This is a precursor and buildup to my 200th review on this website. You can probably guess which game it'll be...

Anyways, this is one of those games where when I initially played it I was honestly too scared to even finish it. I had to slowly make my way through and force myself to beat it.

Nowadays I don't really find the game scary since I've beaten it many times. I mainly just enjoy it as a solid horror experience with decent controls and pretty visuals. The game holds up graphically even after 10 years. The character models do look like Play Doh sometimes, but the setting and lightning are still great. There's really great framing and striking moments in many areas.

It has great music that adds to the suspense and memorable characters like Chris and Trager. It's also fun to vault over things and run around. This game and the second are pretty fun to speedrun, which I'll talk about more about in the second game.

While this game is fun, mechanically it is a little too simple: the Ai in particular is really poor even on hard difficulties. Once you squeeze between a bookshelf you're basically always safe. It's a real immersion breaker when Chris can bust through walls and rip people in half but some cabinets are in his way and he suddendly can't chase you.

A lot of the sections are also too similar. Pull X Levers to progress. The most interesting moment is with Trager where you need to move an object out of the way, but it's in a long hallway where he can easily spot you. So you have to be careful sneaking in to push it and then running and hiding if he spots you.

It's still charming despite its simplicity. Miles is easy to relate to even as a silent character. And the setting is really cool. It just isn't really that scary these days unlike something such as Amensia. But it's certaintly a solid game.

I mainly just have more to say about the sequel...