This is the second entry in the Dark Pictures anthology, a series of short horror, interactive story games from Supermassive Games, which themselves are a spiritual successor to the hit Until Dawn. In this story, a group of five passengers in a bus crash find themselves stranded in the abandoned Massachusetts ghost town of Little Hope. Soon, spooky stuff related to the town's witch trial history starts happening. Though I found the game generally fun, I didn't like this as much as its predecessors.
Gameplay:
To it's credit, the game finally is the first to have completely polished controls. There is no hypersensitive motion sensor like in Until Dawn (many of you may not have had an issue, but I've got slightly shaky hands), or uber-hard and possibly buggy heart rate monitor segment from Dark Pictures' Man of Medan where you've got to press buttons in rhythm with your heart rate. The monitor is back, but now it's fair and beatable. Admittedly, I think Supermassive made several of the QTE segments too easy. I never found those unreasonable in the past games, I just wanted the game to be fair, not to remove the challenge.
One of the biggest complaints about Man of Medan was that you're pottering around an abandoned ship for quite some time. Here the game is better paced with various changes in set pieces. Unfortunately, there is a lot of walking around darkly lit roads and forest areas that aren't that much more exciting than ship corridors.
Of course, what makes the game is your decisions and how they affect the story and the anticipation of whether you made the right choices. However, one of the ways your characters died felt a little like a cheat. Didn't feel like it was something anyone could figure out or see coming.
Also, this is the third game in which the "run" button just makes you walks slightly, and I do mean slightly, quicker. I wished Supermassive either actually let us run or gave up on the button altogether.
Graphics:
Game looks pretty good. (Though I can't say the face work is the best for the PS4). Little Hope is an appropriately creepy-looking place. The cinematic quality is strong with a slick way of panning between characters when the game requires you to immediately switch them. There is some impressively nightmarish creature design.
However, like Man of Medan, this game is too darkly lit. It's such a pain to see where you're going half the time.
Story:
I think the story might be the biggest issue I had with this. I started off really liking it, but my appreciation diminished as the game went on. It has a great opening and the story seemed promising. Though the subject of witch trials has gotten a little predictable in how they play out by now (think The Crucible, kinda), I appreciated that the delivery was well done. However, I soon realized the plot had a very cyclical nature. It'd put you through one type of similar scenario followed by the other type of similar scenario. The ending was kind of disappointing. I felt like it cheated you out of your investment in the story.
I think Supermassive is starting to suffer from character fatigue, as the characters aren't quite as interesting in the last two games. The couple in the not-yet-defined relationship felt particularly basic.
Cast:
As is the course, the game has a fine cast, who did the motion capture as well as voice acting. My favorite was Alex Ivanovici as a slightly controlling college professor.
I originally wasn't the biggest fan of Dark Pictures' host Pip Torrens (from Preacher). However, his character The Curator has grown on me. I guess I initially wanted someone more sinister, but I grew to appreciate his wry playfulness.
Music:
I really liked the music in this. Sets the mood. No complaints.
Conclusion:
I've seen a lot of people online say this was better than Man of Medan. I guess I'm in the minority. I felt that the game, especially the characters, left more of an impression. (LH has the better gameplay, though, no argument.) I really wanted more out of the story. That having been said, I still recommend this. It's not as strong as the previous games, but it's still an interesting playthrough and still scratches that itch if you need more of these type of games.
