsters) this has restored my faith utterly. Perfect? No. Brilliant, stupendous, ingenious, one of a kind? YES YES YES. PLAY IT.
In thinking of the best way to describe S.T.A.L.K.E.R. to a friend of mine, all I could come up with was this : it made me feel the same way I did playing PC games as a kid. You'd load up, start playing with no real idea of what you were doing or where you were going, and all you wanted to do was explore. Thanks to the internet, games these days hold no secrets really. Half of the time you know a game inside out before you have even played it, and you've become so used to the way that games work, the thrill of exploration is lacking, because you know all the tropes, all the surprises; you know where exploring will go and what the most you'll find will be. S.T.A.L.K.E.R. is different. You leave the small shelter at the beginning of the game, walk out of town and immediately you want to know what that building is over there. What that noise was. What's on the other side of that tunnel. And you have no idea what the outcome will ever be. The game doesn't hold your hand, like all the best old school games. You have items, you find items, and what they are for is not always immediately apparent. You can explore the desolate countryside, and it's dangerous. You can die from a couple of hits. This, in some games, would be frustrating, but in STALKER it just makes you more determined to find out what secrets were hidden there, just beyond those wild dogs or behind that building. Best of all, is the unique atmosphere. It really feels like you are wandering within the remnants of a land ravaged by nuclear radiation. I can't think of a single game I have ever played which has captured the feel of the world is is attempting to create, better than this. it's tough as nails. You will die a lot. You will be frustrated. But the thrill of exploring the world makes those things perfectly okay, which is STALKER's greatest strength. This is a classic PC game, and sums up PC gaming perfectly.
I purchased Trails In The Sky on the premise that it appeared to be quite an old school RPG in terms of how it looked, and felt. I remember games such as Secret of Mana and Chrono Trigger, and always admired their simpe but epic feel back in the day, and wondered if this may have been just like those games only on a much larger scale, recapturing that sense of adventure and fun from the 16 bit era. Be warned - this is story driven to a point I personally found it to be unplayable. Even a simple quest has so much dialogue and exposition that, in many hours of play I can't have played more than twenty minutes of the actual game. Locations feel bland and samey, and you can't really do anything - building interiors all have a certain theme and feel to them which never varies, and there is no clicking on something and getting a little dialogue or description just for fun. The game, in all honesty, feels hollow, a half hearted nostalgic shell designed purely to contain the endless dialogue. Everything about Trails in the Sky feels like an attempt to recreate the heyday of it's genre, even down the the music you will hear upon leaving your house for the fist time, but it just falls very flat in my opinion. If you enjoy conversation after conversation after conversation and feel the gameplay is secondary, you will probably enjoy this. For me, it felt very boring. It attempts to be sweeping and dramatic, but it lacks any real heart. I've given this three stars as I can see the appeal for some people, and had there been half the dialogue and more to the environments this would have been a great game. Just not for me.
