I was searching for a good horror adventure and decided to try Layers of Fear, that was sitting in my library for a long time. I was misguided by the Genre "Adventure / FPP / Horror", as this is a Walking Simulator and unfortunately not a very good one. You can do so many things, open so many cupboards, doors and so on. But nothing is really interesting and worth exploring. Most of the clues try to describe a mad artists mind and life, but you basically figure out the most of this during the first few rooms reading a few notes and if you have at least some experience in horror stories you can easily extrapolate the following story. The mechanics make this even more a feeling of work instead of game, because opening drawers or chests can really get complicated if you do not find the correct angle. The presentation is nice and I really tried to like it, but it is just sooo boring to explore (and this is from a person, who really enjoyed Walking Simulators like Dear Esther or the Vanishing of Ethan Carter).
I played this game after playing "The Park" and "The Vanishing of Ethan Carter" and thought, it would just line up with these two. Funny enough, I always felt a little sad, when someone called one of the former two games a "walking simulator". Well, for Dear Esther there can be no other description than exactly that - a walking simulator. You are doing nothing more than walking and exploring, while you are listening to some spoken thoughts now and then. I enjoyed The Park and Ethan Carter and even Kholat for what they are, but Dear Esther has absolutely nothing of that. Doing nothing at all is not fun - at least not for me. The story, that becomes more clear with every step you take, can not improve this. The graphics are not as polished as in Ethan Carter, so that is another downside to the game. The only upside is the atmosphere of a lonely island, that is captured in a very immersive way. I normally would have given this game only one star. But somehow, the developers managed to drag me until the end of the game, although I thought of just giving up multiple times. That is worth one more star for me, because I feel like this is some kind of good game design - in a weird way. The playing time is roughly between 1 and 2 hours, depending on your will to explore. Maybe my rating would have been better, if this was my first "walking simulator". Unfortunately my expectation where set a little too high.
I played this game without knowing anything about it at all. I just saw a recommendation reading the reviews of "The Park", which I played before. The atmosphere of the game is wonderful and you can immerse very fast if you are open to exploring without knowing what you are after. The graphics and design are what I would call absolutely perfect. If your PC is capable, you should definitely play this on the highest possible settings. The story unfolds at a slow pace and has a Lovecraftian touch, that surprised me in a very positive way. The time you can spend in the game is about 4 to 5 hours, if you like exploring. And here start the little downsides of the game. You are traveling through a world, that seems to be enormous and full of secrets, while in reality there is nothing to explore besides the events and clues, that are absolutely necessary to drive the story forward. Like "The Park" this game could be so much more. The world is big enough and ready to hide tons of secrets, information and events, even some that are not directly addressing the main story. I got the feeling, that the developers are afraid of reusing locations or they simply didn't have enough time to establish a more "living" world. Other small cons: - You are able to run, which is absolutely necessary to travel the rather long distances without falling asleep. Unfortunately, this breaks the immersion, which is kind of sad. - The game is saving at certain points. If you don't have time to finish a scene at once, you will have to replay the whole scene. That means: if you picked up an item and leave the game, you will have to pick up the item again, when you come back. That confused me at first, because I couldn't take an action where I needed an item, that I had picked up in a previous game action.
Warning: small spoilers ahead! "The Park" was something I wanted to put between two other games to have a slight distraction. How wrong I was. The game takes you on a disturbing journey through the mind of a depressive and fully delivers the anxiety and stress. The design and technical execution are very good and help to emphasize the atmosphere. Although the game is a great experience, it could have been so much more. At last you are left a little bit diasappointed, when the game is over after approximately 1.5 to 2 hours. Even when examining every corner and object, you can't spend more than 2.5 hours in it. You should definitely give this a try, but wait for a discount.
At first I have to state, that I can only review the original review of the game, not the anniversary edition. I sadly can't find the original version on GOG anymore. I first laid hands on 7th guest in 1993, because my father bought it. I was 10 years old and was not very amused, so I gave it go 2 days ago, now that I'm 37. The game has aged very, very good. There are games, that hit the market after the 2000s that have worse graphics than this one. The controls are very good, but there actually isn't much to control other than walking around and clicking through the puzzles. The first half of the game really got me into it, and I had much fun solving the various puzzles, that all follow straight logic. In the beginning you actually spend some time just thinking and not actively playing. In the second half of the game, one can get the feeling, that the developers had no more good puzzles ideas, so you face a lot of boring puzzles like moving pictures around for example. The problem with these puzzles is, that you know how to solve them from the first minute, while it takes like forever to actually solve them. I actually skipped some of the later puzzles (there is an option in the game for that), just to go on to the more challenging ones. Overall I absolutely recommend playing the 7th Guest at least one time to set yourself back in the past of pc gaming. It is absolutely worth it.
First of all, I really liked the game. It has a somehow unusual approach and a wonderful atmosphere. If you like exploration, this game is for you! Pro: The game has a very polished look, cool weather effects and nice graphics, that help to create a very good atmosphere. Controls are precise and I experienced no bugs at all. The idea, to let the player find its own way via map an compass is really cool and sometimes very challenging, especially when you have to run from a scripted event and loose your orientation (your position is not shown on the map!). There are a lot of things to discover in the area you have to explore, that provide you with further information about the background. Besides some encounters with the "entities", there is not much more to do than collecting the needed diary pages. which may sound a bit boring in the first place, but it is absolutely not. In fact, the whole exploration area is very diversified with a lot of unique landmarks that are fun to explore. If you like exploring or you like geocaching, this game is definitely for you. Contra: The entities are neither frightening nor challenging. If you encounter one of them, you either are far enough away to simply outrun it or it surprises you around a corner, which leads to instant death. The bad news is: you only save at camps or at the last found note / diary page. If you die, you are sometimes set back a very long distance, that you have to walk again. This gets worse if you die multiple times and have to walk the same way again and again. What really made me angry are some locations, where the map designers clearly present you obstacles just to redirect you to a much longer and more time-consuming route. This design is ok for broken bridges or the likes, but there are sometimes steps of 0,5m height, that you just can't pass, because your character lacks the ability to jump. Last but not least the story is not very rewarding and provides no real answers to the initial questions.
