Until Dawn was an unexpected treat for me, so when Supermassive announced they were gonna do a whole anthology series, I was on-board from the word go. Gaming doesn't really have anything like that (unless you consider, like, Final Fantasy an anthology series, but that doesn't feel right), so getting it from a studio that had proven its ability to play with cinematic horror with casual, super-approachable gameplay was a slam dunk in my book. So while I didn't get Man of Medan right away, I didn't delay too long, and I charged through it over a weekend.

...Man of Medan was fine. Not amazing, not terrible, but a'ight. I'd sort of hoped for amazing, which is why (as of this writing) I haven't picked up any other of the Dark Pictures Anthologies games. But I think that's sort-of unfair for the game. It's not trying to be as ambitious as Until Dawn; it's perfectly happy to present a tense horror scenario for a few hours, then call it quits. There's a decent mystery at play, and the visuals, while kinda hard to see at times, are a pretty good blend of photorealistic mocap and out-there horror fare. For a bite-sized release, it's fine enough.

I am fascinated by this game's "Bearings". They're the replacement for Until Dawn's "Butterfly Effect" system, and while they generally don't feel as impactful due to the absence of Until Dawn's Totems, they're perfectly serviceable and make for a solid enough measuring stick for a player's playthrough and choices. There's a catch this go-around, though: paying attention to and acting upon established bearings is not unilaterally good. If you're playing through this with the intent of saving as many people as possible, trying to ace all the plot beats underlined by the Bearings will actually screw you over. I'd been conditioned by Until Dawn to try and do all my homework, get all collectables, see sidequests through, etc, so I took that same approach here, dutifully relating the name of the ship to satisfy "Military Bandwidth" and, in my second try (more on that shortly), being sure to save the Distributor Cap in... "The Distributor Cap" (sort of wish they played with these names a bit more). I didn't get any endings that otherwise would've stranded the player characters on the ship, but if I had, my 'clearing' "Military Bandwidth" would've ensured that everyone died! Furthermore, because I took the trouble to save the Distributor Cap, I essentially guaranteed a bad ending for Conrad, since I'd made the decision to have him escape and get the coast guard. The game counted it as everyone surviving, but between the millitary coming, Danny being alive, and the other coast guard dudes with him - Conrad couldn't be long for this world.

Fresh off my playthroughs, this annoyed me and struck me as bad design. Why put so much focus on this system highlighting how well you did, and then use it in service of screwing the player over in the end? Perhaps I should have realized from collectables that the US Military would still consider a 72-year-old bioweapon a military secret, and that they'd shoot anyone who knew too much on sight, but the whole thing felt cheap and dumb.

However! Now that I've had time to sit on it, I better appreciate what they were going for. The "Bearings" don't exist to pass moral judgement. They're purely neutral observations of choices and consequences. The Curator says as much himself. The Analyst was there in Until Dawn to pass judgement, but that's not The Curator's scene - he's just the man who holds all the stories. And anyway, isn't it proper genre work to have an ironic twist at the 11th hour that foils all the hard work the heroes (and player) put into trying to survive? There's any number of horror movies that shake out like that, the best of which being the ones that get the viewer to think. And it took me a while, but darn if it didn't get me thinking.

Ah, yes, I got two separate endings. My first playthrough saw me get both Julia and Fliss killed (thank you for the sassy "Right There With Ya, Boys!" achievement, game). I call some shenanigans on Julia for failing to diffuse things with Junior, but Fliss getting got was 100% me getting twitchy, knowing full well what was going on and that I shouldn't have gotten twitchy. I reloaded my save afterwards, jumping back to right before Julia was ded, and did my best to save everyone, with the mixed results as mentioned before. I will complement the game's Chapter system for being suuuuuuper flexible and making backtracking while retaining some progress nice and easy.

My perspective on this game was definitely skewed by having played Until Dawn first, and not being able to look at this title separately. With distance, I find myself thinking of this a bit more highly of what Supermassive was going for here. Does that make it resonate better with me? No, not really, but I better respect what they were going for here. Honestly, sorta makes me want to try Little Hope, see how they progress the template for Dark Pictures. Though, given how much that title seems to be playing with the Salem Witch Trials (with which - heh - I'm decently familiar), and seeing how the point of Man of Medan was taking a rationalist stance on its seemingly supernatural mystery, I dunno that there's a whole lot for me to be surprised by. Still, nothing ventured...

P.S. - I didn't mess around with them, but I appreciate all the alternate modes for existing. Trying to add variety, particularly cooperative multiplayer, to what's more or less a high-budget visual novel is commendable. Can't personally vouch for how well it works, but I appreciate that it exists!

P.P.S. - The Bends + Booze ≠ Guaranteed Death, game. MAYBE it reacts poorly with the toxic gas in Julia's system, and the three things are just the right cocktail for a fatality. But still, what the hell.

I had very low expectations going in, but it actually turned out better than I expected. Still, it definitely has it's problems.

The first thing you notice is how bad the voice-acting is. For the main cast, it wasn't too bad and the dialogue is so fast that you barely get enough time to even notice the acting. But with the characters in the opening, it was seriously laughably bad; enough to really ruin the tension for that section.

What I find worse than the acting, though, is the dialogue. It's quite clunky and at times, incredibly unrealistic. The characters don't really react to their situation how real people would. It's not helped by how fast the dialogue is, which dampens the emotion behind the lines and is hard to keep up with at times.

I will say, I did like the atmosphere. Wandering around the ship genuinely felt tense and unsettling, especially later in the game where they really lean into the ghost story jumpscares. And as a big fan of the BioShock games, I loved the setting of a dilaptated, abandoned ship from the late 40's. The scene where there's music playing in the distance and you get chased by the pin-up girl is great – I wish they did more scenes taking advantage of the era like that.

I played on Challenging, and it did genuinely feel challenging. The QTEs and timed choices went by very fast, and although the heartbeat sensor itself wasn't too hard, the fear of messing it up made each scene using it appropriately tense.

The story itself is interesting, but definitely could have been fleshed out a lot more. I like that (spoilers for Until Dawn) it was the reverse of the twist in UD – a supernatural threat that turns out to just be a scientific threat instead of a killer that turns out to be a supernatural threat. I thought it was a fun little nod to their previous game, and I like that they didn't just repeat what they did with UD.

A lot of the clues (or as it's referred to in-game, 'secrets') felt pretty useless. It was just a bunch of stuff you can already inferr just by playing, and didn't really offer up much new information. When the characters use them to piece things together, instead of feeling like a big, satisfying reveal, it just felt like a bland retelling of what I already realized an hour ago. And maybe I just missed some clues, but it felt like the story was incomplete? Like, what was up with the demon-summoning book and church? The 'monster' skeleton in the coffin? Were those just red herrings or hallucinations? Because I feel like they should've had more weight. Not to mention, there was never a conclusion to Alex wanting to propose to Julia, or Fliss seemingly being a criminal.

Easily the most disappointing was the ending. After the encounter with the two-headed monster, I assumed there was more to do. It was a good chase scene, but nothing that felt like a finale. Argubably, the chase scenes before it were a lot more stressful and longer. But then the ending abruptly triggered. Followed by a very awkward, anti-climatic 'interview' section. Maybe they thought it'd be too much like UD, but I think they should've had an actual interview take place. Or, at the very least, a proper epilogue – maybe the character's lives months/years after? I will say, though, that I liked the post-credit scene. It was a bit confusing for me – as lots of things in this game were – but it was still a good watch.

This isn't even mentioning all the weird, little things such as loading screens in awkward places; the QTE animations skipping and making it look like Conrad was teleporting during his chase section with the pin-up girl; and, the dialogue being delayed/skipping.

Overall, it was kind of buggy, had okay characters (Brad and Fliss were my favs!) and an incomplete story with a anticlimatic ending, but a genuinely scary and unsettling atmosphere.