If Resident Evil: Revelations was gaming’s Deep Rising, then this is the interactive equivalent of Ghost Ship. In other words, it’s a clichéd jump scare fest with attractive but uninteresting protagonists that is partially redeemed by the spooky vessel at the center of it. Much of the gameplay resembles a Resident Evil imitator from the late 90s, with awkward character movement and frequently unhelpful camera angles. The major mechanical innovation is the replacement of combat sequences with quick time events, which unsurprisingly ends up being a step backwards. The branching story paths are a neat idea (leading to a large number of distinct endings), but they don’t add a ton of replayability when the central twist is rather unsatisfying and the game is about 40% unskippable cutscenes. Still, as with its cinematic counterpart, sequences of characters sneaking around the rusting ship are just engaging enough to keep the whole endeavor from feeling like a waste of time.

Ughhhhhh I did so well almost the entire game and then on the LAST CHAPTER, I lost two of my people. Coincidentally both the girls. 😭

Being a career Navy sailor myself, I particularly really enjoyed the nautical setting and general vibe of this one. Good, infrequent jump scares and well-placed QTEs got my heart rate up more than once. I also liked the main characters quite a bit. The story itself within the setting and the villains are not written very well, though, and despite the great graphics and immersive atmosphere, movement was so stiff and slow that it frustrated me at times. I'm also not sold on the premonitions being much of a help. I wish that finding them was tough and the reward was a legit piece of information to help you avoid disaster. Overall, a very solid follow-up to Until Dawn. Excited to see what the rest of the anthology has in store.

Disclaimer: Didn't "play", just watched some friends play the co-op mode but felt involved enough to include myself in the experience and mark "Played", but I don't feel right leaving a rating. Given this games nature as an elevated pick-your-own-adventure novel with some quick-time events, my backseat gaming was effectively little different from playing it myself. While the end of that last sentence smacks sour to the "purist" part of my taste buds, and does NOT apply to the vast majority of videogames, I'm now in a position where I'll never be able to truly experience the game as intended anyway. I certainly wont be purchasing the game to press those button prompts myself, nor would I likely ever be motivated to if the game were currently in my library.

On that note; While the game lends itself to be repayable, due to the way its structured it is like to rely more on player incompetence than any moral or philosophical choices to experience different interesting outcomes. Despite its shortcomings, the experience was overall a good one. I'm certain I'd be feeling the same way playing it with a friend rather than watching 2 friends play and gaffing, but I also would never have bothered playing this game alone. A bit cheap with jump-scares but its novelties were charming and made for some unique moments. Focusing on the quality of the cinematics was a good choice, but a little more effort could have been made to make the actors feel more natural during certain branching choice elements. It wasn't anything to write home about, but it wasn't a waste of time either.

After playing Until Dawn earlier this year and liking it (not loving it, mind you), I was interested in how something shorter and more focused would play out.

However, I ended up finding Man of Medan very mediocre.

- The characters aren't interesting at all
- The acting or writing isn't very good either
- It isnt't very scary (it's supposed to be horror right?)
- Very stiff controls; the characters control like robots

As a plus, the visuals are mostly very well done and moody.

Bargain bin film of the week level stuff. Kinda cynical in that way but it’ll be interesting to see where these games go as they continue to refine and find ways to broaden its interactive horror gameplay. What we have here is not nearly as exciting to play as Until Dawn but the promise of more innovative features is there despite shoddy pacing and stuttering tech performance. The cast isn’t as dynamic but I still found my heart pumping in some of the chase sequences and relentless QTEs. There’s something about what this brand of games offer that fascinate me and keep me coming back. Was hoping for more diversity in how your choices and actions (or lack thereof) based on curiosity and artificial recklessness would impact the character growth and overall consequences. There should definitely be more fluidity but that would require a lot more development time. Its predecessor served as a base model for this but is somehow more complex and challenging. I’ll continue to support this franchise of horror gaming because overall its a medium that has so much potential to churn out strong, psychologically taut material. What‘s here though is infrequently effective jump scares and C-grade storytelling laced with half baked mechanics.

I’m surprised this game gets so much hate. As a horror fan, but someone that also struggles to play horror games, due to high anxiety and the intense situation of controlling how things play out, I had a pretty good time with Man of Medan. Sure it’s not as thought out or as scary as Until Dawn, but it’s fun enough to play for a 4-5 hour play through. I just wish they didn’t have those cheap jump scares all the way through, as they got super tiring after the first few. There are other ways to drive up anxiety in players. Looking forward to playing Little Hope next.

Until Dawn was a visually impressive game. It was also very atmospheric and had some memorable scenes. Supermassive Games has a talent for world-building and giving you the fine details. The downside is that Until Dawn didn't have any memorable characters. They were B-grade actors with stereotypical college student personalities and they never stood out. The same is present for Man of Medan. This is an ongoing horror series full of short stories with the overarching narrative being kept together by The Narrator. He gives you hints and a couple of tips to help keep everyone alive in the game.

Man of Medan is also visually impressive. Great textures, detailed character models, impressive lighting effects, and great camera work. The game suffers from Supermassive's previous weaknesses. Forgettable stereotypical characters that you see in B-grade horror movies. The acting is spotty and all over the place and includes facial animations. Sometimes it looks great and other times they look like stiff mannequins. You play as four college-age people who take a boat trip to go scuba diving to find an unmarked airplane that was downed during World War II. Things take a turn for the worse when they get kidnapped and brought onto a World War II ship to look for Manchurian Gold. They meet supernatural beings and must escape. Your job is to keep them alive.

While the overall tale is interesting and I really wanted to know what happened to this ship and the things going on, the game is so short that the characters get zero back stories and it's just jump scare after chase scene after QTE event. You keep the characters alive by mainly being successful with QTE events. These are when the characters' lives are in danger. If you played any cinematic adventure game in the last 20 years you know what to expect. There are various ways you can make the game easier or more difficult by walking around and searching for objects. This is the only gameplay here. Walking around small hallways and looking at objects. If you see a sparkle it means you can interact with it. Picking up objects and turning them overlooks cool and the objects are insanely detailed, but it doesn't add anything to the experience. You can easily just go straight to the end of every scene.

That's another problem with this game and these types of games as a whole. There's almost no gameplay. Most gameplay is just an excuse to keep the player engaged. Thankfully Man of Medan never gets dull and is always moving at a good pace. When creepy stuff happens it's done very well. I was wigged out by some of the creatures on screen. Supermassive's camera work is superb here. I felt like I was playing a movie which is more than I can say for most games. The only excitement in the game is the quick decisions needed before timers run out. You can get premonitions from finding pictures hidden around that show 3-second clips of what might happen in the future. Sometimes these helped and sometimes I realized what was happening too late. I managed to only lose one character and it was at the very end of the game. I have to say that the whole bearing and trait system makes no sense to me. During conversations, you can pick one of two answers and this will unlock traits or increase others. It's never explained well. Finding certain objects and adding to bearings, but I have no idea what this does. Again, there's no explanation.

Overall, Man of Medan is an interesting first outing into this new series and I look forward to seeing more. While I don't doubt Supermassive can supply an entertaining ride, the characters need to be more interesting, the facial animations need more work, and the bearing and trait system needs more explanation. The 4-5 hour runtime is over before you know it.

A solid enough story-branching horror that runs light on the horror, has mediocre choices, and struggles with some occasional visual glitches and shaky voice acting. It has some pretty good visuals on PS5 and had solid atmosphere and character models, along with an interesting system of rotating characters and making decisions - plus it was fun to play in coop. Left frustrated when I missed one quick-time event and it ruined my whole ending, but I was able to go back and see the ending I wanted to get.