gamemast15r
2021
This review contains spoilers
NIGHTSLINK is a “cassette tape delivery service” simulator and indie horror walking simulator developed by a developer from Portugal who according to their Itch.io page has created a whole bunch of free games before including like Enigma, Make Me Laugh, morbus and more. I haven’t been able to find a whole bunch more of the game, nor do I even remember how I found out about the game persay. What I do remember though is the feeling that the game gave me, evoking the Paratopic vibe with crunchy Playstation 1 graphics and driving around on a motorcycle with vague storytelling. I added it onto my wishlist at some point and then later on during Christmas of 2021 my man Melon, who has his own Youtube channel (link below).
The gameplay section is more of the same like Paratopic, you walk around and mostly click on things in your environment which includes only doors and tapes aside from really short motorcycle riding sections and it also must be completed in one session. I have absolutely no problem with that, and for the most part I don’t have a problem with the plot either. You play as the Nightslink, which I assume is a job role for couriers who deliver cassette tapes to people hiding behind closed doors, afraid of the outside. COVID comparisons aside, the main reason for the quarantine is unknown but it’s your job to deliver a certain amount of cassette tapes every day to specific people in the apartments after recording them. The main location is a specific apartment building, and the game takes over a space of four different days. The first day is a normal run, delivering tapes though you can knock on Door 85 to get handed a letter, which you can deliver to Door 83 on the next day. Regardless, every day you’ll also see the same black suited Christian Bale looking-f u c ker standing and staring at you.
The next day is the same, you can hand Door 83 a letter instead of a tape which contains a poem and the rest can get more tapes. While all days have transitions which have you riding a motorcycle at night, the third day sees Christian Bale walking alongside you in the last leg before it fades into your last delivery day. It’s way darker than the previous two, none of the residents that you’re delivering cassette tapes to are particularly chatty except one who ominously talks about not burying their dead and another talking about night terrors. Knocking on Room 90 on this day will get you an achievement but otherwise entering Room 96 produces a black orb on a bloody bed and then the day is over. The fourth day you’re recording the tapes again and the black orb is on your desk, and when you get back to the apartments everyone’s hands are poking out of their doors with their own orbs being held out, your delivery instructions being cryptic symbols. Walking through the apartment, Christian Bale chides you for screwing up and when you walk to the end of the apartments you’ll find the place where you were recording your tapes. Behind that lies a rustic room with a giant hole in the ground and a black orb on the top. All the black orbs come together and sink together into the giant hole, and the last thing you see before the credits are the roads you’re walking on, and giant monsters walking around with a green filter slapped on top of it. My feelings on the plot will be in the outro paragraph so look there.
Just like Paratopic before it, most of the stuff you will hear consists of gibberish sounding dialogue insanely filtered to sound less coherent, ambient noises like tape cassettes being moved around and feet pattering, and maybe a little bit of ominous droning that’s there but isn’t really pronounced until the end. There isn’t anything memorable in terms of music other than the droning but it does enhance the lovecraftian-esque horror vibes that it’s going for. The gibberish sounding dialogue is cool but honestly if I were to pinpoint a sound I loved the most then it would be the sound of the cassette tapes being moved around and clanking into the recorder which just has this beautiful feel that for some strange reason would make me watch a cassette tape recording ASMR video at some point. Other than that, I have nothing to really relay audio wise.
The visual design is much like Paratopic: retro chunky graphics mixed in with a sort of fuzzy filter to it which to me looked pretty good and I won’t ever complain about this I don’t think. As for the atmosphere of the game itself, it’s very lonely as you barely see any character models in the slightest except the Christian Bale looking guy and maybe some other models near the end of the game. The arms look like a plastic doll arm you can pop in with blended clothing colors and a face that looks like a paper mask that was pulled back and split in half. It’s an interesting look but otherwise he looks dapper in his John Wick suit. Otherwise, atmospherically this game has a look of darkness; the only things you see being the night as you drive off in your motorcycle along with empty, barely lit apartment hallways that just feel alone. There is nothing but disembodied voices behind those doors and it certainly adds to the sort of dark vibe it has. To wrap this up, if I were to assign a color to this game, it would be black.
NIGHTSLINK was an interesting look into a strange world involving a lot of the same feelings that Paratopic did: strange entities, the use of old tapes, delivery systems and more. I understand that I can’t necessarily compare NIGHTSLINK to Paratopic all the time as they’re completely different projects but to be honest I wish this game had delivered a bit more for what it came out with. There was vague storytelling and while it had interesting elements I didn’t feel like there was enough really there for me to really grab ahold of and examine. It’s a very simple game and I love what’s there, I just wish there was more of it and not in the “tease but not reveal” but in the “it needs to be fleshed out a tad bit more” way. Like I want to figure out what these cassette tapes are? Why are you handing them out? Overall though, I’m not going to hate on NIGHTSLINK for what it does, and how you feel about the base price of 3.99 for the 30 minute or so time frame that the game delivers is really up to you. As for me, I hope that Noiseminded goes back to this somehow and either adds more or creates another game that continues to expand what this game did previously.
Links:
https://x.com/noiseminded?lang=en
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2916864147
https://linktr.ee/Noiseminded
https://itch.io/profile/noiseminded
https://m.youtube.com/@MelonMan666
From Steam Reviews: https://steamcommunity.com/id/gamemast15r/recommended/
The gameplay section is more of the same like Paratopic, you walk around and mostly click on things in your environment which includes only doors and tapes aside from really short motorcycle riding sections and it also must be completed in one session. I have absolutely no problem with that, and for the most part I don’t have a problem with the plot either. You play as the Nightslink, which I assume is a job role for couriers who deliver cassette tapes to people hiding behind closed doors, afraid of the outside. COVID comparisons aside, the main reason for the quarantine is unknown but it’s your job to deliver a certain amount of cassette tapes every day to specific people in the apartments after recording them. The main location is a specific apartment building, and the game takes over a space of four different days. The first day is a normal run, delivering tapes though you can knock on Door 85 to get handed a letter, which you can deliver to Door 83 on the next day. Regardless, every day you’ll also see the same black suited Christian Bale looking-f u c ker standing and staring at you.
The next day is the same, you can hand Door 83 a letter instead of a tape which contains a poem and the rest can get more tapes. While all days have transitions which have you riding a motorcycle at night, the third day sees Christian Bale walking alongside you in the last leg before it fades into your last delivery day. It’s way darker than the previous two, none of the residents that you’re delivering cassette tapes to are particularly chatty except one who ominously talks about not burying their dead and another talking about night terrors. Knocking on Room 90 on this day will get you an achievement but otherwise entering Room 96 produces a black orb on a bloody bed and then the day is over. The fourth day you’re recording the tapes again and the black orb is on your desk, and when you get back to the apartments everyone’s hands are poking out of their doors with their own orbs being held out, your delivery instructions being cryptic symbols. Walking through the apartment, Christian Bale chides you for screwing up and when you walk to the end of the apartments you’ll find the place where you were recording your tapes. Behind that lies a rustic room with a giant hole in the ground and a black orb on the top. All the black orbs come together and sink together into the giant hole, and the last thing you see before the credits are the roads you’re walking on, and giant monsters walking around with a green filter slapped on top of it. My feelings on the plot will be in the outro paragraph so look there.
Just like Paratopic before it, most of the stuff you will hear consists of gibberish sounding dialogue insanely filtered to sound less coherent, ambient noises like tape cassettes being moved around and feet pattering, and maybe a little bit of ominous droning that’s there but isn’t really pronounced until the end. There isn’t anything memorable in terms of music other than the droning but it does enhance the lovecraftian-esque horror vibes that it’s going for. The gibberish sounding dialogue is cool but honestly if I were to pinpoint a sound I loved the most then it would be the sound of the cassette tapes being moved around and clanking into the recorder which just has this beautiful feel that for some strange reason would make me watch a cassette tape recording ASMR video at some point. Other than that, I have nothing to really relay audio wise.
The visual design is much like Paratopic: retro chunky graphics mixed in with a sort of fuzzy filter to it which to me looked pretty good and I won’t ever complain about this I don’t think. As for the atmosphere of the game itself, it’s very lonely as you barely see any character models in the slightest except the Christian Bale looking guy and maybe some other models near the end of the game. The arms look like a plastic doll arm you can pop in with blended clothing colors and a face that looks like a paper mask that was pulled back and split in half. It’s an interesting look but otherwise he looks dapper in his John Wick suit. Otherwise, atmospherically this game has a look of darkness; the only things you see being the night as you drive off in your motorcycle along with empty, barely lit apartment hallways that just feel alone. There is nothing but disembodied voices behind those doors and it certainly adds to the sort of dark vibe it has. To wrap this up, if I were to assign a color to this game, it would be black.
NIGHTSLINK was an interesting look into a strange world involving a lot of the same feelings that Paratopic did: strange entities, the use of old tapes, delivery systems and more. I understand that I can’t necessarily compare NIGHTSLINK to Paratopic all the time as they’re completely different projects but to be honest I wish this game had delivered a bit more for what it came out with. There was vague storytelling and while it had interesting elements I didn’t feel like there was enough really there for me to really grab ahold of and examine. It’s a very simple game and I love what’s there, I just wish there was more of it and not in the “tease but not reveal” but in the “it needs to be fleshed out a tad bit more” way. Like I want to figure out what these cassette tapes are? Why are you handing them out? Overall though, I’m not going to hate on NIGHTSLINK for what it does, and how you feel about the base price of 3.99 for the 30 minute or so time frame that the game delivers is really up to you. As for me, I hope that Noiseminded goes back to this somehow and either adds more or creates another game that continues to expand what this game did previously.
Links:
https://x.com/noiseminded?lang=en
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2916864147
https://linktr.ee/Noiseminded
https://itch.io/profile/noiseminded
https://m.youtube.com/@MelonMan666
From Steam Reviews: https://steamcommunity.com/id/gamemast15r/recommended/
2018
This review contains spoilers
Paratopic is an indie horror walking simulator game developed by Arbitrary Metric (specifically a man named Doc Buford along with devs Chris Brown and Jessica Harvey) on the Unity Engine and released in 2018. I can’t seem to find too much about Doc, though from what I understand he’s a bit of a freelancer who works on other games (like previously reviewed Adios and Hardspace: Shipbreaker) as well as his own titles (Roman Sands: RE-Build) and writes essays about video games on the side (source links below). The only other piece of trivia I could find was from TVTropes, that this was supposed to be the prologue of a five part series though I'm unsure, that and the dev wanted to create a walking sim where the story happens to you and isn't relayed to you. As for me, I had originally learned of this game through a Youtube Essayist named RagnaRox, who did a video on the monsters of the game and from then on the graphics mixed in with the surrealist storytelling lit a fire under my ass to give the game a try at some point which I ended up doing in 2021. I think I played it about three times, with the latter two playthroughs for other people and as such that’s how this review came about; playing through this game, You Will (Not) Remain and NIGHTSLINK as a triple feature after my playthrough of Carrier on Dreamcast got mucked up by controller button mess up.
Just like with You Will (Not) Remain, the plot and gameplay will be combined as the gameplay is rather brief. It’s basically sort of a travel sim with limited interactivity; you’ll walk to (or drive to) certain places and depending on the point of view you’re playing from you’ll maybe shoot a gun or take pictures with a camera (along with interacting with the car radio). Other than that you’ll interact with the environment by clicking on certain items and engage in multiple option dialogue but that’s basically it. It’s meant to be played in one sitting.
The story is seemingly told out of order but involves three characters: an assassin, a smuggler and a bird watcher. The Smuggler seems to be working for a secret organization (with the same symbol) and is at first under interrogation by a guard of sorts for having undeclared VHS tapes. This of course leads to them watching the tapes and bright lights shine out of the room. From there we get segments like going back to your apartment to hear that strange men broke into it, with your next door neighbor fiending for these VHS tapes like a junkie would. Giving her a tape results in her head growing flower petals. There are serene cuts of the smuggler driving down the highway with VHS tapes and a revolver (same person?) along with cuts to a gas station where this smuggler makes small talk with the cashier. However, an ominous presence seems to lurk nearby, a strange black creature who appears in the shadows every now and then.
The assassin is instructed to retrieve some contraband for her employers and her segment ends when she shoots a man in the back of a diner standing next to a strange symbol who has a set of VHS tapes. Every time she puts one in it just rewinds to when she shoots the man previously.
The Birdwatcher probably has the most mysterious lore segments in the game, with the birdwatcher picking up her camera and walking into the woods to take pictures of nature. Walking to a nearby shed and opening the doors reveal a secret lab down below, and when the power is turned on there’s a representative from “The Power Company” who thanks his people for their sacrifices. What this lab is and what it has to do with the story is unknown.
Eventually the story coalesces into the finale: The Birdwatcher ends up going through an area filled with destroyed shipping containers and strange security cameras who seem to watch her. Below a radio tower she sees the strange black creature from before, and any attempts to film it leads to static on her camera. It disappears for a bit before she gets brutally murdered. It goes back to the smuggler being interrogated by the guard in the beginning before the guard dissolves into a giant TV which has “SEE YOU FRIENDO” labeled across and the assassin heads to the radio tower in the woods to see the Bird Watcher’s corpse impaled and skinned. Calling the police to reveal the location of the body and collecting the camera, when the police ask for her name the call hangs up. Credits.
The lore of this world impressed me. Who is this power company and what do the labs have to do with the creature? How about the VHS tapes, what is the connection? Why is there a smuggling business and what does it provide? What does the assassin have to do with this? Are the smuggler and the assassin the same person? These are all questions that go through my mind as the game makes you interact with the serenity of driving down long highways, reloading a gun bullet by bullet or taking pictures of birds. I liked this plot, how they don’t really give you the answers as much as they make you piece the puzzle together (and fill in the blanks) on your own. There are a lot of theories out there, and so I’ll post some links below to get some info on what might have happened but generally I like the plot. However, if this was part of a series of games then I could tell due to the nature of the game, and honestly I wish the dev continued the series.
Graphically the game uses the chunky low polygon PS1 graphics that I love so much, and so for that I don’t have much to say. However, I like how the graphics enhance the warped nature of the world itself. It looks sometimes like other people’s heads shift and expand sometimes, their faces crudely stapled with a flat expression as the limited frames make it feel unreal. The color schemes mostly consist of browns and darker colors with the exceptions of lights and the bright forest, the only supposed place for safety that have arrow-tipped resembling trees. The lighting during the driving segments though feel relaxed and calm, peaceful as you drive down a never-ending highway filled with the same shaped buildings. Everything looks pretty damn good, and the graphical style only helps the horror come to life with the limited visuals, a reason that probably a lot of indie game devs use PS1 style graphics (nostalgia and budget aside of course).
The sound design for this game consists of a few different things: a lot of dialogue that sounds halfway between real dialogue and gibberish, almost as if it’s backmasked; ominous droning mixed in with synth and certain sound effects like footstep pattering (an ASMR favorite of mine) and birds chirping. I feel like all of these sounds help present the world as a mostly hostile place, a place where everyone and everything is unknown only enhanced with the art design. Mixed in with the Bird Watching segments, the only place you’ll get some peace (besides the driving segments which have these gibberish sounding talk show segments that sound so real yet so alien) only add to the hostility once the Bird Watcher ends up dead. After all, if not even nature is safe then what is safe? Also that windmill creek is creepy as hell. Not much to say other than that, it’s solid even if it’s not the most noticeable part for me.
Paratopic is one of those games that seems to have become a bit of a mixed bag for a lot of people on the Steam reviews. A lot of criticisms were based on the length, the lack of gameplay and the abrupt ending apparently but I actually enjoyed all of these features despite it. It tells a three person point of view narrative into a strange world obsessed with old VHS tapes that honestly made me fiend for more. What are these tapes? Why do they do what they do? They left me wanting more, attempting to pierce together the plot or maybe make me wonder if it’s all an allegory for something. The developer delivered an interesting short-form game in a time where I feel that these sorts of games weren’t really popular (I could be wrong) so I feel that this mixed in with the old chunky graphics honestly makes it stand out to me. The game sells for 5.49 on Steam at a normal price, and the actual gameplay takes between 30 minutes to an hour or so depending on if you’re exploring it or not. Whether or not the game’s price is worth it with the hours played is up to you, however I ended up getting the game from my homie SuperGodPunch around my birthday in 2020 so I didn’t have to spend any money. You big pimping for that my guy.
Links:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1508153436
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/Paratopic
https://steamcommunity.com/app/897030/discussions/0/1742220359699118699/
https://www.patreon.com/docgames/about?
https://docseuss.medium.com/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OzSbExQ11QU&ab_channel=RagnarRox
https://www.reddit.com/r/truegaming/comments/joq9lv/what_is_going_on_in_paratopic_plot_discussion/
From Steam Reviews: https://steamcommunity.com/id/gamemast15r/recommended/
Just like with You Will (Not) Remain, the plot and gameplay will be combined as the gameplay is rather brief. It’s basically sort of a travel sim with limited interactivity; you’ll walk to (or drive to) certain places and depending on the point of view you’re playing from you’ll maybe shoot a gun or take pictures with a camera (along with interacting with the car radio). Other than that you’ll interact with the environment by clicking on certain items and engage in multiple option dialogue but that’s basically it. It’s meant to be played in one sitting.
The story is seemingly told out of order but involves three characters: an assassin, a smuggler and a bird watcher. The Smuggler seems to be working for a secret organization (with the same symbol) and is at first under interrogation by a guard of sorts for having undeclared VHS tapes. This of course leads to them watching the tapes and bright lights shine out of the room. From there we get segments like going back to your apartment to hear that strange men broke into it, with your next door neighbor fiending for these VHS tapes like a junkie would. Giving her a tape results in her head growing flower petals. There are serene cuts of the smuggler driving down the highway with VHS tapes and a revolver (same person?) along with cuts to a gas station where this smuggler makes small talk with the cashier. However, an ominous presence seems to lurk nearby, a strange black creature who appears in the shadows every now and then.
The assassin is instructed to retrieve some contraband for her employers and her segment ends when she shoots a man in the back of a diner standing next to a strange symbol who has a set of VHS tapes. Every time she puts one in it just rewinds to when she shoots the man previously.
The Birdwatcher probably has the most mysterious lore segments in the game, with the birdwatcher picking up her camera and walking into the woods to take pictures of nature. Walking to a nearby shed and opening the doors reveal a secret lab down below, and when the power is turned on there’s a representative from “The Power Company” who thanks his people for their sacrifices. What this lab is and what it has to do with the story is unknown.
Eventually the story coalesces into the finale: The Birdwatcher ends up going through an area filled with destroyed shipping containers and strange security cameras who seem to watch her. Below a radio tower she sees the strange black creature from before, and any attempts to film it leads to static on her camera. It disappears for a bit before she gets brutally murdered. It goes back to the smuggler being interrogated by the guard in the beginning before the guard dissolves into a giant TV which has “SEE YOU FRIENDO” labeled across and the assassin heads to the radio tower in the woods to see the Bird Watcher’s corpse impaled and skinned. Calling the police to reveal the location of the body and collecting the camera, when the police ask for her name the call hangs up. Credits.
The lore of this world impressed me. Who is this power company and what do the labs have to do with the creature? How about the VHS tapes, what is the connection? Why is there a smuggling business and what does it provide? What does the assassin have to do with this? Are the smuggler and the assassin the same person? These are all questions that go through my mind as the game makes you interact with the serenity of driving down long highways, reloading a gun bullet by bullet or taking pictures of birds. I liked this plot, how they don’t really give you the answers as much as they make you piece the puzzle together (and fill in the blanks) on your own. There are a lot of theories out there, and so I’ll post some links below to get some info on what might have happened but generally I like the plot. However, if this was part of a series of games then I could tell due to the nature of the game, and honestly I wish the dev continued the series.
Graphically the game uses the chunky low polygon PS1 graphics that I love so much, and so for that I don’t have much to say. However, I like how the graphics enhance the warped nature of the world itself. It looks sometimes like other people’s heads shift and expand sometimes, their faces crudely stapled with a flat expression as the limited frames make it feel unreal. The color schemes mostly consist of browns and darker colors with the exceptions of lights and the bright forest, the only supposed place for safety that have arrow-tipped resembling trees. The lighting during the driving segments though feel relaxed and calm, peaceful as you drive down a never-ending highway filled with the same shaped buildings. Everything looks pretty damn good, and the graphical style only helps the horror come to life with the limited visuals, a reason that probably a lot of indie game devs use PS1 style graphics (nostalgia and budget aside of course).
The sound design for this game consists of a few different things: a lot of dialogue that sounds halfway between real dialogue and gibberish, almost as if it’s backmasked; ominous droning mixed in with synth and certain sound effects like footstep pattering (an ASMR favorite of mine) and birds chirping. I feel like all of these sounds help present the world as a mostly hostile place, a place where everyone and everything is unknown only enhanced with the art design. Mixed in with the Bird Watching segments, the only place you’ll get some peace (besides the driving segments which have these gibberish sounding talk show segments that sound so real yet so alien) only add to the hostility once the Bird Watcher ends up dead. After all, if not even nature is safe then what is safe? Also that windmill creek is creepy as hell. Not much to say other than that, it’s solid even if it’s not the most noticeable part for me.
Paratopic is one of those games that seems to have become a bit of a mixed bag for a lot of people on the Steam reviews. A lot of criticisms were based on the length, the lack of gameplay and the abrupt ending apparently but I actually enjoyed all of these features despite it. It tells a three person point of view narrative into a strange world obsessed with old VHS tapes that honestly made me fiend for more. What are these tapes? Why do they do what they do? They left me wanting more, attempting to pierce together the plot or maybe make me wonder if it’s all an allegory for something. The developer delivered an interesting short-form game in a time where I feel that these sorts of games weren’t really popular (I could be wrong) so I feel that this mixed in with the old chunky graphics honestly makes it stand out to me. The game sells for 5.49 on Steam at a normal price, and the actual gameplay takes between 30 minutes to an hour or so depending on if you’re exploring it or not. Whether or not the game’s price is worth it with the hours played is up to you, however I ended up getting the game from my homie SuperGodPunch around my birthday in 2020 so I didn’t have to spend any money. You big pimping for that my guy.
Links:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1508153436
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/Paratopic
https://steamcommunity.com/app/897030/discussions/0/1742220359699118699/
https://www.patreon.com/docgames/about?
https://docseuss.medium.com/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OzSbExQ11QU&ab_channel=RagnarRox
https://www.reddit.com/r/truegaming/comments/joq9lv/what_is_going_on_in_paratopic_plot_discussion/
From Steam Reviews: https://steamcommunity.com/id/gamemast15r/recommended/
This review contains spoilers
You Will (Not) Remain is a “depression with a dog” simulator developed by Bedtime Phobias, a small team from Australia who had previously developed a game named Shrinking Pains and had created this game in 48 hours in the Unity Engine for the 2021 Women’s Game Jam competition and released for free on Itch.io as well as Steam. I originally discovered this game from a friend of mine named Bad Ghosts, who creates youtube reviews that you should really give a check in and watch cause they’re really good (link below) who made this as a four parter for a mini-review video along with Anger Foot, The Glass Staircase and Judge Dredd: Dredd vs. Death. I hadn’t heard of the game before then, but his review beforehand convinced me to give this game a shot and I had completed it in around 30 minutes or so. A couple of years later I sat down and gave the game another playthrough after my usual saturday review person wanted the game on the list for me to stream for them and after Carrier for the Dreamcast goofed up due to a controller issue, I had played this game along with Paratopic and Nightslink.
I’ll just be straight up about the gameplay off the bat: you play the game in one sitting and it takes about 30 or so minutes. You don’t do much except walk around and press the interact button and that’s pretty much it. The game is about the atmosphere and the themes of mental health with isolation (stuff the developers warn you about on the first screen) and boy does the game deliver. The story is about a singular person who wakes up day after day, trapped in their apartment due to warnings about not going outside or else SOMETHING happens. What is that something? Unknown. But going out on the porch reveals a giant purple eldritch monster during a sort of post apocalypse, and you kind of go through the days and attempt to live while also ruminating and having nightmares over “she” constantly, worrying about her safety from the threats outside. Who is she? Who knows, but eventually you hear a dog barking next door and saving them provides a respite to the overwhelming loneliness and depression that comes from the isolation of life. That’s pretty much all I’m going to go on with in terms of the plot as the game feels more like a single character’s journey, which could be interpreted in any number of ways. A lot of people with depression struggle to get out of bed in the morning, neglecting and struggling to do anything and nothing is more resemblant of that in-game than forgetting to water your plant or struggling to come up with a name for the dog and almost naming them after a marble sink. The writing here feels dead on, so shoutout to Gabriella Lowgren.
The sound design mostly consists of the music, certain sound effects like barking and the pattering of text as it scrawls by. The music composed by Talia Roso evokes a feeling of comfort and safety, a strange whimsy of sorts that I would expect from a Gamecube-era game for some reason. I enjoy the feeling that it gives me, while also appreciating how it resonates with the retro aesthetic. The dream world version gives the same effect but with a more unsettling feel to give off the nightmare feel that it relays. For the most part it keeps this same upbeat sounding tune throughout most of the game and any differentiations in the music blend basically seamlessly except for a few transitions where it jarringly goes into the nightmare music. The other sound effects that is given off is from the dog barking or growling which sounds good, the static which sounds like static and burns my ears or the text scrolling which just gives off this tapping fingers on the table feeling that just sounds so great and truth be told I could listen to it all day like ASMR.
The art design is a sweet spot for me, as I’m a weak little simp boy for retro graphics for those who know me and T-Dog eXtreme did a fantastic job. The pixelated artwork is always a plus, the sort of Gameboy-esque vibe mixed with the familiar yet alien surroundings blend in phenomenally. The main character itself feels alien to it’s own environment, which feels human in itself which to me relayed this feeling of isolationism mixed with familiarity, like knowing your surroundings but feeling like you don’t belong or are trapped. Lambshank the dog looks normal despite the giant leaf tail and looking outside the window sees this giant purple tentacle which I thought was the mouth of Cthulhu first before it appeared to be nothing related to that. The funny thing is, it excels in the lovecraft vibes because you don’t KNOW what anything looks like besides you, Lambshank and whatever the hell is that being in the background from the roof. It succeeds very well in the environmental storytelling and the pixelated apartment mixed in with the only colors being black, white and purple give it a unique flavor that I can’t say I’ve seen any other game pull off yet.
Overall, this was a really good title based on the horrors of isolation and depression released in what I dubbed the “COVID Era” which I felt tackled the struggle really well while also relaying a great bit of unseen Eldritch horror. I had interpreted the game as symbolic of the struggles of getting over someone, perhaps an ex or someone in your past that wasn’t healthy for you but perhaps but my friend interpreted it as a resemblance of comfortably sinking back into depression and continuing to do the same thing because it’s familiar. It’s a really well written 2D indie game that while short, I’m both grateful and genuinely surprised that it’s free. The fact that it is free however means that for the people who are interested in these types of games, you have no reason not to give it a try. I enjoyed my time with it and related to it a lot, Bedtime Phobias did a fantastic job and they’re a developer that I’m going to keep an eye on. Perhaps I’ll even give their previous title a spin at some point to see what that was like as well. You Will (Not) Remain is a solid title that’s worth the time spent if you’re looking for a small game to kill in half an hour.
Links:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2710823795
https://mashable.com/article/you-will-not-remain-game-review
https://jordancookirwin.itch.io/you-will-not-remain
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1XRP7UkbHe0&ab_channel=BadGhosts
https://bedtimephobias.itch.io/
From Steam Reviews: https://steamcommunity.com/id/gamemast15r/recommended/
I’ll just be straight up about the gameplay off the bat: you play the game in one sitting and it takes about 30 or so minutes. You don’t do much except walk around and press the interact button and that’s pretty much it. The game is about the atmosphere and the themes of mental health with isolation (stuff the developers warn you about on the first screen) and boy does the game deliver. The story is about a singular person who wakes up day after day, trapped in their apartment due to warnings about not going outside or else SOMETHING happens. What is that something? Unknown. But going out on the porch reveals a giant purple eldritch monster during a sort of post apocalypse, and you kind of go through the days and attempt to live while also ruminating and having nightmares over “she” constantly, worrying about her safety from the threats outside. Who is she? Who knows, but eventually you hear a dog barking next door and saving them provides a respite to the overwhelming loneliness and depression that comes from the isolation of life. That’s pretty much all I’m going to go on with in terms of the plot as the game feels more like a single character’s journey, which could be interpreted in any number of ways. A lot of people with depression struggle to get out of bed in the morning, neglecting and struggling to do anything and nothing is more resemblant of that in-game than forgetting to water your plant or struggling to come up with a name for the dog and almost naming them after a marble sink. The writing here feels dead on, so shoutout to Gabriella Lowgren.
The sound design mostly consists of the music, certain sound effects like barking and the pattering of text as it scrawls by. The music composed by Talia Roso evokes a feeling of comfort and safety, a strange whimsy of sorts that I would expect from a Gamecube-era game for some reason. I enjoy the feeling that it gives me, while also appreciating how it resonates with the retro aesthetic. The dream world version gives the same effect but with a more unsettling feel to give off the nightmare feel that it relays. For the most part it keeps this same upbeat sounding tune throughout most of the game and any differentiations in the music blend basically seamlessly except for a few transitions where it jarringly goes into the nightmare music. The other sound effects that is given off is from the dog barking or growling which sounds good, the static which sounds like static and burns my ears or the text scrolling which just gives off this tapping fingers on the table feeling that just sounds so great and truth be told I could listen to it all day like ASMR.
The art design is a sweet spot for me, as I’m a weak little simp boy for retro graphics for those who know me and T-Dog eXtreme did a fantastic job. The pixelated artwork is always a plus, the sort of Gameboy-esque vibe mixed with the familiar yet alien surroundings blend in phenomenally. The main character itself feels alien to it’s own environment, which feels human in itself which to me relayed this feeling of isolationism mixed with familiarity, like knowing your surroundings but feeling like you don’t belong or are trapped. Lambshank the dog looks normal despite the giant leaf tail and looking outside the window sees this giant purple tentacle which I thought was the mouth of Cthulhu first before it appeared to be nothing related to that. The funny thing is, it excels in the lovecraft vibes because you don’t KNOW what anything looks like besides you, Lambshank and whatever the hell is that being in the background from the roof. It succeeds very well in the environmental storytelling and the pixelated apartment mixed in with the only colors being black, white and purple give it a unique flavor that I can’t say I’ve seen any other game pull off yet.
Overall, this was a really good title based on the horrors of isolation and depression released in what I dubbed the “COVID Era” which I felt tackled the struggle really well while also relaying a great bit of unseen Eldritch horror. I had interpreted the game as symbolic of the struggles of getting over someone, perhaps an ex or someone in your past that wasn’t healthy for you but perhaps but my friend interpreted it as a resemblance of comfortably sinking back into depression and continuing to do the same thing because it’s familiar. It’s a really well written 2D indie game that while short, I’m both grateful and genuinely surprised that it’s free. The fact that it is free however means that for the people who are interested in these types of games, you have no reason not to give it a try. I enjoyed my time with it and related to it a lot, Bedtime Phobias did a fantastic job and they’re a developer that I’m going to keep an eye on. Perhaps I’ll even give their previous title a spin at some point to see what that was like as well. You Will (Not) Remain is a solid title that’s worth the time spent if you’re looking for a small game to kill in half an hour.
Links:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2710823795
https://mashable.com/article/you-will-not-remain-game-review
https://jordancookirwin.itch.io/you-will-not-remain
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1XRP7UkbHe0&ab_channel=BadGhosts
https://bedtimephobias.itch.io/
From Steam Reviews: https://steamcommunity.com/id/gamemast15r/recommended/
2021
This review contains spoilers
Tormented Souls is a survival horror “twin doll” simulator co-developed by Dual Effect, established by Chilean twins Gaberiel and German Aranedas and Abstract Digital Games. In an interview with Medium (link below), the twins grew up viewing games like Silent Hill 2 as “the Citizen Kane” of video games and playing some of their favorites like Resident Evil and Rule of Rose before they looked at each other and thought “let’s create a video game”. The two proceeded to look up Youtube tutorials on how to create video games before meeting with Abstract Digital, who pushed them in the right direction and helped them with receiving that good ol’ government funding as well. After originally starting as a mobile game with pre-rendered graphics before then deciding to hop aboard the 3D train and create a full on console/PC video game and developing it as a throwback to the 90s survival horror genre, when it was picked up by publisher PQube and developed into the game that it is today. As for my introduction to the game, there isn’t much to say other than I’ve seen some friends wishlist the game along with some Youtubers I know (like AvalancheReviews) do videos on it and had given it a wishlist myself. Last Christmas I had picked up Tormented Souls with some gift cards my buddies Nick and Jinx gave me, before Jinx had asked me to stream it for her after Lake Haven: Chrysalis. Having just beaten it, how does the game match up to the games that clearly influence it?
The plot takes place in Canada, 1994: A woman named Caroline Walker is chilling in her bedroom putting on makeup when she receives a mysterious letter in the mail from a John Doe in Wildberger Hospital located on Blackwood Island. Inside the envelope is a picture featuring two little girls and a message on the back: “Do you think you can simply just abandon us here?” which gives her such a throbbing headache along with haunting nightmares that she travels to Wildberger Hospital in order to get answers. Her unannounced visit however rewards her with a giant pipe to the back of the head; after which she wakes up in a bathtub with a tube down her throat, her eye cut out, and naked. She wakes up out of her slumber and finds her clothes nearby and sets out to find the answers that she needs. Exploring the hospital, she encounters disturbing creatures and mirrors that lead to Other World versions of the hospital, all while opening doors and moving her way through the mansion. While here, she meets up with a Priest who gives her advice and hints on the nature of the place (with one moment of him sitting in a kitchen eating soup reminded me of meeting Eddie in Silent Hill 2, having me screaming “How can you sit there and eat soup with monsters outside??”) while learning bits and pieces of the past, traveling to said past through strange VHS tapes which open portals that allow you to change time itself. Speaking of these, I found a strangely funny yet plot hole of a moment: the second time you travel back to the past to a certain area of the mansion to find that a statue of Jesus is back in its place on the wall. In the modern times, Caroline finds it shattered on the floor and since then she’s traveled back to the past once to attempt to rescue a little girl. If it’s clear that these VHS tapes travel you to the past, why ask the priest if he fixed the statue then?
Overall, the basic lore goes like this: William Wildberger is a doctor whose wife gave birth to twin daughters. Her father Noah was an abusive man as well as a cult leader who devised a plan with his sect, the Sect of Pollux, to have members forcefully give birth to the twins needed to help their “God” be reborn into the new world so they can remake it and purge sinners and all that religious shit. Things go awry though as one of the twins barely escapes with their mother, while the other one is trapped in a cell for many years only being kept alive through time travel stuff that you did by entering through cameras and attempting to break her out. She doesn’t know who you are though if you follow the context clues and look at the haircut color for the girls in the painting then you’ll guess a plot twist: you are actually Emma Wildberger, who had escaped the mansion all those years ago after falling off a bridge and becoming an amnesiac (I think) and was finally summoned back to the mansion to complete the ritual.
While you would probably discover this twist early, Caroline doesn’t until WAY late in the game when she discovers her old hiding spot in her bedroom, and after learning that her twin sister Anna (the little girl she’s encountered throughout the diary entries and time travel sections) was brought down to “The Vault” (an old bunker and the Sect of Pollux’s main headquarters), Caroline/Emma vows to rescue her sister. She travels to the past and cuts out her own eye in a flashback (where she also learns that her dad William is the one who bonked her head with the pipe) before heading back to the present and opening the vault, which requires the “Eyes of a pair of twins”. It’s here that the priest’s identity is revealed in another predictable twist: he’s actually Noah, the twin’s grandfather and cult leader, who thanks Caroline/Emma for helping him finally achieve his god’s rebirth. Taunting her to follow him, Caroline/Emma follows inside and encounters the remains of his old cult who were locked in to prevent an uprising of sorts (I think) and finally manages to confront Noah. The two go back and forth for a bit, and it’s revealed that the deformed monster who became a chaser in the latter half of the game is actually Anna, your now deceased sister. It’s here where you can make one of two choices that can determine the game’s ending: her fate. Will you give her the antidote (good ending, requires you to solve a certain puzzle involving a lot of doors) that will cure her, but let her die in her human form? Will you cut her open with a scalpel and put her out of her misery? Or will you just leave her there and move onto the final boss?
Before I continue, there’s something I want to address: the creatures. All of them seem to be mutated human beings, deformed and turned into makeshift killing machines due to a special type of “radiation” located from the “God” that the cult is trying to resurrect. That’s why Anna turned into the floating, saggy skinned monster straight out of Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark as well, so here’s a question. Who is this god? What’s with the radiation? Those are questions that’s mainly unanswered, and understandably so as sometimes it’s better to go with your imagination to fill in the holes to make things scarier right? Then how do you get it? Is it just by being in the bunker? Why didn’t Noah get it or Caroline/Emma when she was walking through? Regardless, she does whatever she needs to for her former sister and she dies before Caroline/Emma heads down to the elevator below (but not before possibly picking up the bolt cutters nearby), where she encounters Noah preparing the final ritual. So this ritual needs the blood of twins right? I guess not anymore because Father Noah just cuts into his arms (including the one that got cut off earlier) and spills the blood into the sacrificial pots. So here are some more questions: why did he need the blood of the twins to begin with? I guess this is a last minute measure as his plans got mucked up but if there was the chance to get it mucked up then why didn’t he just extract blood from the both of them instead while he had the chance? Why didn’t he just take out their eyes to begin with to open the vault if all he needed was that instead of a pair of twins? That isn’t answered either, though either way Father Noah dies and this “God” is reborn. Caroline/Emma proceed to dodge it’s blood spit before filling it full of nails, messing around with some old technology and then finally in a pretty epic display, drops a giant fucking drill on the thing’s head which I assume is from the cult digging through the foundation in the construction of Wildberger Hospital.
Finally killing the Sect of Pollux’s idol once and for all, she exits the bunker through the nearby elevator and can do one of two things depending on certain prerequisites. The Good Ending (and canonical one) involves traveling back to the past with a VHS tape and the bolt cutters to free the young child Anna from her jail cell, officially adopting her and leaving the mansion, apologizing to Anna about the circumstances and promising to tell her everything as she grows up. The not-so-great end involves cutting the creature up, which just ends in Caroline/Emma leaving with nothing but sadness, and the worst ending involves ignoring the creature entirely and getting murked by her otherworldly irradiated sister. Like I said before, the good ending is considered canonical and will be the basis for the sequel so take that as you will. How do I feel about the plot overall though?
The plot to me was a mixed to positive affair for me, with certain plot holes (real or imagined perhaps) confusing the hell out of me while the overall plot structure was pretty decent even if I felt it was a retread of Silent Hill’s story. Again, the plot holes are some of the main things that confuse me: How does the radiation work? If you read cult member diaries then you’ll learn that they needed special suits to enter “The Vault”, but Noah and Caroline just kinda go in and do their business just fine. Is it a long term effect? Apparently the suits don’t even work that well so what’s going on with those two. Why did the vault require the eyes of twins to open it? Why did Noah cut open his own hands if that’s all he needed to summon his god back? Why does being in the darkness kill you? Also, the plot twist involving Caroline being one of the twins felt painfully obvious even as far as seeing the painting of the twins towards the beginning as they look kind of identical anyways, so the whole revelation at the end felt kind of goofy. That being said I want to make sure I establish now that I don’t hate the plot and while I feel it takes the whole “Cult/Daughter sacrifice” thing from Silent Hill a bit much, I did honestly feel that they did twist it in their own way that I felt was actually pretty interesting, captivating me as I read documents pertaining to the Wildberger Family even if it was a bit noticeable. I don’t mean to be such a nitpick about it, I actually find the lore for the game to be quite interesting with the hope that the sequel will answer more about the Sect of Pollux even if there are some confusing plot holes and/or non-plot hole mysteries that were left unsolved.
The gameplay for Tormented Souls basically feels like a more interactive version of a survival horror game. Of course you’ll be picking up items, avoiding the darkness with your lighter/flashlight or else it’ll kill you (never explained lore wise why) conserving health (consisting of morphine and medkits) and ammo for the weapons you have (nail gun being the pistol, the makeshift pipe shotgun and the Electric Baton I guess being the “special weapon” along with the crowbar for melee) and choosing whether or not you want to fight certain enemies while exploring in Wildberger Mansion. You could also unlock a special Nail Gun and another outfit in your base run (along with New Game+) if you do certain things which I will put a guide down at the bottom. The outfit I think you just open up a nearby locker while the special nail gun that shoots in Burst Fire mode. It certainly felt like a fight to survive as I found myself nearly out of ammo numerous times, though it can get really annoying as there are certain areas (mainly towards the latter half of the game) where you’ll only encounter heavy enemies who tank ammo and surround locations you HAVE to go to and admittedly I felt that it got a bit frustrating but hey at least you have a whole bunch of save tapes. Ironically early in the game it’s really difficult, with them starving you for save tapes (following the old survival horror tradition of limited saves behind certain collectibles) until you get further in the story. At certain points in the story you’ll also have Caroline speak into the tapes about what had happened during the plot and provide some inner character dialogue for her which was nice. Other things that popped up to me were the enemy types, which for the most part are intimidating as they chase you down; however the big “chaser” enemy is a floating ghost woman who you can easily recognize due to the loud, blaring music that appears whenever you enter a room. You can’t kill her so I wouldn’t bother wasting ammo, though the best way to avoid her is just to enter the room you just came out of then coming back. One last thing to be aware of are certain traps, like the Shaking Knight Armor which tends to drop giant swords on you (and can kill enemies for an achievement) that is almost certainly an OSHA violation (as well as an Iron Maiden spike trap towards the end).
One thing I’m going to comment on a bit were the puzzles, which depending on whether or not you like vague hints and searching documents for clues can be hit or miss. I used a guide (link below, used to keep the stream pace going) so I never really had trouble with it though if I didn’t use it I would suck at them anyways. However, there were certain puzzles that would provide a bit of a head scratcher for confusion, for example a puzzle in the first half where you have to run around a corpse in the morgue in a certain direction three times which I would understand if most people got stuck on without proper context and research. Other puzzles are creative, like using a stethoscope to monitor the heartbeat of a statue in a hallway before heading over to a room in a different section of the mansion to input the heartbeat as a code though that can also be a tad confusing or simple like playing Simon Says with a vending machine to get a blood bag? Another puzzle that I’ll mention as a highlight was a simple but effective one: finding a mannequin arm to attach in the Other World which will re-attach the arm to the Father in the real world. I’m not going to pretend that there isn’t creativity to it, mixed in with the time travel mechanics (ex. Putting an item in the freezer then coming back for it in the main timeline) that impresses me with its thought logic even if sometimes I wonder how anyone is supposed to get to certain conclusions. Without a guide, you will definitely be confused backtracking sometimes I feel but otherwise I think that the game does pretty well with how it goes about it. You interact with most of these puzzles by going to the spot in question and then moving the cursor around and clicking on certain areas in the environment like it was a point and click game. I enjoyed this level of interactivity and feel sets it apart from other survival horror games who mainly have you just combine items or choose to put certain items in certain places like examining the wrench at the beginning and clicking on a certain place to open it up for use in a puzzle.
This section is going to be a bit on the shorter side as there’s not a lot I feel I can mention with the voice acting, which mainly consists of “JT”, “Samantha Flowers” and “Leo Williams”. I don’t recognize these people anywhere though apparently Samantha was in Subverse and My Time at Portia while Leo was in a game called Last Days of Lazarus and JT wasn’t in any other game at all. For relatively new voice actresses (and actors), I felt that they did decently well bringing over this sort of campy, old styled voice acting charm to the mix with some strangely written and worded dialogue though I never felt it detracted from the overall experience. As for the actual in-game sounds, everything felt as it should be from the makeshift shotgun sounding like an actual shotgun shell to the sounds of self moving furniture so that’s pretty solid.
However, one of the things to me that really helps break a survival game forward is how well they do their musical pieces. Do they have calm, ambient music to reveal safety and do they have terrifying music whenever monsters enter the room? Are these pieces memorable in some way? The answer to this is yes, and composers Begoña A. Carrasco and Nyxtheshield do a great job at delivering some fantastic survival horror entry music. The Main Theme by Begona has this somber piano tune mixed with a string chorus that strikes the feeling of calm sadness yet safety. Momentary Asylum by Nyxtheshield provides that same vibe of safety yet gives off the relief that one would feel after barely surviving by the skin of your teeth, as does Holy Sanctuary though that provides it in a more “epic” religious way. Meanwhile the tense tracks provide a sense of unease from Delusional to Shattered Echoes. Other tracks are just themes for certain areas like “The Reception Hall” and “Sewers” or music for the Chaser (of whose track name I forget though I’ll remember “oh hell naw”ing the hell out of there. The rest of the sound design may be great, but the soundtrack is what I feel to be the best part out of all of them.
Atmospherically let me just say that the game would definitely be something that I say could be a combination of Spencer Mansion from the first Resident Evil game and the Other World with the monsters from Silent Hill. It oozes throwback from the fixed camera angles, the white and brownish color scheme, the wallpaper and the old timey photographs while the Other World in this game literally has this s h i t brown rustic vibe, chain link fences and and all sorts of mutilated dead bodies scattered all over the place. The game to me feels like a blatantly obvious combination of both, directly lifting from both (even with a homage to a Silent Hill 1 camera angle while heading down a hallway) while surprisingly enough feeling like its own thing even when it wears its inspirations on its sleeves though the one thing that felt really unique to me was that there was a sewer area which kind of looked like a homeless shelter with makeshift beds and sinks. Another thing that Tormented Souls did well were enemy designs, successfully freaking me the hell out whenever the monsters show up and while a lot of that is due to sponge as well as high ammo use there are a lot of interesting monster designs that I enjoyed from the wall monsters being these deformed freaky skin peeled creatures that forcefully block your progress to the Pollux cultists who look like a combination of The Order from Silent Hill and the Zodiac Killer with a sledgehammer. One of my favorite monster designs in the game however has to be the “Heart Fetus” creature at the very end, whose simplistic yet cringeworthy (in a scary way) design admittedly creeped me the hell out. Overall, the actual horror atmosphere works out incredibly well and was an enjoyable factor for me, though there were a couple of things that kinda stuck out to me a bit.
I’m not a fan of the human character models; mainly Caroline, Anna and Noah. Number one the first two look like this strange fusion of being doll-like and unfinished with skin that looks way too smooth and animations that look a little out of place. This isn’t a diss on the developers as they’re indie devs on a budget so what can you really do? At the same time though while they are unsettling in their super smooth doll-like state, it felt a bit inconsistent with the rest of the game’s intense focus on deformed creatures and creepy shadows. Also I’m not a fan of the patterned dress/bow combination even if it’s doll-like, it just feels like too much going on and I’m not into patterned clothing anyways but maybe that’s just me I don’t know. Some other notes I put down for this involves the clothing physics fluttering about and accidentally folding into itself, revealing some panties I think? Obviously this is unintentional, though another thing I did see was that when you looked at certain newspapers, they would have the same articles printed on the back with every single paper regardless of the time skip. Otherwise, atmospherically I felt that Tormented Souls was a pretty solid game atmospherically and was graphically solid despite some hiccups here and there.
Tormented Souls was a game that I had liked a lot despite some things that I wasn’t a fan of. It was a very solid throwback to the survival horror era, modernizing it in the way of graphical fidelity but still keeping the old feel of the game between the dialogue, the gameplay and the camera angles. While the plot can be a confusing hit or miss sometimes, it’s a title that I honestly believe that all fans of survival horror should sit down and give a play or perhaps a watch. It took me around 8-9 hours or so to beat on the first try and while released in tandem with Alisa (in 2021), I would say while that game is more memorable, Tormented Souls is a lot more polished and feels better on the quality side. The game is usually around twenty or so dollars and on sale is around 5.99, though I will confidently say that whether you get it on sale or you get it for 20 dollars that it’s pretty much worth the time to play it. As for what happened after, the game evidently did well because the reviews are positive and it must have sold enough to have warranted a sequel: Tormented Souls II based around one premise: Anna has fallen victim to the radiation poisoning and now her big Sis has got to do something about it. I’m interested in how the sequel will go and I hope to play it sometime in the future, sooner rather than later.
Links:
https://www.abstractdw.com/tormentedsouls.html
https://medium.com/@bug.done/interview-with-dual-effect-tormented-souls-creators-bb1a10f0e666
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_nA3v_9NKLFMDcOFz8wJ6lZua6XGRIcLSY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_q-NnehAc8g&ab_channel=TheHorrorGameAwards
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2640545564
https://www.neoseeker.com/tormented-souls/walkthrough
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/TormentedSouls
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tormented_Souls
From Steam Reviews: https://steamcommunity.com/id/gamemast15r/recommended/
The plot takes place in Canada, 1994: A woman named Caroline Walker is chilling in her bedroom putting on makeup when she receives a mysterious letter in the mail from a John Doe in Wildberger Hospital located on Blackwood Island. Inside the envelope is a picture featuring two little girls and a message on the back: “Do you think you can simply just abandon us here?” which gives her such a throbbing headache along with haunting nightmares that she travels to Wildberger Hospital in order to get answers. Her unannounced visit however rewards her with a giant pipe to the back of the head; after which she wakes up in a bathtub with a tube down her throat, her eye cut out, and naked. She wakes up out of her slumber and finds her clothes nearby and sets out to find the answers that she needs. Exploring the hospital, she encounters disturbing creatures and mirrors that lead to Other World versions of the hospital, all while opening doors and moving her way through the mansion. While here, she meets up with a Priest who gives her advice and hints on the nature of the place (with one moment of him sitting in a kitchen eating soup reminded me of meeting Eddie in Silent Hill 2, having me screaming “How can you sit there and eat soup with monsters outside??”) while learning bits and pieces of the past, traveling to said past through strange VHS tapes which open portals that allow you to change time itself. Speaking of these, I found a strangely funny yet plot hole of a moment: the second time you travel back to the past to a certain area of the mansion to find that a statue of Jesus is back in its place on the wall. In the modern times, Caroline finds it shattered on the floor and since then she’s traveled back to the past once to attempt to rescue a little girl. If it’s clear that these VHS tapes travel you to the past, why ask the priest if he fixed the statue then?
Overall, the basic lore goes like this: William Wildberger is a doctor whose wife gave birth to twin daughters. Her father Noah was an abusive man as well as a cult leader who devised a plan with his sect, the Sect of Pollux, to have members forcefully give birth to the twins needed to help their “God” be reborn into the new world so they can remake it and purge sinners and all that religious shit. Things go awry though as one of the twins barely escapes with their mother, while the other one is trapped in a cell for many years only being kept alive through time travel stuff that you did by entering through cameras and attempting to break her out. She doesn’t know who you are though if you follow the context clues and look at the haircut color for the girls in the painting then you’ll guess a plot twist: you are actually Emma Wildberger, who had escaped the mansion all those years ago after falling off a bridge and becoming an amnesiac (I think) and was finally summoned back to the mansion to complete the ritual.
While you would probably discover this twist early, Caroline doesn’t until WAY late in the game when she discovers her old hiding spot in her bedroom, and after learning that her twin sister Anna (the little girl she’s encountered throughout the diary entries and time travel sections) was brought down to “The Vault” (an old bunker and the Sect of Pollux’s main headquarters), Caroline/Emma vows to rescue her sister. She travels to the past and cuts out her own eye in a flashback (where she also learns that her dad William is the one who bonked her head with the pipe) before heading back to the present and opening the vault, which requires the “Eyes of a pair of twins”. It’s here that the priest’s identity is revealed in another predictable twist: he’s actually Noah, the twin’s grandfather and cult leader, who thanks Caroline/Emma for helping him finally achieve his god’s rebirth. Taunting her to follow him, Caroline/Emma follows inside and encounters the remains of his old cult who were locked in to prevent an uprising of sorts (I think) and finally manages to confront Noah. The two go back and forth for a bit, and it’s revealed that the deformed monster who became a chaser in the latter half of the game is actually Anna, your now deceased sister. It’s here where you can make one of two choices that can determine the game’s ending: her fate. Will you give her the antidote (good ending, requires you to solve a certain puzzle involving a lot of doors) that will cure her, but let her die in her human form? Will you cut her open with a scalpel and put her out of her misery? Or will you just leave her there and move onto the final boss?
Before I continue, there’s something I want to address: the creatures. All of them seem to be mutated human beings, deformed and turned into makeshift killing machines due to a special type of “radiation” located from the “God” that the cult is trying to resurrect. That’s why Anna turned into the floating, saggy skinned monster straight out of Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark as well, so here’s a question. Who is this god? What’s with the radiation? Those are questions that’s mainly unanswered, and understandably so as sometimes it’s better to go with your imagination to fill in the holes to make things scarier right? Then how do you get it? Is it just by being in the bunker? Why didn’t Noah get it or Caroline/Emma when she was walking through? Regardless, she does whatever she needs to for her former sister and she dies before Caroline/Emma heads down to the elevator below (but not before possibly picking up the bolt cutters nearby), where she encounters Noah preparing the final ritual. So this ritual needs the blood of twins right? I guess not anymore because Father Noah just cuts into his arms (including the one that got cut off earlier) and spills the blood into the sacrificial pots. So here are some more questions: why did he need the blood of the twins to begin with? I guess this is a last minute measure as his plans got mucked up but if there was the chance to get it mucked up then why didn’t he just extract blood from the both of them instead while he had the chance? Why didn’t he just take out their eyes to begin with to open the vault if all he needed was that instead of a pair of twins? That isn’t answered either, though either way Father Noah dies and this “God” is reborn. Caroline/Emma proceed to dodge it’s blood spit before filling it full of nails, messing around with some old technology and then finally in a pretty epic display, drops a giant fucking drill on the thing’s head which I assume is from the cult digging through the foundation in the construction of Wildberger Hospital.
Finally killing the Sect of Pollux’s idol once and for all, she exits the bunker through the nearby elevator and can do one of two things depending on certain prerequisites. The Good Ending (and canonical one) involves traveling back to the past with a VHS tape and the bolt cutters to free the young child Anna from her jail cell, officially adopting her and leaving the mansion, apologizing to Anna about the circumstances and promising to tell her everything as she grows up. The not-so-great end involves cutting the creature up, which just ends in Caroline/Emma leaving with nothing but sadness, and the worst ending involves ignoring the creature entirely and getting murked by her otherworldly irradiated sister. Like I said before, the good ending is considered canonical and will be the basis for the sequel so take that as you will. How do I feel about the plot overall though?
The plot to me was a mixed to positive affair for me, with certain plot holes (real or imagined perhaps) confusing the hell out of me while the overall plot structure was pretty decent even if I felt it was a retread of Silent Hill’s story. Again, the plot holes are some of the main things that confuse me: How does the radiation work? If you read cult member diaries then you’ll learn that they needed special suits to enter “The Vault”, but Noah and Caroline just kinda go in and do their business just fine. Is it a long term effect? Apparently the suits don’t even work that well so what’s going on with those two. Why did the vault require the eyes of twins to open it? Why did Noah cut open his own hands if that’s all he needed to summon his god back? Why does being in the darkness kill you? Also, the plot twist involving Caroline being one of the twins felt painfully obvious even as far as seeing the painting of the twins towards the beginning as they look kind of identical anyways, so the whole revelation at the end felt kind of goofy. That being said I want to make sure I establish now that I don’t hate the plot and while I feel it takes the whole “Cult/Daughter sacrifice” thing from Silent Hill a bit much, I did honestly feel that they did twist it in their own way that I felt was actually pretty interesting, captivating me as I read documents pertaining to the Wildberger Family even if it was a bit noticeable. I don’t mean to be such a nitpick about it, I actually find the lore for the game to be quite interesting with the hope that the sequel will answer more about the Sect of Pollux even if there are some confusing plot holes and/or non-plot hole mysteries that were left unsolved.
The gameplay for Tormented Souls basically feels like a more interactive version of a survival horror game. Of course you’ll be picking up items, avoiding the darkness with your lighter/flashlight or else it’ll kill you (never explained lore wise why) conserving health (consisting of morphine and medkits) and ammo for the weapons you have (nail gun being the pistol, the makeshift pipe shotgun and the Electric Baton I guess being the “special weapon” along with the crowbar for melee) and choosing whether or not you want to fight certain enemies while exploring in Wildberger Mansion. You could also unlock a special Nail Gun and another outfit in your base run (along with New Game+) if you do certain things which I will put a guide down at the bottom. The outfit I think you just open up a nearby locker while the special nail gun that shoots in Burst Fire mode. It certainly felt like a fight to survive as I found myself nearly out of ammo numerous times, though it can get really annoying as there are certain areas (mainly towards the latter half of the game) where you’ll only encounter heavy enemies who tank ammo and surround locations you HAVE to go to and admittedly I felt that it got a bit frustrating but hey at least you have a whole bunch of save tapes. Ironically early in the game it’s really difficult, with them starving you for save tapes (following the old survival horror tradition of limited saves behind certain collectibles) until you get further in the story. At certain points in the story you’ll also have Caroline speak into the tapes about what had happened during the plot and provide some inner character dialogue for her which was nice. Other things that popped up to me were the enemy types, which for the most part are intimidating as they chase you down; however the big “chaser” enemy is a floating ghost woman who you can easily recognize due to the loud, blaring music that appears whenever you enter a room. You can’t kill her so I wouldn’t bother wasting ammo, though the best way to avoid her is just to enter the room you just came out of then coming back. One last thing to be aware of are certain traps, like the Shaking Knight Armor which tends to drop giant swords on you (and can kill enemies for an achievement) that is almost certainly an OSHA violation (as well as an Iron Maiden spike trap towards the end).
One thing I’m going to comment on a bit were the puzzles, which depending on whether or not you like vague hints and searching documents for clues can be hit or miss. I used a guide (link below, used to keep the stream pace going) so I never really had trouble with it though if I didn’t use it I would suck at them anyways. However, there were certain puzzles that would provide a bit of a head scratcher for confusion, for example a puzzle in the first half where you have to run around a corpse in the morgue in a certain direction three times which I would understand if most people got stuck on without proper context and research. Other puzzles are creative, like using a stethoscope to monitor the heartbeat of a statue in a hallway before heading over to a room in a different section of the mansion to input the heartbeat as a code though that can also be a tad confusing or simple like playing Simon Says with a vending machine to get a blood bag? Another puzzle that I’ll mention as a highlight was a simple but effective one: finding a mannequin arm to attach in the Other World which will re-attach the arm to the Father in the real world. I’m not going to pretend that there isn’t creativity to it, mixed in with the time travel mechanics (ex. Putting an item in the freezer then coming back for it in the main timeline) that impresses me with its thought logic even if sometimes I wonder how anyone is supposed to get to certain conclusions. Without a guide, you will definitely be confused backtracking sometimes I feel but otherwise I think that the game does pretty well with how it goes about it. You interact with most of these puzzles by going to the spot in question and then moving the cursor around and clicking on certain areas in the environment like it was a point and click game. I enjoyed this level of interactivity and feel sets it apart from other survival horror games who mainly have you just combine items or choose to put certain items in certain places like examining the wrench at the beginning and clicking on a certain place to open it up for use in a puzzle.
This section is going to be a bit on the shorter side as there’s not a lot I feel I can mention with the voice acting, which mainly consists of “JT”, “Samantha Flowers” and “Leo Williams”. I don’t recognize these people anywhere though apparently Samantha was in Subverse and My Time at Portia while Leo was in a game called Last Days of Lazarus and JT wasn’t in any other game at all. For relatively new voice actresses (and actors), I felt that they did decently well bringing over this sort of campy, old styled voice acting charm to the mix with some strangely written and worded dialogue though I never felt it detracted from the overall experience. As for the actual in-game sounds, everything felt as it should be from the makeshift shotgun sounding like an actual shotgun shell to the sounds of self moving furniture so that’s pretty solid.
However, one of the things to me that really helps break a survival game forward is how well they do their musical pieces. Do they have calm, ambient music to reveal safety and do they have terrifying music whenever monsters enter the room? Are these pieces memorable in some way? The answer to this is yes, and composers Begoña A. Carrasco and Nyxtheshield do a great job at delivering some fantastic survival horror entry music. The Main Theme by Begona has this somber piano tune mixed with a string chorus that strikes the feeling of calm sadness yet safety. Momentary Asylum by Nyxtheshield provides that same vibe of safety yet gives off the relief that one would feel after barely surviving by the skin of your teeth, as does Holy Sanctuary though that provides it in a more “epic” religious way. Meanwhile the tense tracks provide a sense of unease from Delusional to Shattered Echoes. Other tracks are just themes for certain areas like “The Reception Hall” and “Sewers” or music for the Chaser (of whose track name I forget though I’ll remember “oh hell naw”ing the hell out of there. The rest of the sound design may be great, but the soundtrack is what I feel to be the best part out of all of them.
Atmospherically let me just say that the game would definitely be something that I say could be a combination of Spencer Mansion from the first Resident Evil game and the Other World with the monsters from Silent Hill. It oozes throwback from the fixed camera angles, the white and brownish color scheme, the wallpaper and the old timey photographs while the Other World in this game literally has this s h i t brown rustic vibe, chain link fences and and all sorts of mutilated dead bodies scattered all over the place. The game to me feels like a blatantly obvious combination of both, directly lifting from both (even with a homage to a Silent Hill 1 camera angle while heading down a hallway) while surprisingly enough feeling like its own thing even when it wears its inspirations on its sleeves though the one thing that felt really unique to me was that there was a sewer area which kind of looked like a homeless shelter with makeshift beds and sinks. Another thing that Tormented Souls did well were enemy designs, successfully freaking me the hell out whenever the monsters show up and while a lot of that is due to sponge as well as high ammo use there are a lot of interesting monster designs that I enjoyed from the wall monsters being these deformed freaky skin peeled creatures that forcefully block your progress to the Pollux cultists who look like a combination of The Order from Silent Hill and the Zodiac Killer with a sledgehammer. One of my favorite monster designs in the game however has to be the “Heart Fetus” creature at the very end, whose simplistic yet cringeworthy (in a scary way) design admittedly creeped me the hell out. Overall, the actual horror atmosphere works out incredibly well and was an enjoyable factor for me, though there were a couple of things that kinda stuck out to me a bit.
I’m not a fan of the human character models; mainly Caroline, Anna and Noah. Number one the first two look like this strange fusion of being doll-like and unfinished with skin that looks way too smooth and animations that look a little out of place. This isn’t a diss on the developers as they’re indie devs on a budget so what can you really do? At the same time though while they are unsettling in their super smooth doll-like state, it felt a bit inconsistent with the rest of the game’s intense focus on deformed creatures and creepy shadows. Also I’m not a fan of the patterned dress/bow combination even if it’s doll-like, it just feels like too much going on and I’m not into patterned clothing anyways but maybe that’s just me I don’t know. Some other notes I put down for this involves the clothing physics fluttering about and accidentally folding into itself, revealing some panties I think? Obviously this is unintentional, though another thing I did see was that when you looked at certain newspapers, they would have the same articles printed on the back with every single paper regardless of the time skip. Otherwise, atmospherically I felt that Tormented Souls was a pretty solid game atmospherically and was graphically solid despite some hiccups here and there.
Tormented Souls was a game that I had liked a lot despite some things that I wasn’t a fan of. It was a very solid throwback to the survival horror era, modernizing it in the way of graphical fidelity but still keeping the old feel of the game between the dialogue, the gameplay and the camera angles. While the plot can be a confusing hit or miss sometimes, it’s a title that I honestly believe that all fans of survival horror should sit down and give a play or perhaps a watch. It took me around 8-9 hours or so to beat on the first try and while released in tandem with Alisa (in 2021), I would say while that game is more memorable, Tormented Souls is a lot more polished and feels better on the quality side. The game is usually around twenty or so dollars and on sale is around 5.99, though I will confidently say that whether you get it on sale or you get it for 20 dollars that it’s pretty much worth the time to play it. As for what happened after, the game evidently did well because the reviews are positive and it must have sold enough to have warranted a sequel: Tormented Souls II based around one premise: Anna has fallen victim to the radiation poisoning and now her big Sis has got to do something about it. I’m interested in how the sequel will go and I hope to play it sometime in the future, sooner rather than later.
Links:
https://www.abstractdw.com/tormentedsouls.html
https://medium.com/@bug.done/interview-with-dual-effect-tormented-souls-creators-bb1a10f0e666
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_nA3v_9NKLFMDcOFz8wJ6lZua6XGRIcLSY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_q-NnehAc8g&ab_channel=TheHorrorGameAwards
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2640545564
https://www.neoseeker.com/tormented-souls/walkthrough
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/TormentedSouls
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tormented_Souls
From Steam Reviews: https://steamcommunity.com/id/gamemast15r/recommended/
2018
This review contains spoilers
A Way Out is a “ best buddy prison break” simulator and action cooperative crime game developed by Hazelight Studios, a subsidiary under Electronic Arts created by the Fares Brothers, who had previously created Brother: A Tale of Two Sons underneath Starbreeze Studios. Things seemed to have went smoothly for the most part, nothing really crazy happened in terms of development history other than the developers being well liked and a “Fuck the Oscars” drop at The Game Awards though whether that happened before or after the game debuted is forgotten at the moment of writing. However, I remember seeing this game around for quite some time but having never picked it up for whatever reason or so. Later on I would go on to play It Takes Two after playing it with a friend and absolutely loving that, and afterwards I had decided on playing A Way Out with a cooperative partner as soon as possible, picking it up on Steam to play with my dude The Big G which was a fun time that we had completed around 5 hours continuously. However, I hadn’t gotten all the achievements and a buddy of mine, BFD Survivor, wanted to play the game for his channel so I had decided to boot it back up to not only complete the game to 100 percent but also to write up this review. So what’s the game like? Is it good?
So before I go into the plot, I want to be straight up about what the gameplay is like and how it operates. A Way Out is a cooperative game, and as such most of the gameplay is in service to the plot. There’s a lot of variation in it, for example most of the first act has quick time events with fist fighting along with stealth sequences, once you get out and into the forest you’ll be hunting for fish, once you get to the farm you’ll be able to engage in side stuff like playing the banjo/piano combination, etc. There’s a lot of different stuff to get sidetracked on, there’s no open world or anything like that; if one were to compare the game to any sort of game genre it would be the “movie game”: there are set pieces where you can walk around and look at stuff but when push comes to shove you’ll be doing your set pieces only, though with this game it’s very much less restrictive in terms of gameplay ability (not just quick time events) though more restrictive in choice (there are different events but the story mostly plays out the same).
The plot starts out with a man named Vincent Moretti on the bus, being sentenced to prison for (now) unknown reasons. Looking overhead as all the convicts are being walked in is Leo Caruso, a man who's been in this prison now for a decent amount of time. Then it splits the screen, and it’s here that the cooperative front comes about looking like the old Halo 2 days. Each player plays one of these two as they walk around the prison, taking different paths but ultimately ending up at the same place: meeting each other; though depending on the player (mostly the one who plays as Leo), you can engage in lifting weights (tapping buttons repeatedly) and engaging in conversations with fellow prisoners. The first meeting comes around the next day, with Leo being ambushed in the prison yard by a hulking dude under the orders of a man named “Harvey”. It’s clear that Leo and Harvey have a tumultuous history and after being forced to take some hits, Vincent is thrown into the fight by other prisoners and they proceed to knock everyone down in a quick time event before the cops show up.
This continues on for a little bit until a fateful meeting in a cafeteria cements their brotherhood as they fight off (with another quick time event!) Harvey’s prison hitmen together. Being brought to the prison infirmary, Leo asks Vincent to steal a chisel for an unknown reason, (the first of the game’s stealth sections in which one person distracts while the other one sneaks) though everyone could piece the plan together pretty damn well. Vincent bothers Leo enough for his prison break plan for him to agree, as Vincent reveals that he TOO has a problem with Harvey. Around the time the plan is enacted, the two also communicate with their respective partners: Leo and his wife Linda get along extremely well and are healthy for criminals while Vincent is basically ditched by his wife because of their tumultuous marriage and Vincent’s career choice, with the reveal that she’s pregnant with their child. The two proceed to go through with the prison break plan, from chiseling the back of the toilet (deemed inaccurate by my guy BFD Survivor, as most toilets would have pipes located directly behind him), gathering bed sheets from the laundry room to create a rope and stealing a wrench from a nearby workshop. These sections are interesting as hell, with you guys tag-teaming to keep each other aware of prison guards or having different ways of approaching an objective; or maybe even just fiddling around with tools in the environment or talking to random people for optional dialogue options. Regardless, you’ll eventually make your WAY OUT through collaborative actions like climbing up parallel walls together onto the prison rooftops.
The prison rooftops are painfully easy, mostly consisting of “avoid the searchlights”, with the two being able to escape the prison by sliding across a wire on a clothes hanger which I’m not sure is totally realistic but I’ll take it. Running your way out and to a nearby bridge, you have one of two options: Vincent prefers to do the non-lethal way: sneaking underneath a bridge and climbing pipes, while Leo prefers the other way: stealing a cop car and driving slowly across because he’s afraid of heights and doesn’t like the idea of climbing pipes. Funny enough, this detail is represented in game through Leo’s view through a shaky screen. Regardless, whatever results you do contributes the same way: the cops find you again and you have to escape on foot through the woods, being chased by angry dogs. This is a recurring mechanic though admittedly it doesn’t really do much as you’ll always end up in the same exit and is moreso for the first time players who have the illusion of choice. Escaping with an epic cliff rescue, the two race off into the distant forest as night time turns into the day. The two find an empty camp and take their time finding wood, sharpening sticks and stabbing fish as the two bond, with Vincent relaying his story of his grudge against Harvey: he was a banker at one point with his brother, and after they tried to make him launder too much money, he refused which ended in the death of his brother with Vincent being framed for the entire thing.
Before Leo can relay his tale, the police start to get closer so the two proceed to travel through the forest until they arrive at an elderly couple’s farm. There are one of two ways that one can get them “neutralized”; Vincent’s way is to release the horses from the barn, opting for the non lethal option while Leo’s path just straight up includes tying them up and locking them in a room. Whatever plan you commit too though, your next two objectives include changing into new clothes and stealing some transportation. While you could skip straight to getting the truck prepared, you could also do different stuff like play musical instruments together, compete in a horseshoe throwing competition, talking to cows, spinning windmills and the like while also stealing a shotgun. However, the old couple come back and call the police before the old man starts popping off shots as the two escape in a truck, with Vincent wielding a shotgun in tow. If y'all tied them up as Leo, I have absolutely no clue how they were able to bust through a blocked door that’s covered in a heavy dresser but I digress. The two drive out as the police follow by, Vincent driving and Leo shooting cop cars with a stolen shotgun in the back, though this ends in the two crashing into a nearby river and escaping via rowboat, which ITSELF doesn’t go to plan as they survive a massive waterfall. This section represents one of my least favorite sections, as it’s VERY easy to crash you rowboat into fifty thousand different rocks due to having to constantly switch sides of the boat and paddling against the streams. While the game is very good at consistency as well as being a pretty chill, fun time; this section kind of holds up the pace a bit and frustrates me to no end. Regardless, Leo finally regales Vincent with his side of the tale: Leo and Harvey used to be partners in crime, as the two had stolen a rare diamond called the “Black Orlov” together and were in the middle of selling it to a prospective partner. However when the buyer presented the money, Harvey shot him and took the diamonds while leaving Leo to be incarcerated. Before going after Harvey, Leo wants to check in with his family and Vincent agrees to tag along.
They rendezvous at a trailer park located in the city nearby and encounter fun activities such as ruining an affair, playing baseball and bonding at the local playground before finding Leo’s incredibly attractive wife along with their son Alex, who is upset because he recently learned that his dad wasn’t working with his uncle in Italy and was, in fact, in prison. Leo makes it up to him however by fixing his tree house sign and playing some basketball before bonding with his wife, asking her if she knows where Harvey’s man Ray is. She confirms that he’s at some construction site in the city and the dynamic duo head out to the site, harassing construction workers and engaging in a high octane chase around the site. This ends with Leo and Vincent torturing him through various means, like threatening to blowtorch his balls off, perhaps engaging in a dream sequence where Leo kicks him off the building. Cooler heads prevail however, and Ray sells out his boss’s location: Mexico. Where in Mexico? Who the hell knows, they never say where but they do find it…somehow.
So how exactly are they going to enact this revenge scheme? First you get the money, then you get the guns, and THEN you get revenge. In order to get the money to buy guns, the both decide to rob a nearby gas station and from here is where you can choose to give Vincent or Leo the gun, both of which end anyways in the alarm going off and the two escaping with the cash. Afterwards, they meet up with an arms dealer named Jasmine who apparently owes Leo a favor, which I’m surprised he didn’t just leverage getting some guns for free. This section you kind of just walk around the map and shoot at abandoned buildings in your environment, knocking off wooden blocks and plaster while choosing between one of four guns: M-16, MP5, Shotgun and M-14. You can’t take them all however, only one and the one you take will factor into the final act (though you can switch weapons then at certain spots too). Jasmine doesn’t like Vincent however, and later decides to sell the duo out to Harvey via payphone at a seedy motel.
The two drive to a movie theater in the city so Vincent can make a call for transportation to Mexico, but not before scolding a man for cheating on his girlfriend and attempting to order a pack of smokes from a nearby stand (optionally of course). Vincent makes a call to Emily, a pilot that he knows and cajoles her into flying the both of them to Mexico. He also learns that his wife just gave birth to a child, and after relaying the news to Leo, Leo gets ecstatic for the guy and convinces him to go visit his child at the hospital. Before they’re about to depart however, another goon hired by Harvey with a John-Woo styled bottomless magazine just proceeds to dump fat bullets at them as the dynamic duo race through the nearby movie theater in an attempt to escape, barring doors and climbing through an air vent before finally engaging in a fist fight and strangling the guy together. Leaving for the hospital straight after, the two manage to slip through without getting seen (though with newspapers having their faces plastered along with a guard almost recognizing them on the elevator). Checking in (but not before having a dream about the moon, optionally of course and getting into competitive Connect 4) with the nurse, Vincent goes in to see his wife and newborn and has a tumultuous conversation about his line of work as well as an awkward meeting with Leo before the entire scene is broken up by the arrival of the police. Now this section is one of my favorite sections in the game, as the entire escape sequence is split between the two players as you fight and run your way out, with influences like Oldboy’s hallway fight scene feeling like an influence as Leo hits up cops with a lamp. Regardless, it’s a lot of fun as the two dash around the hospital separately, though the sequence ends with Leo’s capture by cops and a last second rescue plan by Vincent, which somehow doesn’t get the both of them shot the hell up at ALL because these cops have stormtrooper aim.
Escaping from the police and heading to an airplane hanger gives you the final two achievements in the game: attempting to fly a helicopter as Leo (and freaking out) and attempting to play an arcade game together which can end in humorous results when played in a competitive mood. Gathering the supplies, Emily flies the two into Mexico (though you’re forced to choose between parachuting in against Leo’s fear of heights, or go with Leo’s option which is landing at a nearby airfield). Regardless, you guys end up at the same place and shoot your way through the mansion in what I can say honestly feels like one of the more janky feeling sections in the entire game: shooting people. It’s not that it feels awful persay, but it doesn’t feel particularly great and in all honesty I had preferred it when we were doing activities that didn’t involve shooting people. Also there’s a cutscene where Ray has been captured and murdered by Harvey in his shed, I forgot about that loose end. Regardless, Vincent and Leo wipe out Harvey’s squad of goons before he attempts to go Scarface on them with a grenade launcher, though that ends with them cornering him in his office and finding the Black Orlov diamond in his safe. Harvey’s attempts to take one of them hostage results in a comically overdramatic shooting where he goes out Tony Montana style into the pool out back though whomever is the hostage depends on whether you want Leo or Vincent to pull the trigger on Harvey.
The two proceed to make a quick escape out of the mansion from the remainders of Harvey’s goons, an army of gun-toting Mexican cartel goons who chase you on Jeeps with mounted machine guns as you both make cool action movie maneuvers on dirt bikes before finally jumping on the plane and barely making it out alive. It’s here where Vincent laments the course that his marriage is going, and Leo suggests writing her a letter to perhaps patch things up which he agrees to after Leo relays a rough patch he had with his wife. However, everything goes awry when they both land back in the United States and are surrounded by police officers, who take the Black Orlov diamond back and proceed to do the ultimate fuck-up no cop should do: reveal that his buddy was an undercover federal agent right next to them. There’s a decent amount of foreshadowing with this reveal of course, like Vincent always choosing the non-lethal and chaotic ways or the fact that Harvey doesn’t recognize him at all even though Vince supposedly laundered money for him. Here’s the twist: Harvey did kill his brother, the buyer at the deal with Leo. See, Vincent’s brother Gary was also a federal agent and intending to avenge his brother, his superior officer felt that it was a good idea to put him undercover as a prisoner next to Leo in order to get to Gary. This revelation deeply upsets Leo, who takes him hostage and steals a police car while heading into the city. Eventually the police car crashes into the ocean, and the two escape separately into different vehicles: Leo into a nearby boat and Vincent into a nearby helicopter; Leo has to dodge Vincent’s bullets in the boat (which feels nigh impossible sometimes) while Vincent has to shoot at Leo. Regardless, the boat starts to smoke and Leo jumps out of it as it explodes into fuel tanks and escapes into a warehouse while Vincent and police pilot Emily give chase. Leo holds Emily at gunpoint and tells her to leave, stating it’s between him and Vincent with absolutely no backup whatsoever in sight.
What proceeds is three separate sections of shootouts between the former friends, each of them pumping bullets into each other. The more bullets one gets, the less of a chance that he has at the finale as the two knock away a gun nearby, both racing to put a bullet in the other. The first time I played this game with the Big G I was the one who died at a full disadvantage, though when I played with BFD Survivor I won by the skin of my teeth, putting a bullet into Vincent’s chest. Depending on who wins the shootout produces different results. If Vincent dies, he hands Leo the letter to give to his wife and stare at each other with respect before time fades on. Leo drops off the letter to Vincent’s wife Carol at their old home, her fears of her husband dying undercover being correct. She’s inconsolable, even at the police funeral with her husband as she raises the child alone. Leo however moves on with his girlfriend/wife Linda and his son Alex, leaving town for pastures anew. The opposite has Vincent surviving and proceeding to raise his daughter Julie and resigning from the FBI to be with his wife Carol. However, he has regrets and explains the situation to Linda, who angrily shouts at him to leave, with the final shot being Linda and Alex at Leo’s grave before a final credits fade to black.
A Way Out is not only a fun game, but honestly could be a really fun time at the movies if plotted right. It’s a story that hits pretty much all the plot points correctly, granted that you don’t look into the plot holes too much like “How was Vincent able to kill that many people without getting arrested himself as an undercover cop” or “How did they slide down a rope at the beginning with coat hangers”, or “If one of the two died in 1972, why was there a live feed of the moon landing? Was there another one in 1972 or does the final cutscene take place years later?” but this isn’t really the game for realism to be fair, going for a more dramatic production with the set pieces and character motivations. The gameplay is a lot of fun, definitely in the sections which require the most coop play which ends in tragedy with the final reveal which I’ll be honest, got me the first time. My least favorite sections however involve the boat section on the river, which feels cumbersome and frustrating as well as the on-foot shooting sections towards the end, which felt so stiff for me personally that I never really was able to get the hang of it. There’s only about twelve or so achievements, most of them being optional stuff but are worth it just for the moments of levity or character development. I enjoyed this plot a lot, the characters feel fully developed along with what drives them even if there are a couple of bits here and there where I rolled my eyes a bit. If I were to recommend a way to play the game, I put the achievement guide I used in the bottom for a general path to follow to hit up everything but keep in mind that this isn’t a story guide, it’s mostly used for miscellaneous activities in the environment.
The sound design for the game for the most part is fine, though there isn’t really much of it that pops out in terms of actual in-game sounds, mainly because everything works in tandem and sounds solid from the gunshots to the noises of ripping water as you fail to sail down it with your buddy. The voice acting is pretty good however, and everyone throws in a solid performance here. I feel that the most memorable one is Leo’s voice actor, a man named Fares Fares, who is the director’s older brother. I find this hilarious because it’s a sort of mixed thing: you can tell the dude isn’t Italian and that Leo doesn’t sound super Italian but at the same time he kind of does? Like it’s a mismatch that’s immersive and doesn’t bother me in the slightest, like I can recognize that he doesn’t sound how he should but at the same time he does? I don’t know, maybe I’m just good at meeting games at their level, and there’s something admirable about casting your older brother in a passion project game of yours so it all fits. Eric Krogh does a fantastic job with playing the more calm and rational Vincent, always having a head of logic which foils well with Leo’s brashness; these two bring out their characters extremely well and bring out the contrasts that separate the two apart but the likeability to bring them together if that makes sense. Truth be told, these are the main performances that stuck out to me, though I think Andrea Deck and Jessica Calmhede do well together as the respective wives (Linda and Carol) to the main characters though you don’t often get to spend too much time with them to really to really get too much in the way of character out of them other than “Being the wife of a criminal is hard but we’ve made our marriage work” and “Our marriage is on the rock and I want my husband to leave his job”.
So how’s the soundtrack? Composed by Gustaf Grefberg and Sam Hulick, the score for the game is a score mixture of somber string pieces and high percussion sounds that while it may not have much memorability outside of the game for me personally, I sure as hell could listen to it if I wanted to. My issue with soundtracks like these is that while it works within the context of the game, there isn’t much in the way that would make me listen to them outside of the game itself and that is perfectly okay considering that overall the game’s framework is mostly just supposed to make it work within the game and that’s it. However, Gustaf and Sam do an excellent job with the somber tracks, which feels like something I could write to or listen to when I need some background noise when I’m writing or perhaps when I need some ambience while I sleep. There’s something comforting in the sadness, a sort of vintage sounding but modern feeling calmness all the same; it has this emotional poignancy that I don’t really often feel with most games and I find that to be honestly super impressive. If I were to list the best tracks here then it would be “The Beginning”, “A Way Out”, “Arrival”, “A New Life” and most importantly “Farewell”, which is just such a fucking sad track that it made me FEEL something at the very end and while I didn’t cry exactly, I did feel shitty for shooting my in-game buddy and that’s the kind of feeling that a cinematic score is supposed to make you feel. The action-ish music isn’t bad in comparison of course, they do the part they’re supposed to do: fade into the background and ramp up the tension when it needs to even if it’s not exactly super memorable.
The art direction for A Way Out takes place in the 70s and if it were to be described in a single word it would be “cinema”. The set dressing for the game is straight up 70s mixed in with late 60s from Leo’s pompadour, the ugly ass patterned shirt underneath Vincent’s leather jacket, Jasmine’s giant afro, the older styled cars and the heavy use of payphones; there’s way more than that of course but I like the overall vibe that it brings. The environments themselves mixed in with the colors are actually a lot brighter than one would think, except maybe the inside of the prison; outside the prison when it’s sunlight it feels like there’s a feeling of hope while the inside of it is obviously the inside of a prison, which is to say dreadful and a labyrinthian monster of sewage pipes and angry dudes with shanks. Getting out into the world however you’ll be seeing a decent amount of nature which is usually a rather peaceful feeling if not for the fact that you’re riding on the back of a truck and shooting guys. It’s a good contrast, but that uplifting feel never really left me until the final act, when even though it’s the middle of the night everything just gets way darker and more sad due to the final twist, being forced to navigate a grimy ass warehouse while hunting your former buddy. The dissonance is effective, though if there is anything that’s super effective to me in this game then it’s the chase sequences, though more specifically I would like to point out the hospital chase scene. Throughout the entire sequence, the cops split you two up and run after you, with each player having to navigate through their own sections repeatedly and everything just feels seamless and well timed. The action never loses momentum, and one minute you’ll be knocking out porkers with a lamp (which screams Oldboy’s fight sequence to my delight) and after you get through that sequence you’ll see the other guy crawl through an air vent and out of a nearby window to hide on a ledge. They employ a similar method on the construction site where each of the players takes turns chasing Ray, with the other person attempting to cut them off in an obvious linear sequence that while if you fail you restart, it just feels like it works. I don’t know, I’m not the best at describing stuff like this but I enjoy how cinematic this game feels from the pacing of the story, the environment, seamless camera transitions and more; which is why I’m surprised out of all things that they would choose to adapt It Takes Two (which is awesome by the way) instead of A Way Out. Better yet, why not both? Graphically, the game is pretty decent for the most part, like I don’t really have much to say about it. Character models look decent enough (especially Linda who looks pretty damn attractive not to sound like a weird early 2000s GameFAQs misogynist lol), you won’t see crazy details like skin pores though you will notice how a lot of the facial hair looks fake as hell, specifically on everyone except the two title characters. I don’t know, it looks like a sort of low-res prop sort of glued to the face of the numerous police officers but that’s really it on my end with the graphics. Otherwise, it's a standard Xbox One generation affair and that’s fine.
Overall, yeah the game is pretty solid and is a lot of fun to play with a buddy if you have a couple of hours to kill. The plot is a fun time and has the foundations of a decent crime thriller with a lot of heart and solid performances along with a decent mix of cooperative action and fun set pieces within the game. It’s certainly not perfect, there are some pieces that could’ve done with a bit more fleshing out or perhaps being replaced in its entirety. I wasn’t a fan of the boat segment, felt the shooting sections towards the end of the game were a bit stiff as were portions of the dialogue here and there. However, it has the perfect length for a fun game to kill in the afternoon and it’s pretty easy to get distracted in minigames like Connect 4 or playing Baseball. I would 100 percent recommend this game though keep in mind when it’s not on sale it’s around 30 or so dollars for 5-6 hours of gameplay time so do what you will there? Also, you’ll need an EA Origins account and other than playing these games with my friends or streaming Mass Effect for other buddies, I consider anything related to EA to be considered Malware so just be aware of that. The developers from here would go on to get critical acclaim for this game and would move to develop It Takes Two, a much more family friendly cooperative game based around the trials and tribulations of divorce which I actually loved a lot even if I felt it was a tad long in retrospect. There would also be a remake of Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons though that would be under different developers and would be released this year which felt unnecessary but eventually I’ll give these games a shot. This ultimately makes me wonder what the studio is cooking up next, and it’s something that I’ll be following and looking forward to playing in the future.
Links:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Way_Out_(video_game)
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Characters/AWayOut
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/AWayOut
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2155904413
https://open.spotify.com/album/6QenoaBO94H2FZ1ys727M4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xH5twq7g4mI&ab_channel=Bfr%27sOST
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8181422/?ref_=tttrv_ov_i
From Steam Reviews: https://steamcommunity.com/id/gamemast15r/recommended/
So before I go into the plot, I want to be straight up about what the gameplay is like and how it operates. A Way Out is a cooperative game, and as such most of the gameplay is in service to the plot. There’s a lot of variation in it, for example most of the first act has quick time events with fist fighting along with stealth sequences, once you get out and into the forest you’ll be hunting for fish, once you get to the farm you’ll be able to engage in side stuff like playing the banjo/piano combination, etc. There’s a lot of different stuff to get sidetracked on, there’s no open world or anything like that; if one were to compare the game to any sort of game genre it would be the “movie game”: there are set pieces where you can walk around and look at stuff but when push comes to shove you’ll be doing your set pieces only, though with this game it’s very much less restrictive in terms of gameplay ability (not just quick time events) though more restrictive in choice (there are different events but the story mostly plays out the same).
The plot starts out with a man named Vincent Moretti on the bus, being sentenced to prison for (now) unknown reasons. Looking overhead as all the convicts are being walked in is Leo Caruso, a man who's been in this prison now for a decent amount of time. Then it splits the screen, and it’s here that the cooperative front comes about looking like the old Halo 2 days. Each player plays one of these two as they walk around the prison, taking different paths but ultimately ending up at the same place: meeting each other; though depending on the player (mostly the one who plays as Leo), you can engage in lifting weights (tapping buttons repeatedly) and engaging in conversations with fellow prisoners. The first meeting comes around the next day, with Leo being ambushed in the prison yard by a hulking dude under the orders of a man named “Harvey”. It’s clear that Leo and Harvey have a tumultuous history and after being forced to take some hits, Vincent is thrown into the fight by other prisoners and they proceed to knock everyone down in a quick time event before the cops show up.
This continues on for a little bit until a fateful meeting in a cafeteria cements their brotherhood as they fight off (with another quick time event!) Harvey’s prison hitmen together. Being brought to the prison infirmary, Leo asks Vincent to steal a chisel for an unknown reason, (the first of the game’s stealth sections in which one person distracts while the other one sneaks) though everyone could piece the plan together pretty damn well. Vincent bothers Leo enough for his prison break plan for him to agree, as Vincent reveals that he TOO has a problem with Harvey. Around the time the plan is enacted, the two also communicate with their respective partners: Leo and his wife Linda get along extremely well and are healthy for criminals while Vincent is basically ditched by his wife because of their tumultuous marriage and Vincent’s career choice, with the reveal that she’s pregnant with their child. The two proceed to go through with the prison break plan, from chiseling the back of the toilet (deemed inaccurate by my guy BFD Survivor, as most toilets would have pipes located directly behind him), gathering bed sheets from the laundry room to create a rope and stealing a wrench from a nearby workshop. These sections are interesting as hell, with you guys tag-teaming to keep each other aware of prison guards or having different ways of approaching an objective; or maybe even just fiddling around with tools in the environment or talking to random people for optional dialogue options. Regardless, you’ll eventually make your WAY OUT through collaborative actions like climbing up parallel walls together onto the prison rooftops.
The prison rooftops are painfully easy, mostly consisting of “avoid the searchlights”, with the two being able to escape the prison by sliding across a wire on a clothes hanger which I’m not sure is totally realistic but I’ll take it. Running your way out and to a nearby bridge, you have one of two options: Vincent prefers to do the non-lethal way: sneaking underneath a bridge and climbing pipes, while Leo prefers the other way: stealing a cop car and driving slowly across because he’s afraid of heights and doesn’t like the idea of climbing pipes. Funny enough, this detail is represented in game through Leo’s view through a shaky screen. Regardless, whatever results you do contributes the same way: the cops find you again and you have to escape on foot through the woods, being chased by angry dogs. This is a recurring mechanic though admittedly it doesn’t really do much as you’ll always end up in the same exit and is moreso for the first time players who have the illusion of choice. Escaping with an epic cliff rescue, the two race off into the distant forest as night time turns into the day. The two find an empty camp and take their time finding wood, sharpening sticks and stabbing fish as the two bond, with Vincent relaying his story of his grudge against Harvey: he was a banker at one point with his brother, and after they tried to make him launder too much money, he refused which ended in the death of his brother with Vincent being framed for the entire thing.
Before Leo can relay his tale, the police start to get closer so the two proceed to travel through the forest until they arrive at an elderly couple’s farm. There are one of two ways that one can get them “neutralized”; Vincent’s way is to release the horses from the barn, opting for the non lethal option while Leo’s path just straight up includes tying them up and locking them in a room. Whatever plan you commit too though, your next two objectives include changing into new clothes and stealing some transportation. While you could skip straight to getting the truck prepared, you could also do different stuff like play musical instruments together, compete in a horseshoe throwing competition, talking to cows, spinning windmills and the like while also stealing a shotgun. However, the old couple come back and call the police before the old man starts popping off shots as the two escape in a truck, with Vincent wielding a shotgun in tow. If y'all tied them up as Leo, I have absolutely no clue how they were able to bust through a blocked door that’s covered in a heavy dresser but I digress. The two drive out as the police follow by, Vincent driving and Leo shooting cop cars with a stolen shotgun in the back, though this ends in the two crashing into a nearby river and escaping via rowboat, which ITSELF doesn’t go to plan as they survive a massive waterfall. This section represents one of my least favorite sections, as it’s VERY easy to crash you rowboat into fifty thousand different rocks due to having to constantly switch sides of the boat and paddling against the streams. While the game is very good at consistency as well as being a pretty chill, fun time; this section kind of holds up the pace a bit and frustrates me to no end. Regardless, Leo finally regales Vincent with his side of the tale: Leo and Harvey used to be partners in crime, as the two had stolen a rare diamond called the “Black Orlov” together and were in the middle of selling it to a prospective partner. However when the buyer presented the money, Harvey shot him and took the diamonds while leaving Leo to be incarcerated. Before going after Harvey, Leo wants to check in with his family and Vincent agrees to tag along.
They rendezvous at a trailer park located in the city nearby and encounter fun activities such as ruining an affair, playing baseball and bonding at the local playground before finding Leo’s incredibly attractive wife along with their son Alex, who is upset because he recently learned that his dad wasn’t working with his uncle in Italy and was, in fact, in prison. Leo makes it up to him however by fixing his tree house sign and playing some basketball before bonding with his wife, asking her if she knows where Harvey’s man Ray is. She confirms that he’s at some construction site in the city and the dynamic duo head out to the site, harassing construction workers and engaging in a high octane chase around the site. This ends with Leo and Vincent torturing him through various means, like threatening to blowtorch his balls off, perhaps engaging in a dream sequence where Leo kicks him off the building. Cooler heads prevail however, and Ray sells out his boss’s location: Mexico. Where in Mexico? Who the hell knows, they never say where but they do find it…somehow.
So how exactly are they going to enact this revenge scheme? First you get the money, then you get the guns, and THEN you get revenge. In order to get the money to buy guns, the both decide to rob a nearby gas station and from here is where you can choose to give Vincent or Leo the gun, both of which end anyways in the alarm going off and the two escaping with the cash. Afterwards, they meet up with an arms dealer named Jasmine who apparently owes Leo a favor, which I’m surprised he didn’t just leverage getting some guns for free. This section you kind of just walk around the map and shoot at abandoned buildings in your environment, knocking off wooden blocks and plaster while choosing between one of four guns: M-16, MP5, Shotgun and M-14. You can’t take them all however, only one and the one you take will factor into the final act (though you can switch weapons then at certain spots too). Jasmine doesn’t like Vincent however, and later decides to sell the duo out to Harvey via payphone at a seedy motel.
The two drive to a movie theater in the city so Vincent can make a call for transportation to Mexico, but not before scolding a man for cheating on his girlfriend and attempting to order a pack of smokes from a nearby stand (optionally of course). Vincent makes a call to Emily, a pilot that he knows and cajoles her into flying the both of them to Mexico. He also learns that his wife just gave birth to a child, and after relaying the news to Leo, Leo gets ecstatic for the guy and convinces him to go visit his child at the hospital. Before they’re about to depart however, another goon hired by Harvey with a John-Woo styled bottomless magazine just proceeds to dump fat bullets at them as the dynamic duo race through the nearby movie theater in an attempt to escape, barring doors and climbing through an air vent before finally engaging in a fist fight and strangling the guy together. Leaving for the hospital straight after, the two manage to slip through without getting seen (though with newspapers having their faces plastered along with a guard almost recognizing them on the elevator). Checking in (but not before having a dream about the moon, optionally of course and getting into competitive Connect 4) with the nurse, Vincent goes in to see his wife and newborn and has a tumultuous conversation about his line of work as well as an awkward meeting with Leo before the entire scene is broken up by the arrival of the police. Now this section is one of my favorite sections in the game, as the entire escape sequence is split between the two players as you fight and run your way out, with influences like Oldboy’s hallway fight scene feeling like an influence as Leo hits up cops with a lamp. Regardless, it’s a lot of fun as the two dash around the hospital separately, though the sequence ends with Leo’s capture by cops and a last second rescue plan by Vincent, which somehow doesn’t get the both of them shot the hell up at ALL because these cops have stormtrooper aim.
Escaping from the police and heading to an airplane hanger gives you the final two achievements in the game: attempting to fly a helicopter as Leo (and freaking out) and attempting to play an arcade game together which can end in humorous results when played in a competitive mood. Gathering the supplies, Emily flies the two into Mexico (though you’re forced to choose between parachuting in against Leo’s fear of heights, or go with Leo’s option which is landing at a nearby airfield). Regardless, you guys end up at the same place and shoot your way through the mansion in what I can say honestly feels like one of the more janky feeling sections in the entire game: shooting people. It’s not that it feels awful persay, but it doesn’t feel particularly great and in all honesty I had preferred it when we were doing activities that didn’t involve shooting people. Also there’s a cutscene where Ray has been captured and murdered by Harvey in his shed, I forgot about that loose end. Regardless, Vincent and Leo wipe out Harvey’s squad of goons before he attempts to go Scarface on them with a grenade launcher, though that ends with them cornering him in his office and finding the Black Orlov diamond in his safe. Harvey’s attempts to take one of them hostage results in a comically overdramatic shooting where he goes out Tony Montana style into the pool out back though whomever is the hostage depends on whether you want Leo or Vincent to pull the trigger on Harvey.
The two proceed to make a quick escape out of the mansion from the remainders of Harvey’s goons, an army of gun-toting Mexican cartel goons who chase you on Jeeps with mounted machine guns as you both make cool action movie maneuvers on dirt bikes before finally jumping on the plane and barely making it out alive. It’s here where Vincent laments the course that his marriage is going, and Leo suggests writing her a letter to perhaps patch things up which he agrees to after Leo relays a rough patch he had with his wife. However, everything goes awry when they both land back in the United States and are surrounded by police officers, who take the Black Orlov diamond back and proceed to do the ultimate fuck-up no cop should do: reveal that his buddy was an undercover federal agent right next to them. There’s a decent amount of foreshadowing with this reveal of course, like Vincent always choosing the non-lethal and chaotic ways or the fact that Harvey doesn’t recognize him at all even though Vince supposedly laundered money for him. Here’s the twist: Harvey did kill his brother, the buyer at the deal with Leo. See, Vincent’s brother Gary was also a federal agent and intending to avenge his brother, his superior officer felt that it was a good idea to put him undercover as a prisoner next to Leo in order to get to Gary. This revelation deeply upsets Leo, who takes him hostage and steals a police car while heading into the city. Eventually the police car crashes into the ocean, and the two escape separately into different vehicles: Leo into a nearby boat and Vincent into a nearby helicopter; Leo has to dodge Vincent’s bullets in the boat (which feels nigh impossible sometimes) while Vincent has to shoot at Leo. Regardless, the boat starts to smoke and Leo jumps out of it as it explodes into fuel tanks and escapes into a warehouse while Vincent and police pilot Emily give chase. Leo holds Emily at gunpoint and tells her to leave, stating it’s between him and Vincent with absolutely no backup whatsoever in sight.
What proceeds is three separate sections of shootouts between the former friends, each of them pumping bullets into each other. The more bullets one gets, the less of a chance that he has at the finale as the two knock away a gun nearby, both racing to put a bullet in the other. The first time I played this game with the Big G I was the one who died at a full disadvantage, though when I played with BFD Survivor I won by the skin of my teeth, putting a bullet into Vincent’s chest. Depending on who wins the shootout produces different results. If Vincent dies, he hands Leo the letter to give to his wife and stare at each other with respect before time fades on. Leo drops off the letter to Vincent’s wife Carol at their old home, her fears of her husband dying undercover being correct. She’s inconsolable, even at the police funeral with her husband as she raises the child alone. Leo however moves on with his girlfriend/wife Linda and his son Alex, leaving town for pastures anew. The opposite has Vincent surviving and proceeding to raise his daughter Julie and resigning from the FBI to be with his wife Carol. However, he has regrets and explains the situation to Linda, who angrily shouts at him to leave, with the final shot being Linda and Alex at Leo’s grave before a final credits fade to black.
A Way Out is not only a fun game, but honestly could be a really fun time at the movies if plotted right. It’s a story that hits pretty much all the plot points correctly, granted that you don’t look into the plot holes too much like “How was Vincent able to kill that many people without getting arrested himself as an undercover cop” or “How did they slide down a rope at the beginning with coat hangers”, or “If one of the two died in 1972, why was there a live feed of the moon landing? Was there another one in 1972 or does the final cutscene take place years later?” but this isn’t really the game for realism to be fair, going for a more dramatic production with the set pieces and character motivations. The gameplay is a lot of fun, definitely in the sections which require the most coop play which ends in tragedy with the final reveal which I’ll be honest, got me the first time. My least favorite sections however involve the boat section on the river, which feels cumbersome and frustrating as well as the on-foot shooting sections towards the end, which felt so stiff for me personally that I never really was able to get the hang of it. There’s only about twelve or so achievements, most of them being optional stuff but are worth it just for the moments of levity or character development. I enjoyed this plot a lot, the characters feel fully developed along with what drives them even if there are a couple of bits here and there where I rolled my eyes a bit. If I were to recommend a way to play the game, I put the achievement guide I used in the bottom for a general path to follow to hit up everything but keep in mind that this isn’t a story guide, it’s mostly used for miscellaneous activities in the environment.
The sound design for the game for the most part is fine, though there isn’t really much of it that pops out in terms of actual in-game sounds, mainly because everything works in tandem and sounds solid from the gunshots to the noises of ripping water as you fail to sail down it with your buddy. The voice acting is pretty good however, and everyone throws in a solid performance here. I feel that the most memorable one is Leo’s voice actor, a man named Fares Fares, who is the director’s older brother. I find this hilarious because it’s a sort of mixed thing: you can tell the dude isn’t Italian and that Leo doesn’t sound super Italian but at the same time he kind of does? Like it’s a mismatch that’s immersive and doesn’t bother me in the slightest, like I can recognize that he doesn’t sound how he should but at the same time he does? I don’t know, maybe I’m just good at meeting games at their level, and there’s something admirable about casting your older brother in a passion project game of yours so it all fits. Eric Krogh does a fantastic job with playing the more calm and rational Vincent, always having a head of logic which foils well with Leo’s brashness; these two bring out their characters extremely well and bring out the contrasts that separate the two apart but the likeability to bring them together if that makes sense. Truth be told, these are the main performances that stuck out to me, though I think Andrea Deck and Jessica Calmhede do well together as the respective wives (Linda and Carol) to the main characters though you don’t often get to spend too much time with them to really to really get too much in the way of character out of them other than “Being the wife of a criminal is hard but we’ve made our marriage work” and “Our marriage is on the rock and I want my husband to leave his job”.
So how’s the soundtrack? Composed by Gustaf Grefberg and Sam Hulick, the score for the game is a score mixture of somber string pieces and high percussion sounds that while it may not have much memorability outside of the game for me personally, I sure as hell could listen to it if I wanted to. My issue with soundtracks like these is that while it works within the context of the game, there isn’t much in the way that would make me listen to them outside of the game itself and that is perfectly okay considering that overall the game’s framework is mostly just supposed to make it work within the game and that’s it. However, Gustaf and Sam do an excellent job with the somber tracks, which feels like something I could write to or listen to when I need some background noise when I’m writing or perhaps when I need some ambience while I sleep. There’s something comforting in the sadness, a sort of vintage sounding but modern feeling calmness all the same; it has this emotional poignancy that I don’t really often feel with most games and I find that to be honestly super impressive. If I were to list the best tracks here then it would be “The Beginning”, “A Way Out”, “Arrival”, “A New Life” and most importantly “Farewell”, which is just such a fucking sad track that it made me FEEL something at the very end and while I didn’t cry exactly, I did feel shitty for shooting my in-game buddy and that’s the kind of feeling that a cinematic score is supposed to make you feel. The action-ish music isn’t bad in comparison of course, they do the part they’re supposed to do: fade into the background and ramp up the tension when it needs to even if it’s not exactly super memorable.
The art direction for A Way Out takes place in the 70s and if it were to be described in a single word it would be “cinema”. The set dressing for the game is straight up 70s mixed in with late 60s from Leo’s pompadour, the ugly ass patterned shirt underneath Vincent’s leather jacket, Jasmine’s giant afro, the older styled cars and the heavy use of payphones; there’s way more than that of course but I like the overall vibe that it brings. The environments themselves mixed in with the colors are actually a lot brighter than one would think, except maybe the inside of the prison; outside the prison when it’s sunlight it feels like there’s a feeling of hope while the inside of it is obviously the inside of a prison, which is to say dreadful and a labyrinthian monster of sewage pipes and angry dudes with shanks. Getting out into the world however you’ll be seeing a decent amount of nature which is usually a rather peaceful feeling if not for the fact that you’re riding on the back of a truck and shooting guys. It’s a good contrast, but that uplifting feel never really left me until the final act, when even though it’s the middle of the night everything just gets way darker and more sad due to the final twist, being forced to navigate a grimy ass warehouse while hunting your former buddy. The dissonance is effective, though if there is anything that’s super effective to me in this game then it’s the chase sequences, though more specifically I would like to point out the hospital chase scene. Throughout the entire sequence, the cops split you two up and run after you, with each player having to navigate through their own sections repeatedly and everything just feels seamless and well timed. The action never loses momentum, and one minute you’ll be knocking out porkers with a lamp (which screams Oldboy’s fight sequence to my delight) and after you get through that sequence you’ll see the other guy crawl through an air vent and out of a nearby window to hide on a ledge. They employ a similar method on the construction site where each of the players takes turns chasing Ray, with the other person attempting to cut them off in an obvious linear sequence that while if you fail you restart, it just feels like it works. I don’t know, I’m not the best at describing stuff like this but I enjoy how cinematic this game feels from the pacing of the story, the environment, seamless camera transitions and more; which is why I’m surprised out of all things that they would choose to adapt It Takes Two (which is awesome by the way) instead of A Way Out. Better yet, why not both? Graphically, the game is pretty decent for the most part, like I don’t really have much to say about it. Character models look decent enough (especially Linda who looks pretty damn attractive not to sound like a weird early 2000s GameFAQs misogynist lol), you won’t see crazy details like skin pores though you will notice how a lot of the facial hair looks fake as hell, specifically on everyone except the two title characters. I don’t know, it looks like a sort of low-res prop sort of glued to the face of the numerous police officers but that’s really it on my end with the graphics. Otherwise, it's a standard Xbox One generation affair and that’s fine.
Overall, yeah the game is pretty solid and is a lot of fun to play with a buddy if you have a couple of hours to kill. The plot is a fun time and has the foundations of a decent crime thriller with a lot of heart and solid performances along with a decent mix of cooperative action and fun set pieces within the game. It’s certainly not perfect, there are some pieces that could’ve done with a bit more fleshing out or perhaps being replaced in its entirety. I wasn’t a fan of the boat segment, felt the shooting sections towards the end of the game were a bit stiff as were portions of the dialogue here and there. However, it has the perfect length for a fun game to kill in the afternoon and it’s pretty easy to get distracted in minigames like Connect 4 or playing Baseball. I would 100 percent recommend this game though keep in mind when it’s not on sale it’s around 30 or so dollars for 5-6 hours of gameplay time so do what you will there? Also, you’ll need an EA Origins account and other than playing these games with my friends or streaming Mass Effect for other buddies, I consider anything related to EA to be considered Malware so just be aware of that. The developers from here would go on to get critical acclaim for this game and would move to develop It Takes Two, a much more family friendly cooperative game based around the trials and tribulations of divorce which I actually loved a lot even if I felt it was a tad long in retrospect. There would also be a remake of Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons though that would be under different developers and would be released this year which felt unnecessary but eventually I’ll give these games a shot. This ultimately makes me wonder what the studio is cooking up next, and it’s something that I’ll be following and looking forward to playing in the future.
Links:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Way_Out_(video_game)
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Characters/AWayOut
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/AWayOut
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2155904413
https://open.spotify.com/album/6QenoaBO94H2FZ1ys727M4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xH5twq7g4mI&ab_channel=Bfr%27sOST
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8181422/?ref_=tttrv_ov_i
From Steam Reviews: https://steamcommunity.com/id/gamemast15r/recommended/
This review contains spoilers
Batman: Arkham City is a “U.S. Prison Systems” simulator and open-world “metroidvania” superhero game developed by Rocksteady, whose previous creations include the middle-ground Urban Chaos: Riot Response and the critically acclaimed influential Batman: Arkham Asylum. The road to creating the sequel was easy, having teased an easter egg in Asylum beforehand relating to the blueprint layout of Arkham City hidden behind walls in Warden Sharp’s office. The game would be inspired by numerous different comics in the Batman mythos, specifically No Man’s Land (where a major earthquake hits Gotham City and separates it from the rest of the country) but apparently also has influences from various other runs like Batman: Hush, Tales From the Demon and Prey according to numerous different fans. I know nothing about any of these except the No Man’s Land run which I heard was legendary, but I am aware that the game was also promoted with two different tie-in comics (“Arkham City” and “Arkham Unhinged”. Other apparent ideas thrown out were a considered multiplayer component, which while later reused for the prequel Arkham: Origins, was thrown out here in order to focus on a quality single player game, along with the idea of putting in different narratives for Batman, Catwoman AND Robin and while Batman and Catwoman were put into the game, it’s only for short set-pieces while Robin was left out except for in Harley Quinn’s Revenge. Regardless, the game debuted as one of the best games in 2011 next to The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim along with being one of the best video games of all time and released for the Xbox 360, Playstation 3 and PC.
I had loved Arkham City A LOT as a young lad, eagerly playing it and excited after having played and beaten Asylum, the imagination racing through my mind as I wished for a Batman open-world Gotham game where you investigate and stop villains and the ability to halt crimes in free roam. Like Arkham Asylum, I believe I may have played this twice back on the Xbox 360 days though I’m honestly not sure and I’m not going to claim that I legitimately did it twice. However, I’ve always remembered this game in the positive light, proving to be superior in every way to the previous title from plot to gameplay mechanics and everything else and held up in the highest corners of my mind. However, I have since focused on many different games which I became obsessed with and while I’ve always loved Batman, I never bothered to re-visit the games really as the last Batman game I had played was Arkham Knight on the Xbox One. However, I saw Arkham: Origins videos on the Youtube Shorts feed and wishlisted every game in the series and as such, the magical Steam game genie DinoRaptor gifted me Asylum, City and Origins during Christmas. Having felt the need to de-stress and beat up criminals to soothe anxiety while apartment searching, I had installed it again after beating Asylum and gave it a run, slowly beating the game over the next month or two. Why a month or two? How has the game held up since I last played it?
The game opens with Bruce Wayne giving a speech outside the walls of Arkham City, a brand new prison created by the likes of former Arkham Asylum warden and now Mayor of Gotham City: Quincy Sharp. Bruce Wayne is, surprisingly, politically aligned and is firmly against the new prison. However, if there’s one person who doesn’t like it, it’s Arkham City’s psychologist Hugo Strange and his merry band of armed mercenaries: TYGER. TYGER raids the press conferences and captures Wayne in a frustrating but normal American violation of human rights and throws him into Arkham City with the rest of the criminal scum. However, Hugo Strange knows a secret, specifically Wayne’s secret identity. So why does Hugo Strange know, and why does he decide to let in the guy who cosplays as an angry Bat with bulging muscles and is known to ruin people’s plans with single handed determination? Who knows, but Bruce Wayne is left alone with a guard and after knocking him down to steal a special computer chip, he’s thrown out into the world with all of the prisoners. In the introduction, you actually get to see some cool cameos if you’re paying attention: Black Mask is in the corner fighting off some guards, walking through the line is where you’ll see Deadshot (or white Deadshot if you consider Kill the Justice League canon??) point his finger guns at you and up on a rooftop you’ll have Azrael looking down upon you. Of course, being processed will lead you to run into crime boss Oswald Cobblepot, who has a huge grudge with the Wayne family and proceeds to gang up on him. This backfires through, with Wayne single handedly kicking everyone’s ass in a way that I’m surprised no one thought he was the Batman. After knocking out Penguin, Wayne climbs up the buildings to the roof of the nearby Axis Chemicals where Alfred has a dead drop which contains the Batsuit and some gear ready to go.
His first act is to see what’s going on at the nearby courthouse after hearing from the TYGER communications that Catwoman has been captured. In the very beginning, you’ll actually play as Catwoman as she goes to steal something from Two-Face’s safe, only to be captured. Back in the present, Batman sneaks his way into the courthouse and manages to save Catwoman from becoming an acid-shishkebab, defeating Two Face and his goons in the process. Asking Catwoman what’s going on, they proceed to discuss what PROTOCOL 10 is, only for Batman to foil an assassination attempt against Catwoman. Tracking the ballistics reveals that it came from the top of the nearby Gotham Church; heading inside, he finds Harley Quinn and her goons holding the nearby medical workers hostage. While Joker’s favorite punching bag leaves, Batman picks off the goons one by one before heading up to the tower, and it’s up here where Joker exchanges some “explosive” banter before the place literally blows up. Batman proceeds to glide over to the Steel Mill and infiltrates it to learn from a hostage that the Titan transformation from the last game REALLY screwed the Jonkler over medically and that he’s in a very sick state. Infiltrating the main office leads to Batman being knocked out and captured, with Joker injecting him full of the diseased blood. Now with time ticking against the clock, Batman is forced to be Joker’s errand boy and find a cure for the Titan disease.
Joker also reveals another special surprise: he’s been making blood donations to various hospitals in Gotham to spread the poison. In desperation, Batman seeks out Mr. Freeze, who has been kidnapped by the Penguin and trapped in the Iceberg Lounge. Batman infiltrates the base and not only defeats Penguin and his goons, but lays the smackdown on the undead Solomon Grundy. Rescuing Mr. Freeze along with police hostages, they reunite in the lobby where it’s learned that Penguin has a habit of kidnapping and displaying his conquests in the museum section. One of these displays is a League of Assassins member, and when Freeze discusses a potential cure thing with Batman with Ra’s Al Ghul’s healing factor brought up, this assassin gets pissed and tries to escape. Batman follows the trail and manages to bug the assassin after stopping Robin from intervening. This moment will come to mark something in the next game, but for now Batman sends Robin out of Arkham City to track down the Joker contaminated blood in Gotham City. From here, Batman tracks the assassin into the sewers, the subway station and into the nearby Wonder City. Here he encounters Ra’s Al Ghul and his daughter/former love interest Talia Al Ghul. Being forced into “joining” the League to find a cure, he manages to trick them by stealing some of Ra’s blood before leaving to meet up with Mr. Freeze at his lab, the converted Gotham City Police Department. It’s here however where the two get into a forced misunderstanding due to Batman’s gruffness and a boss battle plays out, the cure being stolen in the process by Harley Quinn’s goons. Mr. Freeze asks Batman to find his wife (side mission) and Batman races over to the Steel Mill to get his cure. It’s here when he seemingly finds the Joker in perfect health. They clash in combat before Hugo Strange finally activates PROTOCOL 10: a systematic execution of all of the prisoners in Arkham City.
A missile rocks the Steel Mill and buries Batman under some rubble, however Joker stops his execution attempt when Talia Al Ghul comes back with an offer: he’ll be taken to the Lazarus Pits for immortality in exchange for Batman’s life. Batman nearly goes after Joker and Talia but is instead convinced to stop PROTOCOL 10, and as such he makes his way to Wonder Tower to finally put an end to Hugo’s plans. After infiltrating the tower and stopping the plans, who's the mastermind of the game revealed to be? Ra’s Al Ghul, which isn’t a surprise considering Hugo’s headquarters is right next to the Al Ghul’s along with the simple fact that this is the type of plan that the League of Assassins would do. Regardless, Ra’s doesn’t take failure well and stabs Hugo, but not before he reveals PROTOCOL 11 and self destructs the tower, taking Batman and Ra’s out into the sky nearby. Ra’s attempt at stabbing Batman fails and is instead forced to commit Seppuku before falling onto the gates below and impaling himself. From here, Joker contacts Batman and threatens to kill Talia unless Batman meets him in the Monarch Theatre and from here it gets a whole lot stranger. Joker demands the cure in “healthy form”, and Talia manages to get the drop on him and stabs him. However, this Joker isn’t actually Joker; he’s Clayface. It was a part of a bit by the actual Joker to look strong against his opponents and as such the real Joker is still dying. Joker pops Talia violently before Clayface engages in a boss battle and as such is defeated. However the floor is blown up, revealing the Lazarus Pit below. Batman drinks some of the cure before blowing up the Lazarus Pit to stop Joker from using it. Batman seems to be debating about curing Joker when the dude decides to jump to stabbing him, causing Batman to accidentally drop it and shatter it. Ironically, Batman was going to save him anyways so he ended up screwing himself over and dying. The game ends on the final image, Batman carrying the dead Joker in his arms as Harley Quinn sobs in the background, the accusation that Batman killed his arch-nemesis. Cut to black.
Catwoman’s campaign is a smaller and simpler set, mostly focusing on Catwoman’s quest to start a heist into Hugo Strange’s confiscated goods vault, which has her goods and a lot of money. She gets Poison Ivy to help her out and at the end of the day she gives up on the heist in order to save her on/off again lover Batman in the final act. She also steals her goods back from Two-Face’s goons after her apartment gets blown up but truthfully there isn’t much here plot wise.
There’s another DLC as well: Harley Quinn’s Revenge. The DLC cold opens to Robin searching through the Steel Mill for Batman, who disappeared attempting to search for missing police officers two days before. Apparently, Batman had changed since the Joker died and Barbara Gordon is worried sick about him. Infiltrating the Steel Mill, he finds that Batman’s tool belt has been laid on the ground, confirming the fears that he was captured. Rewinding back, Batman talks to Commissioner Gordon, who reveals the situation and Batman infiltrates the Steel Mill himself to find the hostages, following a trail to the nearby Shipyard hidden behind a TYGER checkpoint. He’s warned beforehand however that Harley Quinn blames him for Joker’s death, and WILL be out for blood. Batman is able to free some police officers before being knocked out and captured trying to save another. The perspective is changed to Robin again as he finds Batman, this time trapped inside of a mechanical Joker statue. Learning that Batman will die without intervention and that Harley holds the key, Robin finds her and her goon squad and absolutely eviscerates them in order to get the key. Robin manages to free Batman from his mechanical Joker statue and gives him his belt back. Batman orders Robin to get the cops back to safety after bombs are revealed and Batman spends his time shutting down the explosives. Batman manages to escape with Harley, and after a fake-out scare with Robin’s (not) death, survives an assassination attempt from Harley. Batman leaves the area and Gordon asks if he’s okay, with certain shades of uncertainty. Something has changed, and seemingly for the worse since the Joker has died.
The plot for the base Arkham City game is pretty astounding, surprisingly shorter than I thought it would be but in all honestly it feels like the perfect length. It has an interesting hook with the prison, searching for the Joker’s cure actually feels like more than a fetch quest. I think sometimes it’s a bit easy to guess certain plot twists, like Ra’s Al Ghul being the final mastermind behind the Arkham City Protocol 10 thing. Honestly I don’t really have too much I can say about this plot other than again, it’s the perfect length and was interesting and I like how it incorporates DC lore into it. I think if there’s any sort of plot thing that falters, it would be Catwoman’s plot and the Harley Quinn’s Revenge DLC. Playing as Catwoman is great, but there isn’t anything substantial that really gives her anything to do in the story and you only play as her for brief intervals anyways that it doesn’t really matter much? I’m not going to complain about playing as her but I wish they did more with her. The DLC felt like the only real purpose was to counteract the “pregnant Harley test” easter egg thing in the base game along with showing what the death of a substantial figure does to two completely different people in one’s life: Harley goes into extreme mourning while Batman just shuts it all down and hides it all inside. That being said, while playing as Catwoman for the DLC is technically mandatory if you buy the game of the year edition, it’s not really mandatory to the story and you would be ok with skipping Harley’s Revenge IF you wanted to.
I’ll just start off gameplay wise by saying this: it is a literal improvement in every single way from Arkham Asylum both fighting and stealth wise. The combat for example, while great in the previous game, feels even more fleshed out and powerful with new additions like the beatdown, which involves stunning someone with your cape and then just wailing on them with your fists repeatedly by tapping the punch button. You can also counter more people at the same time (though only up to two for the most part), do aerial attacks (stomping people out from the air) and catching stuff being thrown at you. The usual enemy types are there from the previous game like the knife guys and you can dodge their attacks by holding the counter button as they go on and there can be a LOT more goons to juggle this time, though luckily not enough to overwhelm the player as they go. One thing I want to mention as well are the gadgets, like explosive gel and the batarangs which were available in the previous game and are pretty damn good right? I’m surprised that game wise however, you’ll still be spending your time re-earning these gadgets as you go on instead of having them all dropped in. Batman is usually crazy prepared, and while I understand that gameplay wise you HAVE to have some sort of progression as things can get stale after a while, you still do get some new gadgets to use. One of those like the Electric Gun, basically you shoot it at someone and it causes them to have a bit of a knee jerk reaction, which when mixed with a gun or a hammer can lead to some painful or distracting combat advantages. You’ll also find other things like Ice Grenades (which you can freeze enemies and water for trophies) and the Disruptor, (which can shut down guns entirely). Even old tools like the Cryptographic sequencer has some new tricks like being able to track down radio signals or the line launcher having you be able to switch directions in mid-air. Stuff like this is a nice improvement to what the original game’s formula provided and as such. Catwoman as well as Robin and Nightwing have their own gear to use like Caltrops for the Cat or a shield which stops bullets for Robin, though none of these characters sadly feel as good as Batman to play.
In fact, this is where I’ll bring up multiple character switching: in the single player you can play as either Batman or Catwoman. For the most part you’ll be Batman, but after certain story beats you’ll be put into the role of Catwoman herself before switching back to Batman. At the very end of the campaign, you’ll have the choice to switch between the both of them at different stations on the map. While Batman has his own arsenal and way of getting around, so does Catwoman though this involves grappling with whips along with climbing up walls while seemingly taking part in a rhythm game of sorts, pressing the climb button just as the circle hits the right spot as she climbs. She has her own set of riddler trophies and combat challenges (which I’ll get into soon), though it’s miniscule compared to Batman’s entire checklist. The main things I don’t personally like are this: certain Riddler trophies have you going back as Batman to open certain paths BEFORE she can get in and it can get really annoying having to travel to a waypoint, only to have to travel back to switch to Batman and open it and do all of this back and forth shit. Also, Catwoman compared to the others just feels way weaker in comparison? I get that Batman is a tank and so are his proteges, and also that Catwoman is very much a stealth oriented character but it just feels weird in comparison dealing between the two. As for playing as Robin and Nightwing, you can only play as Robin in the Harley Quinn’s Revenge DLC along with the combat arenas while Nightwing you can only play as in the combat arena. I’m actually surprised they even bothered putting anything in with Nightwing personally due to the fact he doesn’t seem to show up at all except in the arena challenges.
What’s the open world like in Arkham City? Well it’s not an open “world” per say as much as it is a small city district or two but they’re pretty gigantic compared to the first game and allows for a lot more exploration of alleyways, rooftops and into some interiors like the Wayne Courthouse or the Gotham Police Department. With the game being a “metroidvania” of sorts, you’ll have a lot of interior spaces to go through and to backtrack through as well to get to new areas. Before I go into this next bit, I want to say that I appreciate the open world replayability by having respawning thugs to fight as I think that shit’s amazing. How about the side quests? How does that affect the open world? Well, most of them are fine to be honest and actually quite interesting in their own unique ways: one of them you search for victims of the Identity Thief killer and scan the crime scenes for forensics, same with Deadshot and his sniper victims while others require time trials or searching for phone booths to trace calls for Victor Zsasz. All of these are harmless enough, are interesting and provide some interesting background lore and plot points for this game as well as the sequels. HOWEVER, let’s just bring up the elephant in the room: the Riddler trophies. Jesus H Christ, if you thought it was annoying in the last game then wait til you get to this one! There are 440 riddler trophies and challenges overall, 40 (not including 5 combat challenges) require Catwoman but otherwise you’re kind of just going around, scanning the environment to solve riddles, collect trophies and destroy environmental interactions again and doing all of this again rewards you with challenge maps, interview tapes as well as story text which gives flavor to the world of Arkham City. Scanning for riddles might be a joy for me, but slugging through to find hidden Riddler trophies in the Steel Mill or destroying gargoyles on the climb up to Wonder Tower is tedious and frustrating. Some of these Riddles only come around AFTER completing certain events too like saving Mr. Freeze’s wife, which tells me this fucking guy has way too much time on his hands. These trophies are what caused me to play this over a month, because this shit’s a slog and sometimes I just don’t want to deal with it. Nothing wrong with replayability, but on future playthroughs of Arkham City I won’t even bother with doing all of the Riddler trophies because it’s a pain in the ass to be honest, and while it’s satisfying finally encountering him in the flesh? Sometimes it feels like it was worth way too much for too little, though luckily you don’t need to do EVERY trophy to get him, just most of them.
One little thing I’ll throw out here: the Easter Eggs and references yet again show the love and reverence these guys have for the DC Universe and it’s fascinating. You can find Harley Quinn pregnancy tests (positive in base game, negative in the Revenge DLC) which could’ve been an interesting tease! Calendar Man is encountered in the basement of the court house and gives you tales of his exploits on a bunch of major holidays (along with the day of Rocksteady’s founding). You can find Scarecrow’s secret boat along with fear toxin tests that reveal his fate after Arkham Asylum, and if you head back from Wonder City the way you came then you can get a cameo from Killer Croc in the sewers. There’s fucking Lost references in the dialogue, there’s a whole bunch of shit referencing all sorts of different shows or DC references, even some of the thug dialogue has them bringing up villains like Crazy Quilt. If you scan “healthy” Joker’s body, then you’ll find no skeleton which is a reference to the Clayface twist. I’ll just be honest, I’m going to post a link down below but honestly, it’s amazing how much stuff they packed in here and I love all the little details.
The last two sections I need to address here: The DLC/Combat Arenas and New Game Plus. I’ll start with New Game Plus by saying I didn’t really do it. It’s the same as every other one, you bring over all your skills and abilities though with the added frustration of turning off the “Batsense Dodge Counter” thing that appears above your head along with enemies being tougher. If that’s your thing, god bless but I don’t really feel like having that extra difficulty. The DLC however for the most part consists of the Arenas and Harley Quinn’s Revenge. Revenge is a simple story DLC that can be completed in an hour or two and mostly has you investigating the Steel Mill or flying around the Steel Mill section of the map as Batman. The only real side quest here is to cut down 30 balloons which is still a pain in the ass but less of a hassle. The real meat of the DLC comes from the Combat Arenas, of which there are so fucking many it’s insane. You play as the four characters from above, and can choose each of their skins; some of it is beating people up while dodging attacks like usual and some consist of the stealth sections which revolve around sneaking up on people or grappling on nearby gargoyles to monitor the situation. They each have goals like “Get 20,000 points” or for the stealth ones, they’ll consist of three different mission objectives like “Pull someone off a ledge” or “Knock someone off of a ladder as they climb it”, stuff like that. All of this stuff? Awesome, though it’s a pain in the ass if you’re trying to 100 percent as while they all have the same maps, they all have different progression. You could get all 164 campaigns (an overexaggerated guess) done as Batman but you’ll still need to do them as Catwoman and Robin along with Nightwing which fuckin’ blows. However, there are still some cool maps with my favorite being the side-scrolling beat’ em up one with Black Mask showing up as a cameo thug.
The sound design for Arkham City is low-and-behold, pretty goddamn solid if you ask me. Just like the last game, the combat punching sound effects are astounding and feel immensely satisfying pulling off combo after combo. The way the cape flutters as you soar against the winds of Gotham City and into the air over criminal’s heads captures that Batman essence. There’s hardly a sound effect that I could really sit there and say would sound remotely bad in the slightest so I can’t really speak for much else there. The score for the game, composed by returning composers Ron Fish and Nick Arundel range from somber string tones to bombastic combat music which basically just feels like Batman. The game also came out with Batman: Arkham City - The Album, which apparently contained tracks by artists such as The Raveonettes and Panic! At the Disco and I’ll be honest with you, this captures the Early 2010s perfectly, which can either be a good or a bad thing depending on what you’re really into? I’ll be straight up and tell you that this album was NOT created for the likes of me through The Years by Crosses is actually a pretty decent vibe/youtube montage piece. I guess Drown In You by Daughtry pulls off the early emo metal vibe which sounds decent though then again this isn’t my genre of music so I can’t really pop shit here. Basically, the last couple of tracks seem to pull off the vibes a lot more than the rest of the album.
Voice acting for Batman: Arkham City consists of the two heavy hitters: Kevin Conroy as Batman and Mark Hamill as The Joker which of course what the hell can I say about their performance except that they EMBODY the characters. Nolan North voices The Penguin in what I felt was almost unrecognizable as a cockney gangster (with some thug cameos also being voiced by Nolan North lol). Troy Baker is instantly recognizable playing Troy Baker as always, though they decide to puppet his voice behind the player model for Robin. Grey Delisle is also amazing as Catwoman, playing the flirtatious and confident love interest/foil to Batman himself with a lot of what the kids would call “swagger” and bravado. Everyone does a good job here in the main cast, like Corey Burton as Dr. Strange (though I thought it was Tom Kane for a second), Kimberly Brooks as Barbara Gordon and David Kaye as her father but the five on the top were the most recognizable to me (though Troy Baker was because he sounds like himself in almost every role good or bad). Overall, the sound design is great, and while nothing really popped out to me as “wow this is amazing”, sometimes the game doesn’t need to pop out with everything in order for it to be good, as immersion is also just as valid and you definitely feel immersed playing this. Also, as always it’s funny as hell flying over the goons as they discuss their numerous crimes, the exploits around Arkham City, gossiping about their bosses, or taunting Batman (clip located below). It’s like a running Three Stooges skit and it’s fucking hilarious.
The atmosphere for Arkham City feels a lot more graphic, dark and grimy than I would say Arkham Asylum ever did. It’s a lot less fun and goofy then the previous game and honestly was the right direction for the game to go in my opinion. The colors consist of grays, dark greens, blacks and all sorts of uncomfortable colors that make you feel unwelcome yet at home in this sectioned off Gotham City. While gliding through snowfall, you’ll see the destroyed wrecks of buildings that sunk into the nearby water during the Earthquake or leveled due to bombs planted by the Penguin. The theme of Arkham City is isolation, and isolation in life is one of the most depressing things I’ve ever felt in my life. Everyone is trapped in all sorts of different corners of the map, and the only one who could really gain access to anything trapped behind the walls of this oppressive prison is literally the Batman himself, able to glide over the map as you witness the carnage around you. If Death Stranding was the game during the Covid-19 era, then playing this game feels like the antithesis of what Death Stranding was for. I love this game, and while I played it during a period of high stress which might have soured the game a bit for me, that can’t really be helped (except for the Riddler trophies, fuck that shit) and as a Batman game itself? It just feels fantastic atmospherically. The graphics to the game are pretty solid and while I’m not sure I could 100 percent say that it was “better” than the previous game, I would say it has some improved textures and a much darker and more serious art style than before. Hell, to really set the point home, some of the Riddler’s traps in this game straight up remind me of the SAW films, which would only get way worse in Arkham Knight. This feels like a Batman game, and it’s what I feel a Batman game should look like (though other representations are valid too).
One thing I will mention in this section before finishing the review are the costumes, of which there are a lot more than Asylum though not as many as the later games. My favorite costumes are the Animated Series ones, of which there’s a costume for each playable character in the game. However, there are others like the Long Halloween Catwoman (yuck), a Batman Beyond skin, a Sinestro Corps skin (included in some Green Lantern movie tie-in) along with the testicle chinned looking Year One costume and more. They all add a bit of variation and are pretty solid, though some just look better than the others. Another last minute addition to this would be the gang costumes, which along with the environments the gangs control just look pretty solid. I’d say the most aesthetically pleasing is Two-Face’s gang, which actually feels “gangster” in spirit, split in the middle like their boss between gray and black with the masks representing burn victims. Penguin’s gang looks much more militaristic with balaclavas and vests, like former U.S. marines hired to protect their bosses interests while the Joker’s looks…predictably clownish to be honest but it’s a classic vibe. There are regular orange jumpsuit prisoners, fish out of water types who don’t fall into any gang while the TYGER guards give off this imperialistic police state vibe which of course makes sense considering their benefactor’s goals. Overall, I love the art direction and it only excels the oppressive atmosphere that the game puts itself through.
Overall, I loved playing through this game a lot, WITH a bit of a caveat in a strange reversal from my frustrations of Arkham Asylum. If you play through it with patience or doing it for the story and to beat up dudes, then that’s totally valid. HOWEVER, buying the Game of the Year Edition on Steam will give you A LOT of content for the money which is amazing. The Riddler trophies took me a long time, mainly because of work and other obligations, but also because they gave you 440 different collectibles and a lot of them require constant backtracking, especially if you play as Catwoman as getting certain Riddler trophies means opening up certain areas as Batman. Capturing Riddler was a drag, and the last thing I would ever want to do is play against the Riddler again. You’ll also get the combat/arena challenges, which as always feel great but there’s so many medals to collect between the four different characters (Batman, Catwoman, Nightwing and Robin) that you’ll be spending a lot of time trying to master them all. Regardless though, the quality of the gameplay along with the improvements, the dirty and grimy Gotham style that makes it feel empty and finally being able to fight criminals in an open world leads this game not only to be a classic like Arkham Asylum, but an even better one due to the improvements. I loved this game a lot, and while I won’t be touching the rest of the series for the rest of the year I feel due to the Riddler trophies and other stressors, I enjoyed my time and I would love to play this game again in the future. As for the future, what happened to the future of Arkham from here?
Well, honestly the game sold a hell of a lot of money! But just like Arkham Asylum, Arkham City set up a lot of different plot threads for the next unannounced sequel in the Rocksteady Trilogy: Arkham Knight. The ominous prophecy from Azrael, the disappearance of the Identity Thief, the secret Scarecrow references along with the vague foreshadowing of Calendar Man would come to fruition in the sequel released nearly 4 years later. In the near immediate future however would reveal the release of Arkham City Lockdown, a sort of fighting game phone prequel to Arkham City along with a Wii-U port later on. In 2013 would come the release of the “black sheep” prequel game: Arkham Origins developed by WB Montreal, which while not a groundbreaking game, was a game that I felt was good enough and very much remember tackling over a Christmas break back in my high school days. However, that’s really a tale for another review in the future; regardless, Arkham City became the definitive Batman game for the Arkham Franchise along with one of the best superhero games ever along with the likes of Spider-Man 2, Ultimate Spider-Man, and Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction.
Links:
https://www.ign.com/articles/2011/02/14/batman-arkham-city-gotham-on-lockdown?page=2
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/gamesblog/2011/sep/02/batman-arkham-city-interview
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_of_Batman:_Arkham_City
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jejMZWfPanU&ab_channel=killsensei
https://arkhamcity.fandom.com/wiki/Easter_Eggs_in_Batman:_Arkham_City
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/BatmanArkhamCity
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batman:_Arkham_City
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=4T9wrtXySVA
From Steam Reviews: https://steamcommunity.com/id/gamemast15r/recommended/
I had loved Arkham City A LOT as a young lad, eagerly playing it and excited after having played and beaten Asylum, the imagination racing through my mind as I wished for a Batman open-world Gotham game where you investigate and stop villains and the ability to halt crimes in free roam. Like Arkham Asylum, I believe I may have played this twice back on the Xbox 360 days though I’m honestly not sure and I’m not going to claim that I legitimately did it twice. However, I’ve always remembered this game in the positive light, proving to be superior in every way to the previous title from plot to gameplay mechanics and everything else and held up in the highest corners of my mind. However, I have since focused on many different games which I became obsessed with and while I’ve always loved Batman, I never bothered to re-visit the games really as the last Batman game I had played was Arkham Knight on the Xbox One. However, I saw Arkham: Origins videos on the Youtube Shorts feed and wishlisted every game in the series and as such, the magical Steam game genie DinoRaptor gifted me Asylum, City and Origins during Christmas. Having felt the need to de-stress and beat up criminals to soothe anxiety while apartment searching, I had installed it again after beating Asylum and gave it a run, slowly beating the game over the next month or two. Why a month or two? How has the game held up since I last played it?
The game opens with Bruce Wayne giving a speech outside the walls of Arkham City, a brand new prison created by the likes of former Arkham Asylum warden and now Mayor of Gotham City: Quincy Sharp. Bruce Wayne is, surprisingly, politically aligned and is firmly against the new prison. However, if there’s one person who doesn’t like it, it’s Arkham City’s psychologist Hugo Strange and his merry band of armed mercenaries: TYGER. TYGER raids the press conferences and captures Wayne in a frustrating but normal American violation of human rights and throws him into Arkham City with the rest of the criminal scum. However, Hugo Strange knows a secret, specifically Wayne’s secret identity. So why does Hugo Strange know, and why does he decide to let in the guy who cosplays as an angry Bat with bulging muscles and is known to ruin people’s plans with single handed determination? Who knows, but Bruce Wayne is left alone with a guard and after knocking him down to steal a special computer chip, he’s thrown out into the world with all of the prisoners. In the introduction, you actually get to see some cool cameos if you’re paying attention: Black Mask is in the corner fighting off some guards, walking through the line is where you’ll see Deadshot (or white Deadshot if you consider Kill the Justice League canon??) point his finger guns at you and up on a rooftop you’ll have Azrael looking down upon you. Of course, being processed will lead you to run into crime boss Oswald Cobblepot, who has a huge grudge with the Wayne family and proceeds to gang up on him. This backfires through, with Wayne single handedly kicking everyone’s ass in a way that I’m surprised no one thought he was the Batman. After knocking out Penguin, Wayne climbs up the buildings to the roof of the nearby Axis Chemicals where Alfred has a dead drop which contains the Batsuit and some gear ready to go.
His first act is to see what’s going on at the nearby courthouse after hearing from the TYGER communications that Catwoman has been captured. In the very beginning, you’ll actually play as Catwoman as she goes to steal something from Two-Face’s safe, only to be captured. Back in the present, Batman sneaks his way into the courthouse and manages to save Catwoman from becoming an acid-shishkebab, defeating Two Face and his goons in the process. Asking Catwoman what’s going on, they proceed to discuss what PROTOCOL 10 is, only for Batman to foil an assassination attempt against Catwoman. Tracking the ballistics reveals that it came from the top of the nearby Gotham Church; heading inside, he finds Harley Quinn and her goons holding the nearby medical workers hostage. While Joker’s favorite punching bag leaves, Batman picks off the goons one by one before heading up to the tower, and it’s up here where Joker exchanges some “explosive” banter before the place literally blows up. Batman proceeds to glide over to the Steel Mill and infiltrates it to learn from a hostage that the Titan transformation from the last game REALLY screwed the Jonkler over medically and that he’s in a very sick state. Infiltrating the main office leads to Batman being knocked out and captured, with Joker injecting him full of the diseased blood. Now with time ticking against the clock, Batman is forced to be Joker’s errand boy and find a cure for the Titan disease.
Joker also reveals another special surprise: he’s been making blood donations to various hospitals in Gotham to spread the poison. In desperation, Batman seeks out Mr. Freeze, who has been kidnapped by the Penguin and trapped in the Iceberg Lounge. Batman infiltrates the base and not only defeats Penguin and his goons, but lays the smackdown on the undead Solomon Grundy. Rescuing Mr. Freeze along with police hostages, they reunite in the lobby where it’s learned that Penguin has a habit of kidnapping and displaying his conquests in the museum section. One of these displays is a League of Assassins member, and when Freeze discusses a potential cure thing with Batman with Ra’s Al Ghul’s healing factor brought up, this assassin gets pissed and tries to escape. Batman follows the trail and manages to bug the assassin after stopping Robin from intervening. This moment will come to mark something in the next game, but for now Batman sends Robin out of Arkham City to track down the Joker contaminated blood in Gotham City. From here, Batman tracks the assassin into the sewers, the subway station and into the nearby Wonder City. Here he encounters Ra’s Al Ghul and his daughter/former love interest Talia Al Ghul. Being forced into “joining” the League to find a cure, he manages to trick them by stealing some of Ra’s blood before leaving to meet up with Mr. Freeze at his lab, the converted Gotham City Police Department. It’s here however where the two get into a forced misunderstanding due to Batman’s gruffness and a boss battle plays out, the cure being stolen in the process by Harley Quinn’s goons. Mr. Freeze asks Batman to find his wife (side mission) and Batman races over to the Steel Mill to get his cure. It’s here when he seemingly finds the Joker in perfect health. They clash in combat before Hugo Strange finally activates PROTOCOL 10: a systematic execution of all of the prisoners in Arkham City.
A missile rocks the Steel Mill and buries Batman under some rubble, however Joker stops his execution attempt when Talia Al Ghul comes back with an offer: he’ll be taken to the Lazarus Pits for immortality in exchange for Batman’s life. Batman nearly goes after Joker and Talia but is instead convinced to stop PROTOCOL 10, and as such he makes his way to Wonder Tower to finally put an end to Hugo’s plans. After infiltrating the tower and stopping the plans, who's the mastermind of the game revealed to be? Ra’s Al Ghul, which isn’t a surprise considering Hugo’s headquarters is right next to the Al Ghul’s along with the simple fact that this is the type of plan that the League of Assassins would do. Regardless, Ra’s doesn’t take failure well and stabs Hugo, but not before he reveals PROTOCOL 11 and self destructs the tower, taking Batman and Ra’s out into the sky nearby. Ra’s attempt at stabbing Batman fails and is instead forced to commit Seppuku before falling onto the gates below and impaling himself. From here, Joker contacts Batman and threatens to kill Talia unless Batman meets him in the Monarch Theatre and from here it gets a whole lot stranger. Joker demands the cure in “healthy form”, and Talia manages to get the drop on him and stabs him. However, this Joker isn’t actually Joker; he’s Clayface. It was a part of a bit by the actual Joker to look strong against his opponents and as such the real Joker is still dying. Joker pops Talia violently before Clayface engages in a boss battle and as such is defeated. However the floor is blown up, revealing the Lazarus Pit below. Batman drinks some of the cure before blowing up the Lazarus Pit to stop Joker from using it. Batman seems to be debating about curing Joker when the dude decides to jump to stabbing him, causing Batman to accidentally drop it and shatter it. Ironically, Batman was going to save him anyways so he ended up screwing himself over and dying. The game ends on the final image, Batman carrying the dead Joker in his arms as Harley Quinn sobs in the background, the accusation that Batman killed his arch-nemesis. Cut to black.
Catwoman’s campaign is a smaller and simpler set, mostly focusing on Catwoman’s quest to start a heist into Hugo Strange’s confiscated goods vault, which has her goods and a lot of money. She gets Poison Ivy to help her out and at the end of the day she gives up on the heist in order to save her on/off again lover Batman in the final act. She also steals her goods back from Two-Face’s goons after her apartment gets blown up but truthfully there isn’t much here plot wise.
There’s another DLC as well: Harley Quinn’s Revenge. The DLC cold opens to Robin searching through the Steel Mill for Batman, who disappeared attempting to search for missing police officers two days before. Apparently, Batman had changed since the Joker died and Barbara Gordon is worried sick about him. Infiltrating the Steel Mill, he finds that Batman’s tool belt has been laid on the ground, confirming the fears that he was captured. Rewinding back, Batman talks to Commissioner Gordon, who reveals the situation and Batman infiltrates the Steel Mill himself to find the hostages, following a trail to the nearby Shipyard hidden behind a TYGER checkpoint. He’s warned beforehand however that Harley Quinn blames him for Joker’s death, and WILL be out for blood. Batman is able to free some police officers before being knocked out and captured trying to save another. The perspective is changed to Robin again as he finds Batman, this time trapped inside of a mechanical Joker statue. Learning that Batman will die without intervention and that Harley holds the key, Robin finds her and her goon squad and absolutely eviscerates them in order to get the key. Robin manages to free Batman from his mechanical Joker statue and gives him his belt back. Batman orders Robin to get the cops back to safety after bombs are revealed and Batman spends his time shutting down the explosives. Batman manages to escape with Harley, and after a fake-out scare with Robin’s (not) death, survives an assassination attempt from Harley. Batman leaves the area and Gordon asks if he’s okay, with certain shades of uncertainty. Something has changed, and seemingly for the worse since the Joker has died.
The plot for the base Arkham City game is pretty astounding, surprisingly shorter than I thought it would be but in all honestly it feels like the perfect length. It has an interesting hook with the prison, searching for the Joker’s cure actually feels like more than a fetch quest. I think sometimes it’s a bit easy to guess certain plot twists, like Ra’s Al Ghul being the final mastermind behind the Arkham City Protocol 10 thing. Honestly I don’t really have too much I can say about this plot other than again, it’s the perfect length and was interesting and I like how it incorporates DC lore into it. I think if there’s any sort of plot thing that falters, it would be Catwoman’s plot and the Harley Quinn’s Revenge DLC. Playing as Catwoman is great, but there isn’t anything substantial that really gives her anything to do in the story and you only play as her for brief intervals anyways that it doesn’t really matter much? I’m not going to complain about playing as her but I wish they did more with her. The DLC felt like the only real purpose was to counteract the “pregnant Harley test” easter egg thing in the base game along with showing what the death of a substantial figure does to two completely different people in one’s life: Harley goes into extreme mourning while Batman just shuts it all down and hides it all inside. That being said, while playing as Catwoman for the DLC is technically mandatory if you buy the game of the year edition, it’s not really mandatory to the story and you would be ok with skipping Harley’s Revenge IF you wanted to.
I’ll just start off gameplay wise by saying this: it is a literal improvement in every single way from Arkham Asylum both fighting and stealth wise. The combat for example, while great in the previous game, feels even more fleshed out and powerful with new additions like the beatdown, which involves stunning someone with your cape and then just wailing on them with your fists repeatedly by tapping the punch button. You can also counter more people at the same time (though only up to two for the most part), do aerial attacks (stomping people out from the air) and catching stuff being thrown at you. The usual enemy types are there from the previous game like the knife guys and you can dodge their attacks by holding the counter button as they go on and there can be a LOT more goons to juggle this time, though luckily not enough to overwhelm the player as they go. One thing I want to mention as well are the gadgets, like explosive gel and the batarangs which were available in the previous game and are pretty damn good right? I’m surprised that game wise however, you’ll still be spending your time re-earning these gadgets as you go on instead of having them all dropped in. Batman is usually crazy prepared, and while I understand that gameplay wise you HAVE to have some sort of progression as things can get stale after a while, you still do get some new gadgets to use. One of those like the Electric Gun, basically you shoot it at someone and it causes them to have a bit of a knee jerk reaction, which when mixed with a gun or a hammer can lead to some painful or distracting combat advantages. You’ll also find other things like Ice Grenades (which you can freeze enemies and water for trophies) and the Disruptor, (which can shut down guns entirely). Even old tools like the Cryptographic sequencer has some new tricks like being able to track down radio signals or the line launcher having you be able to switch directions in mid-air. Stuff like this is a nice improvement to what the original game’s formula provided and as such. Catwoman as well as Robin and Nightwing have their own gear to use like Caltrops for the Cat or a shield which stops bullets for Robin, though none of these characters sadly feel as good as Batman to play.
In fact, this is where I’ll bring up multiple character switching: in the single player you can play as either Batman or Catwoman. For the most part you’ll be Batman, but after certain story beats you’ll be put into the role of Catwoman herself before switching back to Batman. At the very end of the campaign, you’ll have the choice to switch between the both of them at different stations on the map. While Batman has his own arsenal and way of getting around, so does Catwoman though this involves grappling with whips along with climbing up walls while seemingly taking part in a rhythm game of sorts, pressing the climb button just as the circle hits the right spot as she climbs. She has her own set of riddler trophies and combat challenges (which I’ll get into soon), though it’s miniscule compared to Batman’s entire checklist. The main things I don’t personally like are this: certain Riddler trophies have you going back as Batman to open certain paths BEFORE she can get in and it can get really annoying having to travel to a waypoint, only to have to travel back to switch to Batman and open it and do all of this back and forth shit. Also, Catwoman compared to the others just feels way weaker in comparison? I get that Batman is a tank and so are his proteges, and also that Catwoman is very much a stealth oriented character but it just feels weird in comparison dealing between the two. As for playing as Robin and Nightwing, you can only play as Robin in the Harley Quinn’s Revenge DLC along with the combat arenas while Nightwing you can only play as in the combat arena. I’m actually surprised they even bothered putting anything in with Nightwing personally due to the fact he doesn’t seem to show up at all except in the arena challenges.
What’s the open world like in Arkham City? Well it’s not an open “world” per say as much as it is a small city district or two but they’re pretty gigantic compared to the first game and allows for a lot more exploration of alleyways, rooftops and into some interiors like the Wayne Courthouse or the Gotham Police Department. With the game being a “metroidvania” of sorts, you’ll have a lot of interior spaces to go through and to backtrack through as well to get to new areas. Before I go into this next bit, I want to say that I appreciate the open world replayability by having respawning thugs to fight as I think that shit’s amazing. How about the side quests? How does that affect the open world? Well, most of them are fine to be honest and actually quite interesting in their own unique ways: one of them you search for victims of the Identity Thief killer and scan the crime scenes for forensics, same with Deadshot and his sniper victims while others require time trials or searching for phone booths to trace calls for Victor Zsasz. All of these are harmless enough, are interesting and provide some interesting background lore and plot points for this game as well as the sequels. HOWEVER, let’s just bring up the elephant in the room: the Riddler trophies. Jesus H Christ, if you thought it was annoying in the last game then wait til you get to this one! There are 440 riddler trophies and challenges overall, 40 (not including 5 combat challenges) require Catwoman but otherwise you’re kind of just going around, scanning the environment to solve riddles, collect trophies and destroy environmental interactions again and doing all of this again rewards you with challenge maps, interview tapes as well as story text which gives flavor to the world of Arkham City. Scanning for riddles might be a joy for me, but slugging through to find hidden Riddler trophies in the Steel Mill or destroying gargoyles on the climb up to Wonder Tower is tedious and frustrating. Some of these Riddles only come around AFTER completing certain events too like saving Mr. Freeze’s wife, which tells me this fucking guy has way too much time on his hands. These trophies are what caused me to play this over a month, because this shit’s a slog and sometimes I just don’t want to deal with it. Nothing wrong with replayability, but on future playthroughs of Arkham City I won’t even bother with doing all of the Riddler trophies because it’s a pain in the ass to be honest, and while it’s satisfying finally encountering him in the flesh? Sometimes it feels like it was worth way too much for too little, though luckily you don’t need to do EVERY trophy to get him, just most of them.
One little thing I’ll throw out here: the Easter Eggs and references yet again show the love and reverence these guys have for the DC Universe and it’s fascinating. You can find Harley Quinn pregnancy tests (positive in base game, negative in the Revenge DLC) which could’ve been an interesting tease! Calendar Man is encountered in the basement of the court house and gives you tales of his exploits on a bunch of major holidays (along with the day of Rocksteady’s founding). You can find Scarecrow’s secret boat along with fear toxin tests that reveal his fate after Arkham Asylum, and if you head back from Wonder City the way you came then you can get a cameo from Killer Croc in the sewers. There’s fucking Lost references in the dialogue, there’s a whole bunch of shit referencing all sorts of different shows or DC references, even some of the thug dialogue has them bringing up villains like Crazy Quilt. If you scan “healthy” Joker’s body, then you’ll find no skeleton which is a reference to the Clayface twist. I’ll just be honest, I’m going to post a link down below but honestly, it’s amazing how much stuff they packed in here and I love all the little details.
The last two sections I need to address here: The DLC/Combat Arenas and New Game Plus. I’ll start with New Game Plus by saying I didn’t really do it. It’s the same as every other one, you bring over all your skills and abilities though with the added frustration of turning off the “Batsense Dodge Counter” thing that appears above your head along with enemies being tougher. If that’s your thing, god bless but I don’t really feel like having that extra difficulty. The DLC however for the most part consists of the Arenas and Harley Quinn’s Revenge. Revenge is a simple story DLC that can be completed in an hour or two and mostly has you investigating the Steel Mill or flying around the Steel Mill section of the map as Batman. The only real side quest here is to cut down 30 balloons which is still a pain in the ass but less of a hassle. The real meat of the DLC comes from the Combat Arenas, of which there are so fucking many it’s insane. You play as the four characters from above, and can choose each of their skins; some of it is beating people up while dodging attacks like usual and some consist of the stealth sections which revolve around sneaking up on people or grappling on nearby gargoyles to monitor the situation. They each have goals like “Get 20,000 points” or for the stealth ones, they’ll consist of three different mission objectives like “Pull someone off a ledge” or “Knock someone off of a ladder as they climb it”, stuff like that. All of this stuff? Awesome, though it’s a pain in the ass if you’re trying to 100 percent as while they all have the same maps, they all have different progression. You could get all 164 campaigns (an overexaggerated guess) done as Batman but you’ll still need to do them as Catwoman and Robin along with Nightwing which fuckin’ blows. However, there are still some cool maps with my favorite being the side-scrolling beat’ em up one with Black Mask showing up as a cameo thug.
The sound design for Arkham City is low-and-behold, pretty goddamn solid if you ask me. Just like the last game, the combat punching sound effects are astounding and feel immensely satisfying pulling off combo after combo. The way the cape flutters as you soar against the winds of Gotham City and into the air over criminal’s heads captures that Batman essence. There’s hardly a sound effect that I could really sit there and say would sound remotely bad in the slightest so I can’t really speak for much else there. The score for the game, composed by returning composers Ron Fish and Nick Arundel range from somber string tones to bombastic combat music which basically just feels like Batman. The game also came out with Batman: Arkham City - The Album, which apparently contained tracks by artists such as The Raveonettes and Panic! At the Disco and I’ll be honest with you, this captures the Early 2010s perfectly, which can either be a good or a bad thing depending on what you’re really into? I’ll be straight up and tell you that this album was NOT created for the likes of me through The Years by Crosses is actually a pretty decent vibe/youtube montage piece. I guess Drown In You by Daughtry pulls off the early emo metal vibe which sounds decent though then again this isn’t my genre of music so I can’t really pop shit here. Basically, the last couple of tracks seem to pull off the vibes a lot more than the rest of the album.
Voice acting for Batman: Arkham City consists of the two heavy hitters: Kevin Conroy as Batman and Mark Hamill as The Joker which of course what the hell can I say about their performance except that they EMBODY the characters. Nolan North voices The Penguin in what I felt was almost unrecognizable as a cockney gangster (with some thug cameos also being voiced by Nolan North lol). Troy Baker is instantly recognizable playing Troy Baker as always, though they decide to puppet his voice behind the player model for Robin. Grey Delisle is also amazing as Catwoman, playing the flirtatious and confident love interest/foil to Batman himself with a lot of what the kids would call “swagger” and bravado. Everyone does a good job here in the main cast, like Corey Burton as Dr. Strange (though I thought it was Tom Kane for a second), Kimberly Brooks as Barbara Gordon and David Kaye as her father but the five on the top were the most recognizable to me (though Troy Baker was because he sounds like himself in almost every role good or bad). Overall, the sound design is great, and while nothing really popped out to me as “wow this is amazing”, sometimes the game doesn’t need to pop out with everything in order for it to be good, as immersion is also just as valid and you definitely feel immersed playing this. Also, as always it’s funny as hell flying over the goons as they discuss their numerous crimes, the exploits around Arkham City, gossiping about their bosses, or taunting Batman (clip located below). It’s like a running Three Stooges skit and it’s fucking hilarious.
The atmosphere for Arkham City feels a lot more graphic, dark and grimy than I would say Arkham Asylum ever did. It’s a lot less fun and goofy then the previous game and honestly was the right direction for the game to go in my opinion. The colors consist of grays, dark greens, blacks and all sorts of uncomfortable colors that make you feel unwelcome yet at home in this sectioned off Gotham City. While gliding through snowfall, you’ll see the destroyed wrecks of buildings that sunk into the nearby water during the Earthquake or leveled due to bombs planted by the Penguin. The theme of Arkham City is isolation, and isolation in life is one of the most depressing things I’ve ever felt in my life. Everyone is trapped in all sorts of different corners of the map, and the only one who could really gain access to anything trapped behind the walls of this oppressive prison is literally the Batman himself, able to glide over the map as you witness the carnage around you. If Death Stranding was the game during the Covid-19 era, then playing this game feels like the antithesis of what Death Stranding was for. I love this game, and while I played it during a period of high stress which might have soured the game a bit for me, that can’t really be helped (except for the Riddler trophies, fuck that shit) and as a Batman game itself? It just feels fantastic atmospherically. The graphics to the game are pretty solid and while I’m not sure I could 100 percent say that it was “better” than the previous game, I would say it has some improved textures and a much darker and more serious art style than before. Hell, to really set the point home, some of the Riddler’s traps in this game straight up remind me of the SAW films, which would only get way worse in Arkham Knight. This feels like a Batman game, and it’s what I feel a Batman game should look like (though other representations are valid too).
One thing I will mention in this section before finishing the review are the costumes, of which there are a lot more than Asylum though not as many as the later games. My favorite costumes are the Animated Series ones, of which there’s a costume for each playable character in the game. However, there are others like the Long Halloween Catwoman (yuck), a Batman Beyond skin, a Sinestro Corps skin (included in some Green Lantern movie tie-in) along with the testicle chinned looking Year One costume and more. They all add a bit of variation and are pretty solid, though some just look better than the others. Another last minute addition to this would be the gang costumes, which along with the environments the gangs control just look pretty solid. I’d say the most aesthetically pleasing is Two-Face’s gang, which actually feels “gangster” in spirit, split in the middle like their boss between gray and black with the masks representing burn victims. Penguin’s gang looks much more militaristic with balaclavas and vests, like former U.S. marines hired to protect their bosses interests while the Joker’s looks…predictably clownish to be honest but it’s a classic vibe. There are regular orange jumpsuit prisoners, fish out of water types who don’t fall into any gang while the TYGER guards give off this imperialistic police state vibe which of course makes sense considering their benefactor’s goals. Overall, I love the art direction and it only excels the oppressive atmosphere that the game puts itself through.
Overall, I loved playing through this game a lot, WITH a bit of a caveat in a strange reversal from my frustrations of Arkham Asylum. If you play through it with patience or doing it for the story and to beat up dudes, then that’s totally valid. HOWEVER, buying the Game of the Year Edition on Steam will give you A LOT of content for the money which is amazing. The Riddler trophies took me a long time, mainly because of work and other obligations, but also because they gave you 440 different collectibles and a lot of them require constant backtracking, especially if you play as Catwoman as getting certain Riddler trophies means opening up certain areas as Batman. Capturing Riddler was a drag, and the last thing I would ever want to do is play against the Riddler again. You’ll also get the combat/arena challenges, which as always feel great but there’s so many medals to collect between the four different characters (Batman, Catwoman, Nightwing and Robin) that you’ll be spending a lot of time trying to master them all. Regardless though, the quality of the gameplay along with the improvements, the dirty and grimy Gotham style that makes it feel empty and finally being able to fight criminals in an open world leads this game not only to be a classic like Arkham Asylum, but an even better one due to the improvements. I loved this game a lot, and while I won’t be touching the rest of the series for the rest of the year I feel due to the Riddler trophies and other stressors, I enjoyed my time and I would love to play this game again in the future. As for the future, what happened to the future of Arkham from here?
Well, honestly the game sold a hell of a lot of money! But just like Arkham Asylum, Arkham City set up a lot of different plot threads for the next unannounced sequel in the Rocksteady Trilogy: Arkham Knight. The ominous prophecy from Azrael, the disappearance of the Identity Thief, the secret Scarecrow references along with the vague foreshadowing of Calendar Man would come to fruition in the sequel released nearly 4 years later. In the near immediate future however would reveal the release of Arkham City Lockdown, a sort of fighting game phone prequel to Arkham City along with a Wii-U port later on. In 2013 would come the release of the “black sheep” prequel game: Arkham Origins developed by WB Montreal, which while not a groundbreaking game, was a game that I felt was good enough and very much remember tackling over a Christmas break back in my high school days. However, that’s really a tale for another review in the future; regardless, Arkham City became the definitive Batman game for the Arkham Franchise along with one of the best superhero games ever along with the likes of Spider-Man 2, Ultimate Spider-Man, and Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction.
Links:
https://www.ign.com/articles/2011/02/14/batman-arkham-city-gotham-on-lockdown?page=2
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/gamesblog/2011/sep/02/batman-arkham-city-interview
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_of_Batman:_Arkham_City
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jejMZWfPanU&ab_channel=killsensei
https://arkhamcity.fandom.com/wiki/Easter_Eggs_in_Batman:_Arkham_City
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/BatmanArkhamCity
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batman:_Arkham_City
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=4T9wrtXySVA
From Steam Reviews: https://steamcommunity.com/id/gamemast15r/recommended/
2024
EDIT: https://www.forbes.com/sites/paultassi/2024/05/04/arrowhead-tells-helldivers-2-players-to-change-reviews-to-negative-over-psn-linking/?sh=5984c1623d01 I guess I'll have to edit the review in the future, but only once they fix the country bans on Steam due to the PSN Linking Controversy.
Here's what I'm going to say about HELLDIVERS 2 right now. I love the game, shoutout to Scroto Baggins for buying me the game, I've had a lot of fun with it and it's amazing. I love the gameplay loop, the actual accessibility of the rewards that's not tied to terrible microtransactions, the toungue-in-cheek humor along with the fact that the action is honestly controlled by a sort of Dungeon Master. As someone who is obsessed with roleplaying game storylines, I love this idea.
However, recently the game decided to put in an invasive feature: Playstation Account Integration. Doesn't sound bad right? I have one, I wouldn't care to do it. However, think of it like this: having stuff locked behind making accounts is annoying yes. How about the fact that certain countries have Playstation banned? If you put an existing game and lock it behind different walls six months after the game released, players from a lot of these countries bought these games. Now they're stuck with a game they can't play, and as such they should rightfully get a refund for this. This isn't just specifically a Playstation Organization thing, apparently Arrowhead knew this AND agreed to this before and had only delayed it this long due to bug (no pun intended) issues. It feels misleading and honestly s h i tty.
Does that mean I'd stop playing it? No, if my buddies want to play a multiplayer game with me then I'll do it. Helldivers 2 and The Outlast Trials have been some of the best multiplayer games that I've played in a good while. However, I can't guarantee that the rest of the playerbase won't jump ship for something else. I'm not going to say that things can't go back to the way they were before, a lot of good will and time will heal a lot of wounds but you don't s h i t where you eat and that's what these guys did. If you want to make it optional, then fine. I wouldn't mind linking it for exclusive rewards and HOPEFULLY trophy integration so I can get a platinum for my Playstation account; however I'm not changing this review until the issue is fixed. Review bombs may happen over stupid s h i t sometimes, but this time it's warranted. It just sucks because there's a really fantastic game underneath this issue and started off really strong.
EDIT: Apparently a buddy of mine in Scotland said that they asked for his government ID to play this game? Unsure as to what basis this is, but if this is actually a thing then it's double stupid.
Links:
https://www.ign.com/articles/helldivers-2-pulled-from-sale-in-177-countries-due-to-psn-linking-requirement
https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2024/05/sony-will-soon-demand-helldivers-2-players-on-steam-have-psn-accounts/
https://www.pcgamer.com/we-have-an-actual-person-with-the-title-of-game-master-a-single-helldivers-2-dev-named-joel-is-pulling-the-strings-on-its-galactic-war-like-an-all-powerful-dandd-dungeon-master-war-will-become-more-and-more-sophisticated-over-time/
https://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/1ckpdej/arrowhead_ceo_addresses_helldivers_2_psn_account/
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/553850/view/4196868529806518741
From Steam Reviews: https://steamcommunity.com/id/gamemast15r/recommended/
Here's what I'm going to say about HELLDIVERS 2 right now. I love the game, shoutout to Scroto Baggins for buying me the game, I've had a lot of fun with it and it's amazing. I love the gameplay loop, the actual accessibility of the rewards that's not tied to terrible microtransactions, the toungue-in-cheek humor along with the fact that the action is honestly controlled by a sort of Dungeon Master. As someone who is obsessed with roleplaying game storylines, I love this idea.
However, recently the game decided to put in an invasive feature: Playstation Account Integration. Doesn't sound bad right? I have one, I wouldn't care to do it. However, think of it like this: having stuff locked behind making accounts is annoying yes. How about the fact that certain countries have Playstation banned? If you put an existing game and lock it behind different walls six months after the game released, players from a lot of these countries bought these games. Now they're stuck with a game they can't play, and as such they should rightfully get a refund for this. This isn't just specifically a Playstation Organization thing, apparently Arrowhead knew this AND agreed to this before and had only delayed it this long due to bug (no pun intended) issues. It feels misleading and honestly s h i tty.
Does that mean I'd stop playing it? No, if my buddies want to play a multiplayer game with me then I'll do it. Helldivers 2 and The Outlast Trials have been some of the best multiplayer games that I've played in a good while. However, I can't guarantee that the rest of the playerbase won't jump ship for something else. I'm not going to say that things can't go back to the way they were before, a lot of good will and time will heal a lot of wounds but you don't s h i t where you eat and that's what these guys did. If you want to make it optional, then fine. I wouldn't mind linking it for exclusive rewards and HOPEFULLY trophy integration so I can get a platinum for my Playstation account; however I'm not changing this review until the issue is fixed. Review bombs may happen over stupid s h i t sometimes, but this time it's warranted. It just sucks because there's a really fantastic game underneath this issue and started off really strong.
EDIT: Apparently a buddy of mine in Scotland said that they asked for his government ID to play this game? Unsure as to what basis this is, but if this is actually a thing then it's double stupid.
Links:
https://www.ign.com/articles/helldivers-2-pulled-from-sale-in-177-countries-due-to-psn-linking-requirement
https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2024/05/sony-will-soon-demand-helldivers-2-players-on-steam-have-psn-accounts/
https://www.pcgamer.com/we-have-an-actual-person-with-the-title-of-game-master-a-single-helldivers-2-dev-named-joel-is-pulling-the-strings-on-its-galactic-war-like-an-all-powerful-dandd-dungeon-master-war-will-become-more-and-more-sophisticated-over-time/
https://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/1ckpdej/arrowhead_ceo_addresses_helldivers_2_psn_account/
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/553850/view/4196868529806518741
From Steam Reviews: https://steamcommunity.com/id/gamemast15r/recommended/
This review contains spoilers
Lake Haven: Chrysalis is a survival horror “homage simulator” game developed by German game developer Engrave Games, whose upcoming title “Lake Haven” is their first project that they’re currently developing. Advertised as inspired by Silent Hill and David Lynch, while I don’t remember where I saw this game advertised on (though it’s probably Twitter), these inspirations along with the term “survival horror” and “fixed camera angles” are stuff that rings the bells in my head. I ended up picking this up using some Steam gift cards around Christmas time to stream for a friend of mine today (along with SEPTEMBER 1999) and I had some thoughts on what’s going on.
The plot was advertised on the steam page with “Kansas Police Detective Zeke Reynolds is sent out to investigate the mysterious disappearance of Eleanor Robertson after she’s gone completely off the grid after 13 days.” Once you arrive, of course that’s when things get worse as Zeke finds Eleanor dead in the living room, her corpse staring at wildlife documentaries as it plays nonstop, covered in lacerations. Notes reveal that Eleanor has been having vivid visions and paranoid delusions which ultimately broke up her marriage with her husband James. Walking around the house also mentions a strong mushroom smell along with a door upstairs whose borders are covered in moving mold. Eventually after exploring the house (riddled in religious paraphernalia) and exploring the basement, you enter back in the house to find the body gone. Of course, you’re forced to gun down the corpse of Eleanor when Zeke finds her upstairs, shambling towards him in an attempt to kill him. Regardless, eventually Zeke finds a seal and goes down into the well, where he opens giant doors that reveal a long staircase down into the abyss, and what happens at the bottom? I don’t know to be honest as a giant A.I. face speaks to Zeke about presumably Eleanor’s death, and how the “Inner Circle” reached out to her as she felt empty and hollow. Eventually she went into a state of “Chrysalis”, which I assume is her being undead? Zeke walks into Shodan 2.0 only for it to shatter as a row of church benches and an altar stand behind her. Going to the altar, you pick up a strange piece of metal which when combined with the giant iron key, gives you the final key to enter the double doors in the basement (which can also be opened with a needle which provides you with a different easter egg which I’ll describe in gameplay). Exiting the chamber, you attempt to escape another encounter that surrounds you in red fog and have you run up the staircase as chains attempt to make their way out. Eventually, you enter the basement doors to find yourself trapped in a room behind bullet-proof glass, the red mist catching up to you once and for all. Zeke wakes up to find himself in a strange “Black Lodge”, where he finds a table with Eleanor at the end of it. She walks over and starts to whisper into his ear, putting him under a trance and having him write out an unknown letter. It then cuts to show a “Welcome to Lake Haven” sign and a blue car driving into the distance before the credits roll.
So what the hell was the plot? I genuinely don’t know what’s going on. Who is the Inner Circle? Why did the hallucinations pop up? Who’s Lewis and how did Eleanor die? What’s with the Silent Hill transitions and what’s going on with the Twin Peaks-styled ending? Truthfully? I don’t know, I could give you a half-a s s interpretation on depression but I’d be genuinely reaching on something that’s supposed to be vaguely confusing and also a short prologue. Hopefully in the future, when Lake Haven is finally released then we’ll understand a lot of these questions with the mushrooms and the hallucinations but for now, my thoughts were this. Decent plot, brings up interesting questions but confusing as hell in a way that makes me feel kind of mixed to be honest.
The gameplay, for a short prologue into the full game, is the usual for survival horror. You walk around the small farm house, collect items to be used as solutions to other puzzles and all the while walking through with the fixed camera angles (that also moves when it needs too of course). First I’ll start with the puzzles, though this is subjective because I suck at them anyways: for the most part they can be pretty easy though there was a time or two where I was stuck trying to figure out what I was supposed to do and had to look up a Youtube guide. They also don’t tell you this, but for certain puzzles or story beats you’ll have to examine inventory items like the book you find full of fairy tales. There isn’t much in the way of survival horror combat except one section and in that section you basically have infinite ammo as this title mostly focuses on the puzzle solving and atmosphere. The last thing I’ll mention here is that there’s two sets of easter eggs, one of them being two small statues that you don’t do anything with and just seem to be little figurines of Zeke. The second, more prevalent easter egg has you finding a needle in a haystack, which when taken to the basement and used on the final door brings you to recreations of P.T. and Silent Hill 2 which were pretty solid.
The sound design is pretty sharp and on point with sounds that could come straight from the Silent Hill 1 menu, or the sounds of the footsteps as you walk across gravel/wooden planks. Firing off your gun also feels pretty good, honestly just to sum up the actual sounds in this game: they all work pretty damn well in tandem with the throwback vibe it’s going for. While there’s no voice acting, there’s a pretty good save room track (posted below) composed by Survival Spheres and some tense tracks composed by pleasepleasepleaseplease that definitely captures safety in a survival horror environment. Other than that, nothing I can really go on except the sound design captures what it’s going for.
What can I say about it graphically that I haven’t already said before? It’s the chunky Playstation 1 graphics and I love them! I think for the most part the atmosphere of the game is what really sticks out about it? It’s a small area but it’s dark and musty and really gives off the old farmhouse feel, almost as if this game feels like it should be about aliens or something. However, I want to make sure to put this out there that for the most part, this game is NOT about feeling tense or creeped out. This is moreso the “cozy Silent Hill-esque horror” vibe of having you know that something around you went wrong, but besides that one aforementioned enemy encounter and that honestly tense escape sequence from the well? There isn’t really much here other than walking around and trying to figure out one of the many numerous puzzles you have in store for you. Speaking of Silent Hill, I find that the Easter Egg replicates the vibes of it pretty well, and you can tell the developers love and reverence for these kind of games as it basically oozes the old feeling from the first game even if it isn’t a 100 percent mark from the Silent Hill 2 “Dead Body Pose” easter egg to the chains and red mist escape (which looks just like an otherworld transition). It gets even more blatant when you reach the final room, which is just the Twin Peaks Black Lodge. Now I love Twin Peaks AND Silent Hill very much, though as much as I have reverence for them I feel like it sometimes leans on them a little too much without adding too much in the way of something “new”. However, maybe the full game will be that brand new experience we need? I don’t know, I don’t want to dogpile the game because the game does a pretty good job but the influences are blatantly obvious.
Overall, I love me an indie horror game with chunky Playstation 1 graphics and a reverence for Silent Hill, Twin Peaks and overall atmospheric vibes. To say that I didn’t enjoy this would be wrong, because I liked a lot of what it was going for and it definitely has me interested in the full Lake Haven game. Personally however, I felt like there were times where it just kind of went too into the homages without expressing its own interesting ideas other than what looks to be SHODAN hanging out in the basement of some farm house. However, it’s 2.99 and takes up about an hour to an hour and a half depending on guide use and overall puzzle intuition and if you’re looking for a short survival horror experience and/or interested in buying the prologue to what’s essentially a hopeful long term investment payoff with Lake Haven then honestly? Give it a try, it’s a solid start to what I hope becomes something of it’s own.
Links:
https://twitter.com/tingel155?lang=en
https://steamcommunity.com/app/1696960/discussions/0/3820780544818875257/
https://steamcommunity.com/app/1696960/discussions/0/3761102779889149051/
https://steamcommunity.com/app/952250/discussions/0/1733215626276570422/
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ipehqsxSjlg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h2ch59LJEzk&ab_channel=SurvivalSpheres
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qO-8zpc8DfM&ab_channel=pleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleaseplease
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lYw6XAGxCIA&ab_channel=tingel155
From Steam Reviews: https://steamcommunity.com/id/gamemast15r/recommended/
The plot was advertised on the steam page with “Kansas Police Detective Zeke Reynolds is sent out to investigate the mysterious disappearance of Eleanor Robertson after she’s gone completely off the grid after 13 days.” Once you arrive, of course that’s when things get worse as Zeke finds Eleanor dead in the living room, her corpse staring at wildlife documentaries as it plays nonstop, covered in lacerations. Notes reveal that Eleanor has been having vivid visions and paranoid delusions which ultimately broke up her marriage with her husband James. Walking around the house also mentions a strong mushroom smell along with a door upstairs whose borders are covered in moving mold. Eventually after exploring the house (riddled in religious paraphernalia) and exploring the basement, you enter back in the house to find the body gone. Of course, you’re forced to gun down the corpse of Eleanor when Zeke finds her upstairs, shambling towards him in an attempt to kill him. Regardless, eventually Zeke finds a seal and goes down into the well, where he opens giant doors that reveal a long staircase down into the abyss, and what happens at the bottom? I don’t know to be honest as a giant A.I. face speaks to Zeke about presumably Eleanor’s death, and how the “Inner Circle” reached out to her as she felt empty and hollow. Eventually she went into a state of “Chrysalis”, which I assume is her being undead? Zeke walks into Shodan 2.0 only for it to shatter as a row of church benches and an altar stand behind her. Going to the altar, you pick up a strange piece of metal which when combined with the giant iron key, gives you the final key to enter the double doors in the basement (which can also be opened with a needle which provides you with a different easter egg which I’ll describe in gameplay). Exiting the chamber, you attempt to escape another encounter that surrounds you in red fog and have you run up the staircase as chains attempt to make their way out. Eventually, you enter the basement doors to find yourself trapped in a room behind bullet-proof glass, the red mist catching up to you once and for all. Zeke wakes up to find himself in a strange “Black Lodge”, where he finds a table with Eleanor at the end of it. She walks over and starts to whisper into his ear, putting him under a trance and having him write out an unknown letter. It then cuts to show a “Welcome to Lake Haven” sign and a blue car driving into the distance before the credits roll.
So what the hell was the plot? I genuinely don’t know what’s going on. Who is the Inner Circle? Why did the hallucinations pop up? Who’s Lewis and how did Eleanor die? What’s with the Silent Hill transitions and what’s going on with the Twin Peaks-styled ending? Truthfully? I don’t know, I could give you a half-a s s interpretation on depression but I’d be genuinely reaching on something that’s supposed to be vaguely confusing and also a short prologue. Hopefully in the future, when Lake Haven is finally released then we’ll understand a lot of these questions with the mushrooms and the hallucinations but for now, my thoughts were this. Decent plot, brings up interesting questions but confusing as hell in a way that makes me feel kind of mixed to be honest.
The gameplay, for a short prologue into the full game, is the usual for survival horror. You walk around the small farm house, collect items to be used as solutions to other puzzles and all the while walking through with the fixed camera angles (that also moves when it needs too of course). First I’ll start with the puzzles, though this is subjective because I suck at them anyways: for the most part they can be pretty easy though there was a time or two where I was stuck trying to figure out what I was supposed to do and had to look up a Youtube guide. They also don’t tell you this, but for certain puzzles or story beats you’ll have to examine inventory items like the book you find full of fairy tales. There isn’t much in the way of survival horror combat except one section and in that section you basically have infinite ammo as this title mostly focuses on the puzzle solving and atmosphere. The last thing I’ll mention here is that there’s two sets of easter eggs, one of them being two small statues that you don’t do anything with and just seem to be little figurines of Zeke. The second, more prevalent easter egg has you finding a needle in a haystack, which when taken to the basement and used on the final door brings you to recreations of P.T. and Silent Hill 2 which were pretty solid.
The sound design is pretty sharp and on point with sounds that could come straight from the Silent Hill 1 menu, or the sounds of the footsteps as you walk across gravel/wooden planks. Firing off your gun also feels pretty good, honestly just to sum up the actual sounds in this game: they all work pretty damn well in tandem with the throwback vibe it’s going for. While there’s no voice acting, there’s a pretty good save room track (posted below) composed by Survival Spheres and some tense tracks composed by pleasepleasepleaseplease that definitely captures safety in a survival horror environment. Other than that, nothing I can really go on except the sound design captures what it’s going for.
What can I say about it graphically that I haven’t already said before? It’s the chunky Playstation 1 graphics and I love them! I think for the most part the atmosphere of the game is what really sticks out about it? It’s a small area but it’s dark and musty and really gives off the old farmhouse feel, almost as if this game feels like it should be about aliens or something. However, I want to make sure to put this out there that for the most part, this game is NOT about feeling tense or creeped out. This is moreso the “cozy Silent Hill-esque horror” vibe of having you know that something around you went wrong, but besides that one aforementioned enemy encounter and that honestly tense escape sequence from the well? There isn’t really much here other than walking around and trying to figure out one of the many numerous puzzles you have in store for you. Speaking of Silent Hill, I find that the Easter Egg replicates the vibes of it pretty well, and you can tell the developers love and reverence for these kind of games as it basically oozes the old feeling from the first game even if it isn’t a 100 percent mark from the Silent Hill 2 “Dead Body Pose” easter egg to the chains and red mist escape (which looks just like an otherworld transition). It gets even more blatant when you reach the final room, which is just the Twin Peaks Black Lodge. Now I love Twin Peaks AND Silent Hill very much, though as much as I have reverence for them I feel like it sometimes leans on them a little too much without adding too much in the way of something “new”. However, maybe the full game will be that brand new experience we need? I don’t know, I don’t want to dogpile the game because the game does a pretty good job but the influences are blatantly obvious.
Overall, I love me an indie horror game with chunky Playstation 1 graphics and a reverence for Silent Hill, Twin Peaks and overall atmospheric vibes. To say that I didn’t enjoy this would be wrong, because I liked a lot of what it was going for and it definitely has me interested in the full Lake Haven game. Personally however, I felt like there were times where it just kind of went too into the homages without expressing its own interesting ideas other than what looks to be SHODAN hanging out in the basement of some farm house. However, it’s 2.99 and takes up about an hour to an hour and a half depending on guide use and overall puzzle intuition and if you’re looking for a short survival horror experience and/or interested in buying the prologue to what’s essentially a hopeful long term investment payoff with Lake Haven then honestly? Give it a try, it’s a solid start to what I hope becomes something of it’s own.
Links:
https://twitter.com/tingel155?lang=en
https://steamcommunity.com/app/1696960/discussions/0/3820780544818875257/
https://steamcommunity.com/app/1696960/discussions/0/3761102779889149051/
https://steamcommunity.com/app/952250/discussions/0/1733215626276570422/
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ipehqsxSjlg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h2ch59LJEzk&ab_channel=SurvivalSpheres
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qO-8zpc8DfM&ab_channel=pleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleaseplease
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lYw6XAGxCIA&ab_channel=tingel155
From Steam Reviews: https://steamcommunity.com/id/gamemast15r/recommended/
2018
This review contains spoilers
SEPTEMBER 1999 is a short-form P.T. styled two room horror "walking simulator" developed by 98Demake, a developer whose mostly known for creating short form trailers of modern games and what they would be like if they were made in the style of Playstation 1. This stuff blew my mind when I was younger and I eagerly followed him and his work for more content like this. Along the way, I discovered that he created two games: SEPTEMBER 1999 and OK/Normal. I ended up streaming both for a friend of mine years ago, and today I streamed this and Lake Haven: Chrysalis for another friend today (OK/Normal in the future at some point). Both were released on Itch.io and Steam, with SEPTEMBER 1999 being released for free a couple of months after OK/Normal with one concept in mind: what if the cancelled P.T. demo was a timed 5 Minute 30 Seconds with no interaction except walking through two rooms and watching the environmental story telling unfold?
Well that's basically the gameplay, and the plot is a series of cutaways that seem to reveal a series of days in which a killer holds people captive and kills them in their house before the police sirens appear outside. It doesn't really give you much context other than what you see, and truth is it's really up to you and your interpretation of your events, which can be good or bad depending on how you want the timeline to go. How about the graphics and atmosphere?
The graphics will make you choose between Low and Ultra High but the truth is it doesn't really matter, as either way it's grainy and downgraded behind a VHS filter in a way that's highly reminiscent of old video cameras from back in the day. I love the old Analog Horror style so no complaints, and as for the atmosphere it's a very slow burn horror vibe that while you don't feel like you could die, you feel trapped in place as the days pass by and you're forced to see out of the eyes of what could be a serial killer. The sound design is pretty good too, between the static grain sounds and the sounds of the house settling all providing creepy vibes that go well in a horror game.
Regardless it's been about 5 or 6 years since we last saw any games by 98Demake, less heard much about him at all. He had a discord at one point I was apart of, but I dropped off due to personal life issues which sucks. I'm not sure what they're up to, but I hope they come back some day because they have a lot of talent. If you like short horror walking sims, I'd say give this game a go, it's free so why not right?
Links:
https://www.youtube.com/@98DEMAKE/videos
https://store.steampowered.com/developer/98demake
https://www.backloggd.com/games/september-1999/
From Steam Reviews: https://steamcommunity.com/id/gamemast15r/recommended/
Well that's basically the gameplay, and the plot is a series of cutaways that seem to reveal a series of days in which a killer holds people captive and kills them in their house before the police sirens appear outside. It doesn't really give you much context other than what you see, and truth is it's really up to you and your interpretation of your events, which can be good or bad depending on how you want the timeline to go. How about the graphics and atmosphere?
The graphics will make you choose between Low and Ultra High but the truth is it doesn't really matter, as either way it's grainy and downgraded behind a VHS filter in a way that's highly reminiscent of old video cameras from back in the day. I love the old Analog Horror style so no complaints, and as for the atmosphere it's a very slow burn horror vibe that while you don't feel like you could die, you feel trapped in place as the days pass by and you're forced to see out of the eyes of what could be a serial killer. The sound design is pretty good too, between the static grain sounds and the sounds of the house settling all providing creepy vibes that go well in a horror game.
Regardless it's been about 5 or 6 years since we last saw any games by 98Demake, less heard much about him at all. He had a discord at one point I was apart of, but I dropped off due to personal life issues which sucks. I'm not sure what they're up to, but I hope they come back some day because they have a lot of talent. If you like short horror walking sims, I'd say give this game a go, it's free so why not right?
Links:
https://www.youtube.com/@98DEMAKE/videos
https://store.steampowered.com/developer/98demake
https://www.backloggd.com/games/september-1999/
From Steam Reviews: https://steamcommunity.com/id/gamemast15r/recommended/
This review contains spoilers
Rise of the Tomb Raider is a “post-post traumatic stress disorder” simulator and action-adventure metroidvania game developed by Crystal Dynamics as the second part of the “Survivor Trilogy” featuring a younger Lara Croft as she navigates mass murder, action adventure and supernatural mysteries. The sequel to the previous game started around two weeks after finishing up the final touches on the previous Tomb Raider game and for the most part it was made in a decent time frame aside from cut plot points (discussed later in plot) along with different changes due to feedback like less quick time events and such. However, I feel what most people remember about this game specifically is the temporary Xbox One exclusivity, which oh boy pissed quite a few people off. At E3 2014, Microsoft announced an exclusivity deal that limited the game’s release to Xbox One and Xbox 360 (worked on by the porting gods Nixxes Software) and as such had pissed everyone off, including the person I was streaming the game for who went on an entire rant about it. However like most of their exclusive deals, this was only temporary as the game would later release less than a year later on PS4 which included all of the DLC plus new costumes and content along with added VR support for PCs. Overall, the game was released with critical acclaim as the best game in the entire “Survivor Trilogy” from fans along with over 1 million sales by the end of 2015.
Rise of the Tomb Raider came for me at a time around Christmas of 2017, one year or so fresh out of high school and into my first job working minimum wage at the local old folks home being a dishwasher. I had previously 100 percent completed the other Tomb Raider reboot game on the Xbox One as it was a Games for Gold for one of the months. I had enjoyed that game and at the time I delved into achievement hunting on the Xbox One, at least to a certain extent even if I was frustrated at the constant backtracking for collectibles and the like. While everyone’s kind of doing their own thing, I’m going to shoutout Realmofwolvesx for the game; while I don’t talk to them much these days due to life stuff, they’re pretty big balling. Initially, I had played this at some point in 2018 and had beaten it all the way through, beating the base game and the collectibles while temporarily giving up on all of the Expedition side content that I had gotten with all of the DLC. However, I had been streaming games for a friend recently around the Thursday of every week and she had been requesting that I delve into the Tomb Raider reboot games in the backlog. Having picked up the first Tomb Raider reboot on Steam for free a while back, I figured I’d replay this game and give it a spin just because of the release chronology but also because I genuinely liked this game more than the previous one. Honestly while Tomb Raider is a solid title, I feel this game is the step up for what you would want in a sequel, even if they don’t change a whole lot of the fundamentals of it.
So here’s what I’m going to do here. Rise of the Tomb Raider has SO MUCH content that sitting down and rewriting them all is going to be a huge pain in the ass, and also there isn’t much in the way of expounding the formula other than adding new additions here and there. What I’m going to do is copy and paste certain bits from the Rise of the Tomb Raider Wiki Page (here: https://tombraider.fandom.com/wiki/Rise_of_the_Tomb_Raider#Plot) and I’ll give my general thoughts on it because there’s A LOT of content and DLC that factors into the character development. However, I will be giving my thoughts in between on gameplay, graphics, atmosphere and art design as well.
“The game begins with a small camp in Siberia, where Lara Croft is gazing at the huge mountains that await them. Jonah tells her that the others won't be accompanying them anymore except him. The climb soon becomes challenging, with Lara nearly falling down to her death. As Lara reaches the top, she sees the ruins of Kitezh from afar, but the storm strikes the mountain and separates the two.”
Just for the first bit, what I’ll say graphically is that this game looks pretty fucking good. I love the hostility of the weather and pardon the terrible pun, the cold open that sets the tone for what the adventure is going to be like. You are Lara Croft and you’re thrown into the middle of it, however after the previous game she knows how to handle things a bit more. However, I’ll be honest I was very much confused about the fate of the Endurance crew. It’s revealed more in the comics but truthfully, the fact that Jonah is here just feels…strange? I don’t know, he was cool in the last game but I never really thought he was the “go-to” person for Lara as I always felt that him and Sam would be the ones to stick it out. However, she would later get removed from the series anyways via the comics and it just feels…off. I don’t know, I don’t hate Jonah but at this point I felt “lets see how this goes”. You also get introduced to Ana, Lara’s stepmother sometime around this scene and if you look really closely in the background you’ll find references to Yamatai and apparently previous Survivor Era comics and a book. The whole cutscene is basically Lara saying “she has to do this” while Ana is saying “don’t”.
“The scene then reverts to Syria, where a man drives Lara through the northwest borders of Syria's deserts. The man tells her that they are heading for a war zone and she better be sure about this, to which Lara exclaims that they are close to an oasis near a canyon up ahead. Suddenly a chopper appears and chases them, in which the man tells her that it's just local militia. Lara realizes that the man is lying and the chopper is actually Trinity. The man admits to telling Trinity because they paid better than her. Then the chopper fires, crashing the truck and killing the driver. Lara survives the explosion and falls off a cliff. But she survives with the aid of her climbing ax. She explores the mountain cliffs and eventually finds a secret entrance that leads her to the Prophet's tomb. After exploring inside, she finds a marker saying that the prophet tomb is near and murals depicting the prophet performing healing miracles and preaching to the people about the Divine God. Lara soon learns that Trinity was after a prophet who they believed was preaching about a Divine Source. They supposedly killed him and his followers and had been looking for the Divine Source many centuries ago. As she evades the deadly traps in the area and nearly drowns, she finally finds the shrine dedicated to the tomb of the deathless prophet. After finding a way to raise the water level by opening the floodgates, she reaches the top and finds the tomb. However, as she opens it, she is surprised to see it empty. The area is soon stormed by Trinity's armed forces led by a man named Konstantin. As they open the tomb, Lara comes out and aims a gun on them. Konstantin asks where the Divine Source is, to which Lara answers and tells him that there was no artifact there. Konstantin does not believe Lara and attempts to kill her, but Lara activates the explosives that Trinity set in the area. The area collapses, killing most of Trinity's forces. Lara barely manages to exit the water flooding the area, and soon finds a mysterious cross insignia engraving on the floor.”
Syria is the first gameplay section, but don’t expect it to be really big. You have two areas you can go to, one is a small circle room and you can pick up some collectibles over there and after you run through some scripted set pieces you’ll end up in the big ass room at the end where you’ll have some more stuff to pick up. You don’t really get into combat too much as it’s the tutorial section, but if you’re really thorough you could probably get almost everything in one go possibly. Now once you leave Syria you won’t be able to teleport back until after the main story is finished, and as such it was the last place that I had to get everything 100 percent. Looking out to see the desert landscape surrounded my mountains and a city down below. Also, the driver didn’t exactly think it through when he got murked through the windshield, selling out information like that. If you sell someone out, leave the scene or separate yourself because the people who paid you likely won’t care for your safety.
“The scene then reverts to Croft Manor in Surrey, England where Lara is doing some research on the mysterious cross insignia she found earlier. Jonah enters the room and after a short reunion, asks Lara about her adventure in Syria. Lara told him that she did find the Prophet's tomb, but it was empty, and she was being followed by an organization named Trinity who was also after the Divine Source. She told Jonah that she found a mysterious insignia of a cross during her escape. In one of her father's books, it says that the insignia is linked to the lost city of Kitezh in Siberia, which sank under a lake during the eve of the Mongol horde's invasion in the 12th century. Lara believes that if this really contains the secret of immortality, then it could change everything like sickness, death, to which Jonah becomes angered and regards that she has gone insane. He says he'd lost a lot of friends already and doesn't want to lose her. An angry Jonah leaves the room. Lara loses hope and shoves all the papers away. She kneels down and hugs the book. Later she sees a mysterious shadow on the vase and thinks it is Jonah. But she soon realizes that the mysterious figure behind her is not Jonah and immediately throws the vase at the intruder. An intense hand-to-hand fight ensues between the two. Jonah hears the commotion and helps Lara. The man steals her father's book and jumps out the window before Lara can shoot him. Jonah now becomes determined to help Lara find the Divine Source before Trinity does in Siberia.”
Nothing really to point out here for the most part, other than I’m surprised Lara didn’t just shoot the guy? I guess I wouldn’t have wanted to because I didn’t want to destroy the book but she really should’ve just popped his ass like Jules and Vincent would have in Pulp Fiction. Also again, Jonah was cool but I never really saw him as “bestie” status, so I must have missed something in the lore between the comics and books that had this become a thing. Who knows, maybe I’m daft and I didn’t notice either, so it could be my fault. Also, keep in mind that between Syria and Siberia is where 95% Blood Ties DLC takes place in, so I guess if you want to do that now then you can, with the post-game mop up taking place afterwards. However, the only thing you can really do other than find stuff that you missed is pick up three collectibles in Richard’s office from your previous two adventures and a letter from the front door I believe? I’m sure there’s more I just don’t remember.
“The scene then goes back to the present day in Northeastern Siberia. Lara awakens and tells Jonah to go back to shelter because she needs to finish the quest alone via radio. Lara then overhears a conversation from Konstantin saying that they are now looking for the artifact in the mountains and the Remnant, a group of natives trying to protect the Divine Source, is resisting them, but they will be handled. After gathering some sticks for fire and making a camp, she sleeps for the night, waiting for the storm to stop. Meanwhile, in the forest, a remnant (remnants are the natives who stayed in the area to protect the Divine Source) named Sofia and her companion are chased by Konstantin's forces. They managed to capture the remnant. Sofia urges them not to kill him, but the remnant tells her to go and leave him. Trinity kills the remnant and Sofia flees. The group split up to look for Sofia, and one of them finds Lara's campfire. Lara overhears the noise and manages to hide up in a tree. As the soldier investigates the campfire, Lara jumps down and kills him. As she explores the forest further, she manages to sneak in and kills many soldiers quickly. Then she overhears someone screaming and rushes. After finding the radio which was the source of the screaming, a large grizzly bear appears out of its hiding in a cave and chases Lara. Lara runs and tries to fight the bear, which overpowers and injures her. She barely manages to escape and soon finds Trinity's base of operations in a cold war installation. Lara has a flashback of her childhood years. She climbs the window to her father's room, and her father laughs, saying that she refuses to use the door again. Lara says that it's the fastest way. They then embrace. Lara says that he is going on another adventure and she should be his assistant. Her father says that his adventure would be really dangerous. Then he told Lara that she will make such a mark on history and make him proud. Then the phone rings and the flashback stops. The scene goes back to Lara in the present day. She realizes that the only way to the installation is through the bear cave. After a short fight, Lara explores the ruins inside the cave and the flashbacks continue. Young Lara overhears her father having an argument on the phone with a mysterious caller, presumably Trinity, over his discovery. Trinity hangs up, angering her father. Lara gets mad at her father and tells him to stop his adventures and be her father again. Then the scene reverts back to Lara's adventure. While walking, an arrow almost hits her. As she draws her bow, she finds Sofia, the one who fired the arrow.“
Again with Jonah, you won’t end up seeing him for most of the game ‘til the very end anyways because of this so why bother putting him in? Keep in mind, I don’t hate Jonah, he’s a nice guy and he’s cool as hell! I’m just surprised that they would put him in like this, give him some emotional depth and then essentially throw him out for most of the game like this. I kind of forgot he was in it until the end because of this. Nonetheless, this is where the game really starts as Lara repeats what she did when she arrived in Yamatai: hunt animals (including creating poison arrows to take down a bear), establish a campfire and stuff like that. You’ll also get your first taste in real collectibles, roadblocks in which you’ll have to come back to later (mainly the explosive arrows I think?) for other Metroidvania styled gameplay (the process of backtracking to unlock new things with equipment you haven’t used before) as well as murdering soldiers. The game here really doesn’t focus on PTSD or trauma this time around, or at least not in the way that the first game did. In fact, they don’t really go with this at all as Lara just kills indiscriminately and it’s not thought of much. The main type of trauma they deal with here is family trauma, how her father affected her life both through his work and love and also the fact that realistically she was neglected due to his own trauma losing his wife.
“Lara tells Sofia that she is not her enemy. Sofia tells Lara that she killed many of Trinity's forces, to which Lara replies that she killed them to survive and she suspects Sofia did the same. Sofia tells Lara that Trinity had been there for days and that she must leave the place before it's too late. Lara says she can't because she came there for something important. Sofia then says that they did too and if she sees Lara again she will put an arrow into her throat. Lara says that they are on the same side and tries to prove this to her. However, a distant building in the soviet installation explodes, catching Lara's attention. As she was about to ask Sofia, she realized that she had disappeared. After delving further into the installation and killing many of the mercenaries there, she discovers that many remnants were being tortured by Trinity to reveal the location of the Divine Source. All of the remnants remained faithful and did not reveal the location, even if it meant death. After finding a pistol from a dead remnant, Lara overhears Konstantin explaining their objective to get the Divine Source which will open to a "new world." Konstantin blinds one of the mercenaries who failed to do his duties with his own fingers. A mercenary then contacts Konstantin via radio and tells him that they found a captive who might know the location of the Divine Source. Lara sneaks in, bombs the building, and escapes. While exploring, she finds more of the remnants, who give Lara missions like breaking the communication repeaters in the area and more, therefore gaining the trust of the remnants. Lara overhears conversations via radio that the captive seems to be the leader of the remnants and might know the location of the Divine Source. The captive seems to have some experience with interrogation techniques and the man on the radio tells them to get "creative" with doing the interrogation because if Konstantin does it, he won't like it. As Lara sneaks in behind a small cabin, she overhears a conversation with Konstantin and a mysterious man on the radio. The man (probably the head of the whole Trinity) tells Konstantin that his reports have ceased. Konstantin says that they were having difficulty with torturing the faithful remnants and the communications became offline, but they managed to put it under control. A mercenary sees Lara from behind. As Lara flees, a mercenary appears in front of her and knocks her unconscious.“
Meeting Sofia (who I nicknamed Aloy because they look almost exactly the same here) was interesting but I don’t really think factors in much except to hint at a greater set of allies and guilt trip Lara a bit about the path to the “Divine Source”, as the only way Trinity discovered it was through Lara’s book. I wouldn’t blame Lara too much for this as Trinity was the one who went out of their way to raid her place to begin with. However, their presence should alert them that something is up. How did they get this information to begin with? Time will tell, but regardless I remember this coming section very well due to the old Soviet architecture, and you’ll go through and kill everything but there’s something funny here. The mercenary that Konstantin blinds has the same model as the book thief, so I always took it as they’re the same guy and adds an extra layer of irony somewhat to the story for me as the dude was useful until he screwed up once. While this area does give you access to the first optional deep cave where you could find a whole bunch of stuff, going through the Installation and sliding down the rope will reveal your first BIG open area, also called the Soviet Installation? It includes the main sawmill, extra caves, the prison nearby and a mill of sorts that you’ll get too later in the story and is one of two open areas that you’ll be able to truly explore with different entrances to different areas. It’s also here that you’ll be given missions by a group called the Remnant, missions that were similar to the dummied out ones that were supposed to be in the previous game but were cut. Doing these missions will award you with upgrades and such so I would say you should do them, but you also don’t NEED too unless you’re on a higher level. On the way into the prison to sneak around you’ll also meet a Maintenance Tech, who runs the supply shack that harbors the lines to get into the prison. He’s not going to report you, in fact if you end up giving him any of the gold you’ve found collectible wise then you can trade it in for upgrades. HOWEVER, there is a trap here, one that I fell into the first playthrough: there isn’t enough ancient coins for everything in here, and as such I would say do your research and see what tools appear in game later and which ones don’t because some of these tool’s only purpose is just to unlock some stuff early that if you’re going to do 100 percent anyways, you can always do later. Overall, this is a cool looking area though with backtracking collectible stuff it starts to become a real pain in the ass later to do it here.
“She awakens, tied bound to a chair with all of her equipment removed from her. Lara sees Ana in front of her, also tied to a chair and captured. Lara asks her what she was doing there, to which Ana replied that "she doesn't know and she is scared." Lara apologizes for getting her involved in the situation. She didn't know they would come after Ana, to which Ana asks who are "they." Lara says they were after the same thing her father was, which annoys Ana. Konstantin enters the room and forces Lara to reveal what she knows about the Divine Source by slowly choking Ana in front of her, but Lara cannot provide useful information. After Ana tells Konstantin that Lara is telling the truth, Konstantin releases her. It is then that Ana reveals the truth: she has been working for Trinity all along, having only posed as a prisoner. An angered Lara insults Ana and is slapped viciously by Konstantin. Ana tells Lara that she couldn't let it go and that Ana knew Lara would find her way to the place they are currently in. Ana offers Lara a deal - Trinity could use an experienced adventurer like her to find the Divine Source both of them seek, and that since Lara wants a purpose in life, Trinity could give her one. Lara refuses, knowing how Trinity operates. Lara furiously asks Ana if she was already with Trinity before or after screwing with her father. Ana replies that she loved Richard, but idealism blinded and destroyed him. Ana asks her what she would do with the artifact, to which Ana replies herself that Lara would show it to the world and redeem her father's good name. She tells Lara that she is so naive, "like a frightened little girl trying to walk in her daddy's shoes." Then she spits in Ana's face, resulting in Konstantin wanting to kill Lara. Ana refuses to let him in case they find use for Lara, and Konstantin locks her inside a prison cell. Lara meets another prisoner. After seeing Lara use a small earring to release her handcuffs, the prisoner becomes impressed. Then he asks if Lara could get both of them out of there. Lara says that she can't trust him because she doesn't even know who he is or why he is there. Lara apologizes for not really being in the trusting state at that time. The man tells her that she won't get far without him, to which Lara answers that he doesn't know how far she has come. Lara asks the man about what he knows about Trinity, to which the man says that they are a secretive sect who believes they are doing the work of God, which Lara regards Trinity as pretty "far from holy." Lara breaks the water pipe in the cell and breaks the wall. She manages to get to the other side of the room, where she retrieves her bow and arrow along with some rope, allowing her to craft rope arrows. Using her rope arrows, she manages to pull down the upper portion of her cell gate and crawl through to escape. The prisoner attempts to persuade her to help him, to which Lara says she can't trust him. The man says that they may not be enemies and that he can help her. Lara answers by saying she works better alone. The man still attempts to persuade her by saying that he knows the layout of the area, to which Lara responds by saying that she is a fast learner. The man says that he knows what she and Trinity are all after. Lara then agrees to help him. She retrieves all her equipment and opens the prisoner's cell. The man introduces himself as Jacob and thanks Lara. Lara then gives him a radio in case they get separated. Jacob guides Lara through the area.“
So right off the bat here, I didn’t really expect this “stepmother is actually a Trinity plant” twist, but also this brings something up for me. You only get to see her once before, so there’s no real character development here that makes his an actual surprising “twist”, even if it’s painted as such. The lack of build up makes me honestly not give a shit about this character and it’s a shame, because there are details in documents pointed out later that give her an interesting backstory. This woman is evil and manipulative, having given Konstantin (her brother) this stigmata god complex and luring him into the Trinity organization for her own ends. She’s not to be trusted and her relationship with Lara’s father is inevitably painted in a negative light because of this, but you won’t know unless you go out of your way to pick up documents and learn about it. Otherwise, she’s just some blonde chick who you’ll forget about by the end of the story and it’s kind of sad how forgettable she becomes other than “stereotypical evil woman” otherwise. Also meeting Jacob was interesting, and he’ll definitely factor in the story later (in an interesting twist that I didn’t expect, in a good way this time!) but for now the only thing I can remember is that this is where you can create the rope arrows to which you could backtrack and perhaps use on different areas for collectibles if you want to get them now.
“Lara soon learns that the soviets were sent there to work in the mines, excavating ancient artifacts. The two soon discover that Trinity has been conducting operations in the area, and that the gate to the train yard that leads to Jacob's village in the valley is closed. Lara sneaks in and opens the gate. The two enter a building and overhear a conversation between Ana and Konstantin, who chastises her for being sentimental towards Lara. Ana realizes that Konstantin had doubted her, and becomes furious. Then she coughs, revealing she suffers from a terminal illness. Konstantin says life has been hard on both of them and that he will protect Ana, to which Ana replies with sarcasm by asking who is being sentimental now. It is then revealed that Ana only wants the Divine Source to cure her illness, and that Konstantin is in fact Ana's brother. Ana then orders to send the men to the village to get more information from the remnants. Jacob is angered by this and tries to get to them but Lara stops him, saying it is too dangerous. A mercenary contacts Konstantin, saying that two prisoners have escaped the cells. They leave the area along with the mercenaries and goes to the cells. Meanwhile, Lara jumps down and finds an ancient text saying, "Mankind shall be judged, the non - believers turned to ash and swept away and the pure of faith will be raised up and given...life eternal." The alarm rings and the two split up as troopers storm the area. Lara treads the water down the basement quietly to avoid the mercenaries. Lara goes out of the basement hole and escapes in the other room. Jacob contacts her and tells her to meet him at the train yard near the end of the Gulag prison. The mercenaries find her and chase her down, with Lara managing to steal an assault rifle from a mercenary. As she reaches the train yard, she sees Jacob take down a mercenary easily. The two get chased by Trinity's chopper through the train tracks and into the trains. The chopper blows down the rest of the tracks causing a dead end. Troopers and the chopper had cornered Lara, with the two escaping by jumping down a nearby river. They barely survive the freezing waters. The chopper continues to chase down Lara, separating the two temporarily. After an intense, death - defying chase, Lara jumps down a zip line which soon gets cut down. Lara falls down a nearby river and nearly drowns.“
I like the idea of Ana only going after the Divine Source to cure her terminal illness, that is something I think is an interesting angle and adds a bit of depth to her character. The only other thing I could really add to this section other than the reveal of the two as siblings is just the fact that the game really knows how to pull off some pretty damn great action set pieces, and the whole train track helicopter chase explosion thing was actually pretty solid though.
“After another flashback of young Lara seeing her father dead in his office, she awakens with Jacob in a small camp. Jacob gives Lara some soup. Lara tells Jacob that he could've left her to die, to which Jacob replies and asks if Lara has left him. Jacob asks her why she risked so much to get to that place to seek the Divine Source. Lara says that when she was young, it was just her and her archaeologist father who in his last years was obsessed with myths about immortality in which no one believed him, including Lara, with their last conversation being a fight where he took his own life. She thought she had come to terms with it, but something else happened. During her experience in Yamatai, she saw something supernatural, and had started to believe her father. Her father died alone and broken, but died for something. Jacob asks her if she believes that the Divine Source is real, to which Lara says she honestly doesn't know, but if there is some truth to it, she must find out because the Divine Source is something not to be hidden, something that needs to be researched, studied, something that could make a difference to the world, with Jacob answering back by saying a difference is not always for the best. Then he asks Lara if she thinks Trinity should have the secret to immortality, to which Lara answers no. Jacob then asks her not to abandon her quest but to alter its path by joining his people in repelling Konstantin and Trinity. Lara asks after that what's to be done. Jacob answers that she leaves their valley untouched, but knowing she did the right thing. She refuses, saying that she will fight Trinity alongside Remnant but her goal remains the same. She says that once she gives up she will be letting her father down and she herself needs to understand. Jacob grows concerned about his village and leaves, saying that his village is a day's travel on foot over the mountain pass, but there is a shortcut through the old copper mine. He tells Lara to rest and he'll be back soon.“
I have nothing really to say here story wise, but what I will give is some of the improvements that the gameplay has taken compared to the first Tomb Raider. If you’ve gone this far you’ve at least been to a campfire, and you might have already seen it. If you get the DLC then you’ll have unlocked multiple separate outfits from classic Tomb Raider outfits as well as separate DLC outfits and weapons. With the weapons system in this game compared to the first one, there are multiple different weapons for each type which is upgraded from the first game, along with the fact they shared upgrades for each other (most of them anyhow). I’ll admit however, I really miss the evolution of watching your gun go from a Type-whatever Japanese machine gun into a makeshift AK. How about the outfit abilities? They all have different abilities but at the same time, they never really made too much of a difference for me personally and I rather stuck to the aesthetically pleasing stuff as if you’re going to 100 percent, most of the time it worked well regardless.
“The next day, Lara resumes her quest and follows Jacob's directions on her radio by going to the base of the old Soviet mill to meet her at the mine entrance at the top of the facility. Soon Jacob contacts her again and tells her that he is pinned down and Lara must escape. Lara infiltrates the base where the soviets had stored the ancient artifacts and kills the mercenaries trying to catalog the Soviet's relics. After throwing a molotov cocktail, the building starts to burn and Lara gets attacked by troopers armed with shields, but Lara manages to fend them off. She escapes the building and makes it through the mine where Jacob saves her from nearly getting killed by a mercenary. While exploring the mine, Lara realizes that the mines were once paths leading to Jacob's village. After the Soviets explored the area and used machines and explosives to search for artifacts that Trinity is now continuing, many of the old paths collapsed, which complicated things. Trinity's forces start to destroy the whole area separating Lara and Jacob, who become trapped by rocks. Jacob tells her to go find Sofia and tell her that Trinity is preparing an attack on the Remnants. Lara barely escapes, avoiding the machinery. Lara explores part of the lost city of Kitezh, where Trinity was trying to break open a large gate by attaching a cable to a truck and attempting to pull it down. Using her logic and intellect, Lara manages to find ways to use the obstacles in the area to open the door. The area nearly collapses and Lara jumps just in time to reach the entrance. Inside Lara finds a statue of the immortal prophet and murals. The first mural shows the exodus of the prophet's followers in Syria, then another mural shows the prophet and his followers building a village in the valley which is Kitezh. The third mural depicts the building of an army to protect the prophet and the city itself. And lastly, a mural depicting the creation of a small artifact known as the atlas so that the prophet can know his city and its secrets. Lara realizes she must get this atlas to find the Divine Source.“
Here is where I’m going to bring up two separate gameplay elements: the tombs and the set pieces. The tombs is where I’ll start as it’s a considerable step up from the previous game’s tombs that you’d raid. There’s only one more (or two if you have the DLC) tomb than in the previous game and they still give rewards like bow parts or a codex, which gives you specialized skills that you can’t unlock otherwise. However, they also feel a lot more puzzle based than the previous games and that may or may not be a good or bad thing depending on who plays. I’ll straight up tell you that I blow at puzzles, and as such attempting to play the puzzle portions I half sucked and half was able to wing it and figure it out compared to the first where I was almost always able to wing it with the exception of one physics based timing puzzle. I’m personally mixed on it though I’ll accept that the game is called “Tomb Raider” and is about raiding tombs and solving puzzles rather than murdering dozens of people at once. Thank god for guides (Shoutout to Stella’s guides) and the help of my more intellectually superior friends to give me help as well. Also the set pieces are still phenomenal like the one with the drill in this section or the burning mill though I don’t find them always as memorable as the first one.
“Lara finds the village where she gets surrounded by remnants led by Sofia. Lara tells her that she is not with Trinity, and that she escaped with Jacob, which Sofia does not believe and regards that Jacob would never trust an outsider. Lara says they were exploring the mines when the whole place collapsed, trapping Jacob, which one of the remnants regard as killing him. Just as she was about to shoot Lara with a bow, Jacob miraculously appears and stops Sofia. They embrace, and Jacob asks Lara to forgive Sofia for being cautious. Jacob tells Sofia that Trinity is about to prepare an attack on the Remnants and they must prepare. Jacob orders that no harm will reach Lara. Then he orders the preparations of the weapon stores and the battlements. He says that they are outnumbered, and the ones unable to fight go to the catacombs. Jacob tells her to work hard with the villagers to gain their trust. Jacob then tells her to light the signal tower to warn the people to evacuate, which Lara complies. Trinity choppers start to attack the area and soon the entire village is engulfed in flames. Jacob and two others are taken hostage, with their captor shooting them one by one. Lara tries to help him but Jacob stops her. After the first remnant is shot, the captor is about to shoot the second remnant until Jacob tells him not to do it. Just as the captor was about to shoot him, the second remnant tells him of an atlas that can show the way to the Divine Source, enough diversion for Jacob to kill the captor and give Lara his shotgun. After an intense gunfight with a mercenary armed with a flamethrower, Trinity's forces retreat as the natives shoot fire arrows at them. In a chapel at the Soviet installation, Konstantin hears the news of Lara's cooperation with the Remnants to fend off Trinity and becomes violently frustrated. Konstantin tells Ana that they should have killed her, to which Ana replies that he has nothing to do for his efforts and she'll succeed when he's failing. Konstantin furiously answers that he will not fail, to which Ana answers back that Trinity will step in if he does, and that means she is expendable. They will not care about her survival and that she needs the power of the source. Ana then coughs, with which Konstantin tells her not to lose faith in God and that their success is inevitable. Konstantin then prays and asks for the way to find the Divine Source and grant him strength to commit the sins just to get through the barriers between him and the Source. After blood drips from his hands, he presumes that it is the only way.“
This is the beginning of your second “hub” in the game, where you can go and interact with villagers and engage in some moments of peace along with a huge amount of collectible hunting as well. Compared to the old and snowy areas of the previous level, Geothermal Valley is easily the most beautiful and peaceful looking area of the entire game as it feels like it’s at the edge of the forest and not in danger. There’s new ways of traversal as well that you either have done throughout the campaign or will, like swinging from little hook areas as well as climbing trees and swimming as well, which adds a lot more variation compared to the last game as the last one had to cut swimming due to programming issues I believe? Also you get to meet Aloy again which is cool. As for the rest of it? The set pieces are still cool as hell, as there’s something that yells “awesome” watching as the entire place around you burns but otherwise not much to say here.
“Meanwhile, while Lara and Jacob treat the wounded remnants in the village, Lara apologizes for what is happening to his people and says Trinity won't stop. Jacob answers that it has been their duty and it is always difficult. Lara then asks about the atlas, which Jacob says that it is an ancient map of the lost city which Trinity will never find at the tower. Jacob says that many of his people are living by the tower and won't be prepared for what's coming ahead, so Lara volunteers to help them. Jacob then asks if she is doing this for the sake of his people, or for the Divine Source which she seeks, to which Lara answers both. After exploring the tower area, she finds no sign of the people, to which Jacob tells her via radio to find them in the catacombs because Sofia might have evacuated them there. Lara realizes that Trinity had taken the remnants as hostages in the area and infiltrates the underground catacomb ruins where Trinity's forces had Sofia's group as hostages, killing each of them one by one until they reveal the location of the atlas. Lara rescues them just in time and Sofia reconciles with her. Sofia then tells her that she wants to lead her people to safety, but the catacomb entrance is locked. Lara offers to help by bombing the gate. Sofia then tells her that although she seeks the Divine Source, her people are dying to protect it. Lara answers back, saying that her people are already dying and they can't protect it forever. Sofia tells her that they've already lasted so long and are glad to have her as an ally. Lara then goes to the tower where Trinity is converging and tries to rescue the people there. Jacob radios her and tells her that they are receiving fire from the chopper. He tells Lara to try and catch the attention of the chopper, to which Lara succeeds to get the upper hand. The remnants manage to take down the chopper with fire arrows, but Sofia tells her that Trinity's forces are still swarming the area. After an intense gunfight, Lara manages to fend off all of Trinity's forces in the area.
“Lara then asks Jacob about what really is the Divine Source, to which Jacob says that it is a long forgotten artifact that their Prophet took and hid in the lost city of Kitezh. They believed it holds a part of God's souls and that it will grant anyone who held it with immortality. The remnants are trying to stop Trinity from spreading darkness around the world and that if they find the Divine Source, their soldiers will be unstoppable. Lara then tells him to help her find the artifact before they do. She says that it is not just their burden but also her burden because her father died for it. Jacob tells her that she can't fill the emptiness inside her, but only set it free. She then continues her quest, with which Sofia tells her that since she helped them, she'll help Lara. Sofia tells her that the atlas is in the cathedrals but they won't follow her because there are the "deathless ones" in the area who will kill anyone who even trespasses. Lara accepts the challenge, and explores the cathedral. Sofia gives her a grapple/wire spool to help her reach the area. After stealthily avoiding Trinity's forces guarding the area, she finds access to the inner ruins and sees Ana overseeing the operations. Trinity is trying to bomb the floor, believing that the atlas is hidden underground. Lara ambushes them and threatens to kill Ana. Ana tells her that she'll never shoot her because it will be too cold even for Lara. Lara realizes her foot is tied to the explosives on the floor. Ana then shouts and orders to kill her, in which Lara responds by shooting the explosives. Lara and Ana fall underground with Ana falling on a higher platform than Lara. Ana tells Lara to reconsider her offer before it's too late, with which Lara says that it was already too late when Ana betrayed her family. Then she shoots Ana in the right arm and tells her to go to hell. Furious but still clinging to life, Ana radios trinity and orders them to give her the atlas. Lara delves deeper and finds the artifact, only to be ambushed by Trinity's forces. Lara makes advantage of the Greek fire vessels in the area to kill the mercenaries. She swims under the archives only to be chased down by a flamethrower-wielding mercenary. With him, the water starts to burn and the upper areas explode one after the other as sulfur surrounds the area. Then she uses the Greek Fire to take down a statue and blow her exit, only to be shot down by Greek fire arrows from the deathless ones. Lara manages to escape. Jacob contacts her and tells her to bring the atlas to the observatory.
Jonah finally finds a way to contact her and is relieved after realizing that Lara is still alive. Lara finds her way back to the observatory and reunites with Jonah. Lara then uses the atlas to determine the location of Kitezh and realizes that it is under the glaciers. However, Trinity's forces storm and attack the area. Lara falls off the window but manages to grab the chains. Jonah immediately grabs the atlas and attacks the mercenaries. Before one of the mercenaries could kill Lara, Jonah pushes him out the window. As he pulls Lara, a mercenary grabs Jonah and the artifact and escapes via a chopper. With Jacob wounded and Jonah and the artifact in Trinity's hands, Lara chases Trinity and starts from the old Copper Mill to the Gulag Prison, staging a daring rescue to save Jonah even if it means losing the Divine Source. Meanwhile, Ana and Konstantin had used the atlas in Trinity's Observatory and had started digging operations under the glacier. Ana fears that Trinity is just using them and will not let Konstantin keep the artifact to save her. Konstantin tells her to have faith.
Lara discovers that Trinity is beating and interrogating Jonah about the Divine Source, but he is resistant, causing Konstantin to lose patience and does the torturing himself. Lara helps the remnant prisoners escape and shoots the bulletproof glass window overlooking the room Jonah and Konstantin are in, causing a diversion. Jonah attacks Konstantin and steals his gun, threatening to shoot him, but Konstantin begs for his life. Lara insists that Jonah execute Konstantin but Jonah cannot bring himself to shoot an unarmed man, allowing Konstantin to pull out a knife and stab Jonah, to Lara's horror. Konstantin escapes and orders his men to sweep the area and kill her. The remnant prisoners help Jonah, telling Lara that only Jacob can help Jonah. Lara tells them to barricade the door and leaves to secure the area. After killing Konstantin's men, Lara returns to Jonah and the two Remnants, Jonah tells Lara that she has to stop blaming herself for everything that happened before passing out. One of the Remnants tells a tearful Lara that his time is short, though Jacob may be able to save him. Using a makeshift stretcher, Lara and the Remnant prisoners bring Jonah to the observatory and leave him under Jacob's care. Lara notes that has healed from his own injuries wordlessly. Jacob chants a prayer and uses his healing miracles, seals Jonah's wound.“
Again this is towards the latter half of the game, and while I understand that these two are supposed to be best friends, there’s nothing here to really suggest anything substantial to the overall plot. He shows up here for a bit, runs around and gets wounded. Sure, he provides some sound advice to Lara about not blaming herself and such but otherwise he doesn’t really do anything for the story here. You literally could’ve taken Jonah out and honestly nothing would have really changed. He’s here to add SOME emotional stakes and to ultimately reveal the next plot twist in the story which could’ve been done with anyone to be honest. I don’t know, I hate dogpiling on the guy like this but he just doesn’t do anything for me here.
“Lara confronts Jacob about who he is, having figured out that he is the Deathless prophet. Jacob reveals to her that the Divine Source is a deeply powerful artifact he found long ago, but is not actually divine. He lied to his people to protect them. He once used the source to grant his armies their immortality, but it was a terrible mistake. When enemies attacked Kitezh, the Deathless Ones brought the ice down upon the city. Thousands were killed, and they committed an atrocity to keep the power, and so will Trinity but on a much larger scale. Suddenly Trinity's choppers fly past in the direction of the glacier, Jacob realizes that they are going to use brute force to smash through the ice and take the source. Lara asks about the secret path leading to the city, which Jacob reveals as the dangerous Path of the Deathless, with no time left, Lara asks to be taken to the path. Jacob agrees, he orders Sofia to open the path before she takes their troops to hold Trinity off.“
This was a bit of an unexpected twist and while he as a character wasn’t really interesting to remember him in a later playthrough, I actually appreciate the motivations behind what will soon be revealed as this game’s undead army (like the samurai enemies in 2013 Tomb Raider) and it’s personal connection to the story. You can also find some documents that provide flavor text on his personality, his sadness as the people around him die with him staying the same age eternally.
“Jacob radios Lara inside and tells her about the Orrery, which was built by ancient astronomers before the deathless buried the area in ice. Jacob tells her that she needs the Orrery mechanism to open the entrance to Kitezh. Sofia radios Lara and tells her that they are on the mountain glaciers and are ready to fight Trinity, but Lara tells her to not attack too soon. She delves deeper into the Old City and sneaks past the deathless ones, who are preparing for an attack on Trinity as well. However, their attack is delayed when one of the Deathless Ones sees Lara. Lara narrowly avoids the Greek fire and kills the Deathless Ones. As she explores the village of the Deathless Ones, she realizes that a gate is blocking the entrance to the Chamber of Souls where the Divine Source is located. Soon, more of the Deathless Ones attack. Lara kills them and uses their trebuchet to bomb the entrance. Once she gets inside, Trinity finally break through the glacier, causing huge chunks of ice to drop. Things quickly escalate into a three way stand off between the Remnants, Trinity and the Deathless, as Lara scales her way to the chamber of souls. As she explores the village of the Deathless Ones, she realizes that a gate is blocking the entrance to the Chamber of Souls where the Divine Source is located. Soon, more of the Deathless Ones attack. Lara kills them and uses their trebuchet to bomb the entrance. Once she gets inside, Trinity finally break through the glacier, causing huge chunks of ice to drop. Things quickly escalate into a three way stand off between the Remnants, Trinity and the Deathless, as Lara scales her way to the chamber of souls.“
I love the medieval looking architecture along with the ice cave skybox colored textures, it provides a bit of a unique look for one of the game’s areas even if it looks familiar. Also the trebuchet is used for a challenge that I didn’t know about til’ looking it up late game so if you want to use it then try to take care of it while you’re there.
“Mortally wounded, Konstantin laments that this was not supposed to be his destiny and says that he was meant for greatness, as it was God's will. Lara tells him that it was never his destiny, that his sister deceived and tricked him into thinking that he was chosen. Konstantin is shattered by this revelation, as everything he had done was for her. Lara begins to leave to stop Ana. Konstantin demands she not walk away from him, telling her that Trinity killed her father, calling him pathetic and a failure and that he begged for his life, when that failed, he begged for Lara's. The game then offers a choice. The Player can execute Konstantin, or walk away, leaving him to be killed when the floor collapses causing him to plummet into the flames below.“
Honestly, spoiler alert, he still dies anyway so it doesn’t really matter. I ended up murking his ass both times so do your thing ya know? And also it’s kind of sad seeing this homicidal mercenary man with a divine complex to finally see his hopes get shattered like that though truth be told it’s hard seeing anyone’s hopes get crushed.
“Lara rushes to the very center of the city, where Ana is about to use the Divine Source. Lara tells her that her men are defeated and Konstantin is dead, and that is what Trinity had always wrought - death. Ana is shaken by her brother's death but refuses to give up the Divine Source, telling her that she doesn't want to give it to Trinity and that Lara is dooming her father to be mocked by history. Ana is dismayed by her and tells her how she can let it go when she is so close. Lara answers, stating that she is ready to make a sacrifice. Lara tells her that she can't let her take it. Ana replies, saying that they could save millions of suffering and dying people and change the world together. Lara says that the cost is too high and that they aren't meant to live forever because death is a part of live. Ana answers back, saying that it's easy for her to say because she is not the one who is dying. Lara tells her that it isn't about her but it is about protecting what it means to be human. She tells Lara "Another Croft doesn't have to die for this. One of Trinity's soldiers appears and tells Ana that they are surrounded, but soon gets stabbed by Jacob. Ana quickly shoots Jacob multiple times in retaliation, injuring but not killing him. Wounded, Jacob shouts that the divine source is not meant for the world. As Lara aims her gun at Ana, she aims her gun at Lara as well, beginning a standoff. Ana tells Lara that it's her chance to prove herself after everything they've both done. An army of the deathless ones advance on Ana, she empties her gun into them, to no avail. With no other way out, she uncovers the source and gazes upon it.“
“The artifact overpowers Ana, dropping the shining blue crystal. Lara grabs it but would not look at it for it might overpower her as well. Surrounded, Lara looks to Jacob, who tells her it's okay. Lara apologizes, (possibly to her father) and shatters the Divine Source, freeing the trapped souls, and causing its power to cease, to Ana's dismay. Now that the Divine Source is destroyed, causing any who had gained immortality from it to lose it, including Jacob, mortally wounded, Jacob begins to die. Lara tells him to hold on, though he laments, he's held on for too long, and begins laughing as his end is near. He tells Lara that he's met few as extraordinary as Lara. Lara apologizes saying she only wanted to make a difference, Jacob merely tells her "You already have", before he peacefully turns to dust. In Croft Manor, Lara had listened to his father's last words on a tape, "My dearest Lara, I often think about how my father would turn over in his grave if he knew the shame I had brought upon my family name. Croft....what does it even mean? I just hope you can make your own mark on this world someday. Remember that the extraordinary is in what we do, not who we are." Jonah tells her that breaking the source was the right thing to do. Lara replies, thinking that she still let him down. Jonah told her that he would've made the right choice. Jonah then tells her that she still has a plane to catch. Then the two leave off in the manor.“
The fun fact here is that this time, they actually do a bit of teaser material correctly! In the previous Tomb Raider game, they had teased Roanoke only to totally flub that and instead go for Siberia instead. In this game, they actually tease Mexico which is at the very least the first part of this game’s sequel, Shadow of the Tomb Raider.
“After the credits roll, a post credits scene starts two weeks before Lara was at the manor, happening just after Lara destroys the Divine Source. Lara and a sickly weakened Ana walk through the snow in Northeastern Siberia. A weak Ana sits on a rock and coughs. Lara asks what she meant when she said 'another Croft doesn't have to die for this.' After Ana gives Lara a few moments, Lara points her gun at Ana and demands to know if she killed her father. Ana explains to her that Trinity ordered his execution but she couldn't do it. Lara dismisses it as a lie. Ana then tells her that she loved him, before being shot dead by a hidden sniper. The hidden sniper, while aiming directly at Lara's head, asks his boss on the radio if he should kill Lara, to which the unseen superior responds "No, not yet".
This twist apparently has a bit of a similarity to a cut Tomb Raider: Underworld ending, but it’s an ending that I actually genuinely enjoyed. For all the manipulative shit that Ana has put Lara through, the idea that she genuinely loved her father is an interesting detail that adds two layers: one is that there is some genuineness underneath her demeanor, though the detail I prefer is that she’s obviously trying to get into Lara’s head so she could be spared. The hidden sniper though is definitely something that’s really cool and adds a bit of mystery and impact. The sniper is probably part of Trinity but who was it? Why? Why does the sniper’s boss want to be spared? Apparently this is all answered in the sequel, Shadow of the Tomb Raider, but it’s an interesting game to leave off of.
“After finishing the story mode, if you go back to the world, you will get a scene where Lara is talking to Sofia about her father with Sofia replying that she trusts her and is thankful for her help against Trinity.“
That’s basically it for my review breakdown for the main plot of the game, though the only thing I can add here is that always while it doesn’t feel as bad as I thought it was going to be, backtracking for collectibles like this still blows and in a lot of cases feels bloated and eye rolling. Of course I didn’t have to do it so that’s on me, but I was surprised when coming back that it wasn’t as tedious as I thought it was because aside from a few instances, I actually fell into a rhythm of being able to find everything pretty easily.
Baba Yaga: The Temple of the Witch
Lara investigates a disturbance within the Soviet mining facility. After fighting off a Trinity patrol, she discovers a young girl named Nadia hiding in a sawmill. Nadia confides in Lara, recounting her search for her grandfather, Ivan. Ivan has disappeared while trying to enter the Wicked Vale, a valley rumored to be haunted by Baba Yaga, a witch from Russian folklore. Ivan blames the witch for the death of his wife and seeks to kill her. Lara is skeptical of Baba Yaga's existence, but as Nadia is injured, she agrees to enter the Wicked Vale and locate Ivan.
So, the beginning of this DLC takes place I believe the first or second time you enter the Soviet Installation map, where a Trinity patrol will be scouring through the sawmill in the middle of it. This DLC could be done at any point in the game I believe, though certain collectibles are only available to pick up after grabbing certain tools later on. I personally would place it to be immediately, as soon as you get it BUT my friend didn’t want to see the DLC because she thinks Baba Yaga stuff is freaky and also because I don’t know when Cold Darkness takes place so you could really place the DLC anywhere in the map. Luckily Baba Yaga connects to the main game so you could really do anything at any point anyways.
Once in the Vale, Lara is exposed to a rare pollen with potent hallucinogenic properties. After stumbling through a forest, tormented by visions of her father's suicide, she encounters Baba Yaga and a pack of demonic wolves. Lara narrowly escapes with her life and finds herself in a small Soviet-era outpost. There she unearths evidence of a secret Soviet biological weapons project that attempted to harness the pollen as a weapon; however, the project came to an abrupt end after the researchers, including Serafima, a biochemist imprisoned in a nearby gulag, succumbed to the hallucinations.
Now this is where the DLC really kicks into itself, and I appreciate offhand that whilst it’s an obvious hallucination that it also hits Lara personally as well. The entire hallucination sequence you’ll be dealing with her father and his suicide as well as some of the blame that she places upon herself. The atmosphere in this section is pretty good, and there’s a bit of a claustrophobic feeling walking through these woods. Seeing the hallucination however of the giant house with the feet like in the legends were freaky as hell, though the shadow wolf re-skins were kind of blatantly stereotypical and obvious. I don’t know, I can’t judge too much because it would be nitpicky and they were working with what they had but it did pull me out a bit. Also, I’m not sure why Lara would be reluctant to believe that Baba Yaga exists considering that she’s seen a LOT of supernatural shit going on at Yamatai, and even later with the Deathless Ones? That’s kind of strange and feels a bit out of character but I guess no one could really believe that a walking house has chicken legs so whatever there.
Realizing that Serafima resented her captors, Lara correctly deduces that she had successfully weaponized the pollen and developed an antidote and kept her research secret from the military. With Nadia's help, Lara synthesizes a rudimentary antidote from Serafima's recipe and returns to the Wicked Vale. Resisting the effects of the pollen, Lara finds Ivan injured at the entrance to Baba Yaga's lair.
This is kind of a padded fetch quest a bit, one where you go back to the Soviet Installation and trudge into different caves and hunt some animals in order to find things you need for the antidote. Luckily it’s not too bad that it’s a problem, however (and this is probably a skill issue), the puzzle to GET to the house lift that takes you to Baba Yaga’s lair? Fuck that shit, that was so frustrating actually trying to figure out that even with a Youtube guide I was getting everything all wrong. It’s goofy as hell and while it’s thankfully minimal and while I understand that post-launch DLC should probably challenge current veterans a bit, this area is the area I remember the most from the entire game just due to how frustrating it can get.
Unable to leave the Wicked Vale so long as Baba Yaga continues to control it, Lara ventures on to confront the witch and is forced to battle Baba Yaga under the effects of the pollen. Lara prevails, destroying the source of the weaponized pollen. Baba Yaga is revealed to be Serafima, who was led to believe that her husband, Ivan, was dead, and so used the pollen to become Baba Yaga and torment her captors in revenge. With Ivan, Serafima and Nadia reunited, Lara leaves the Wicked Vale.
See, my main issue with the DLC is that if you had found ANY of the documents you kind of realize what the full picture story is before Lara even does, or at the very least you realize that Serafima IS Baba Yaga. It’s not a bad twist by any means but with the limited amount of characters introduced plus the context that these documents were written in? It’s basically the only plausible explanation, though I’ll admit story wise that thinking about the distance between the grandparents for decades made me a bit sad. However, if she was able to get all of the supplies to build a giant house lift, I’m surprised she didn’t venture out more and perhaps find the natives that Ivan was living with? Also, the final boss here was actually pretty cool with you juggling both hallucination enemies (basically reskins of Deathless Ones) as well as using the rope arrow trick multiple times and ascending the layers makes for an engaging and challenging fight.
However, if I were to give any criticism to this final arena, it would be that backtracking into the final boss letter to collect all of the documents and such is probably one of my least favorite areas to do it in, mainly because some of the ways to the actual documents are honestly kind of frustrating and I had to look up a guide for it. In fact, another reason to beat the DLC after the base game is just because they seemed to have ramped up puzzle difficulty to an annoying level and that’s what might’ve ultimately pushed me to say “fuck this” and stop trying for 100 percent last time.
Cold Darkness Awaken:
“Lara enters a decommissioned Soviet weapons bunker that has been breached by a Trinity patrol. Trinity has inadvertently released an unstable pathogen into the air, which causes the people it infects to regress to a zombie-like state. Men are particularly vulnerable as the virus stimulates testosterone and adrenaline production. The pathogen was created by a Soviet researcher with the intention of creating an army of unstoppable super-soldiers, but all of his experiments ended in failure. Following an accident that released the pathogen, he died in the facility, proud that he had at least created a weapon to protect his homeland. With Sofia and Nadia providing support from a helicopter, Lara attempts to find the source of the pathogen before an enormous cloud is released into the atmosphere and contaminates the Remnant valley.”
My thoughts on this DLC were as follows: it’s a solid short-form horror based DLC where you essentially fight zombies in a small, sectioned off map separate from the main campaign itself. The only way to access it is through the Expeditions Mode I believe, yet contains an actual plot in relation to the main game. The atmosphere is dark and weather oppressive while pretty creepy and tense with an emphasis on stealth gameplay. Making noises unleashes a horde of infected dudes on you that while limited, feels like there’s just reserves of infected everywhere and it can basically get pretty scary. I also appreciate that this takes place inside of an abandoned Soviet facility, as these were basically my favorite environments in Rise of the Tomb Raider to begin with.
However, I was also kind of confused as to WHY this DLC was happening and HOW; maybe I missed it but there isn’t much in the way as to how Lara and the others even discovered the facility to begin with. You’ll load in to hear a Soviet researcher going on about his grand designs to create the ultimate super soldier for his country, but other than discussing with Nadia the plan to take down the facility and the stakes that it would have if the infectious gas were to hit the valley, there isn’t any inciting plot hooks to get us in.
“The three women hatch a plan to channel the pathogen from three towers into the central tower, and cause it to explode, which will hopefully burn off the toxin. Lara shuts down each tower while collecting equipment, rescuing female prisoners and eliminating waves of the infected Trinity soldiers, and finally enters the core tower. While fighting off the infected soldiers, she triggers a catastrophic explosion and jumps from the tower to Nadia and Sofia's helicopter. Nadia and Lara watch the explosion as they fly to safety. Although the resulting fire burns the remaining reserves of the pathogen, documents found throughout the facility reveal that the release was no accident; Trinity reactivated the facility to acquire a sample of the pathogen, and an agent of Trinity escaped with it before the bunker was destroyed.”
So what’s the gameplay like? It’s basically the same as the base game where you explore the map, solve puzzles (mainly revolving around the gas towers), kill enemies and grab collectibles which expound upon the background of the Soviet experiments as well as how Trinity is trying to grab samples of the serum for future. There’s a lot of randomized elements as well, mainly in terms of upgrade box locations (I think?), possible weapon placements (you don’t start with your campaign gear) but the female prisoners as well. These prisoners will appear on the map either randomly as you find them, or Nadia will point them out to you. Oftentimes they’ll appear JUST as you finished clearing out that section of the map and it’s kind of annoying to backtrack a bit just to rescue them in an area that you previously cleared but it’s not a super huge map anyways so whatever. Also, I appreciate but kind of find it funny as to why Lara is unaffected by any of the pathogens: she’s a wahman. The infection only attacks testosterone and while I think it’s a good excuse, it also kind of adds another layer to the horror mainly due to gender dynamics.
One of the documents does actually state that one of the agents managed to make an escape with it though I don’t remember actually seeing a bunker as much as I saw three towers and a giant building in the middle. I’m sort of curious as to how they’ll ever follow up on this DLC or if they even will in the future? Will a future Tomb Raider have this zombie pathogen at some point being used as a weapon? Probably not realistically, but it would be interesting to see it if not to resolve a plot point in general. Depending on how you complete the DLC, you unlock loot box rewards for the microtransaction system that I honestly haven’t followed/don’t really care for that much but does include things like “Big Head Mode” and other cool cheats. It’s a short DLC that’s randomized and ends on a cool bang but is isolated in itself that one would question whether this piece of DLC is canon at all. Regardless, I would give it a recommend and if you take your time with it, you could probably milk around two hours or so?
Blood Ties:
“Set between the prologue in Syria and Siberia, Lara receives a letter from her uncle, Atlas, who claims that she has no legal claim to the manor and he is the rightful owner of the Croft estate. Lara realizes that if her father left a will it's probably in his safe. She finds a note which offers hints as to what the safe combination is, and begins to search the house to find more clues. As she roams around the manor she reminisces as she finds mementos from her childhood. As well as this she finds her parents journals, chronicling their first meeting, time together as a couple, marriage, Lara's birth and culminating in her mother's death which acted as the catalyst for her father's obsession with finding proof of an immortal soul.”
Atlas is written like such a fucking chud here that it’s almost funny how easily hateable this dude is written. In some ways it even feels like a stereotype how much a douche he is but some people are just like this. This is also where I’ll address the gameplay of Blood Ties: the plot feels VERY similar to games in the “walking simulator” genre, in a sense like What Remains of Edith Finch. You explore your old home, picking up and reading bits and pieces of lore while listening to the main protagonist recount their feelings as the echoes of the past replay moments trapped in time. It’s homely and comfortable, though the puzzle aspects feel like it could be confusing as hell. Most documents aren’t totally needed to push the story forward but some art for the sake of puzzle solving, especially if it has anything to do with the safe code. I would recommend having a guide nearby BUT I would also say that for the most part that the game actually does a solid job at keeping the progress going and letting you figure stuff out. Also, this DLC is apparently VR approved and I’m not surprised considering the simple concept of it. There’s no violence here, and atmospherically it’s actually pretty comfortable and peaceful to go through even if the DLC isn’t exactly a long game; the longest parts you’ll be dealing with is trying to find the safe code to be honest.
“After finding all the clues connected to the safe combination, Lara heads to open the safe. Inside she finds some personal belongings of Lord Croft, but no will. However, she finds a page which she discovers holds directions to a secret room in the cellar. Lara discovers her father's secret lab where he conducted research after deciding it was too risky to allow his research to be public. Lara finds another clue, which leads to Lara discovering that her father had found her mother's body and brought her home (though not before attempting to resurrect her). Lara discovers a clue that leads to a hidden crypt behind a wall in the main lobby of the house.”
The attempted resurrection of Lara’s mother actually made me feel sad here, the saddest the game had actually made me feel. The sadness of loving that loved one and feeling desperate to find ANYTHING that would bring her back is a feeling that’s very real. I can’t say that I’ve ever had any death in my life that made me feel like that but I couldn’t imagine the toll it takes on other people. It’s also delivered so well, the voice actor for Lord Croft really pushes the limits here and delivers a fantastic performance as a grieving father.
“Lara breaks down the wall which leads to a passage to the crypt, finding an elaborate sarcophagus where her mother is interred. Lara finds a letter from her mother, telling her that no matter what, they will always be connected, and that she hopes she finds success and happiness in her life.”
This was a pretty cathartic moment and made me tear up a little bit, but also I’m a huge sucker for sentimental moments in ANYTHING really. That’s really it, this feels like the culmination of all of the family trauma that Lara has endured throughout the entirety of Rise and it feels cathartic to finally get all of that to get some form of closure.
“Lara has the grave verified and sends the documentation to her uncle. Several weeks later (after the events of the main campaign) Lara receives another letter from her uncle, confirming that his claim on the manor as well as the rest of her family's assets has been rendered null and void as a result of her mother's death being verified. As such all of the Croft family assets have been transferred to her giving her sole control of the Croft estate. Lara muses to herself that she'd been so occupied with trying to stop her uncle from claiming the manor that she had not realized that it had so many memories and so much sentimental value. Wanting to honor her parents and ancestors, Lara swears to return her family's name to its former glory.”
So this section apparently takes place AFTER the campaign in a sort of time skip, which actually makes sense considering how the legal process goes. I had always felt however that this DLC could’ve taken place entirely AFTER the main game. It felt kind of strange and contradicting that during the base game she would relive the trauma of her father’s suicide when in Blood Ties it felt like she had actually wrapped up all of her issues and acknowledged her issues. That and the fact that there’s absolutely no combat in the slightest feels like the sort of epilogue that the game deserves and makes context within the sense of the campaign. However, technically I don’t think the game explicitly said (unless I’m wrong) that the epilogue to Blood Ties takes place AFTER the base campaign so I’m going to choose to take this whole campaign as the final piece of healing in Lara’s personal journey with her family history. It’s a pretty good DLC and would give this a recommendation.
Lara’s Nightmare:
“In Lara's Nightmare the sequence begins similarly to Blood Ties, but instead Lara's uncle is unwilling to give her the Manor. She fights off hordes of zombies and skulls before finding the Master Key. Finally, she kills the large skull in the main hallway, successfully ending her nightmare.”
See, this one takes place in the Croft Manor just like Blood Ties, and even opens up almost verbatim except this one clearly took an ominous horror tone to it. The atmosphere is creepy with constant darkness, reused zombie assets from Cold Darkness Awaken and I believe Baba Yaga dogs and other ideas like picking up random gun placements. The goal is to find three separate floating skulls around Croft Manor while these zombies hunt you down with limited ammo around the map as a sort of survival game mode. While it’s a simple premise and doesn’t add much to the story, it does a pretty good job holding a solid tone of tension regardless and might be the closest that the game and possibly the series gets to survival horror. As for where it stays in the story, it would be obvious to place it around the same time as Blood Ties.
Thoughts on the Plot:
The thing about the main plot for me is that it originally could’ve been so different in how it tackles stuff. The writer, Rhianna Pratchett, had originally wanted to focus on the PTSD that Lara faced after her time on Yamatai. This was apparently scrapped due to the company wanting her to focus on writing the story around the gameplay, amongst other studio decisions like focusing heavily on Lara’s dad. Everybody and their grandmother stuck their fingers into the proverbial plot bowl and therefore I can understand the frustration and lament the fact that the narrative dissonance is still a thing. Lara still goes on giant murder sprees and feels even less than she does in the previous game, and while I’m sad that it doesn’t attempt to expound upon trauma, I can also say that I can understand that there might not have been a consistent way with showing that while keeping up with decent gameplay at that time. Narrative wise you could explain it as Lara is becoming emotionally hardened because of her experiences to where she doesn’t feel it anymore, but realistically I just think it’s because the studio didn’t really give a shit and just wanted to make a good gameplay centered title. A lot of people gave it criticism for underdeveloped characters and admittedly that is true: Konstantin was remembered because of his stigmata and nothing else, I remembered Ana’s character arc but not her name, I completely forgot Jonah was even in the game, I forgot that there was even a Prophet and that his daughter existed and even his daughter I just ended up calling her Aloy all the time which is ironic because I always found the Horizon game plots to be boring. That being said, I surprisingly wasn’t bothered at all by this? For one, I think a lot of it was just because I appreciated the art direction that it was going, and that the gameplay was expanded in all the right places. I remember my time that I enjoyed with the game previously, and remember it being more fun than the previous game even if it wasn’t as memorable as the depression fest that the last title was.
However, going through it now I actually do appreciate a lot of the storytelling that the game does now even if it’s not as memorable. While I would’ve preferred the PTSD angle more, I surprisingly do appreciate the impact that Lara’s father had on her, and the storytelling as a whole. The whole plot is based around Lara trying to prove her father’s name and restoring his reputation at any costs, an action that of course leads to the consequences of secret society Trinity going into the Siberian mountains and waging war against the locals in order to find this treasure. The Baba Yaga DLC has her deal directly with her father’s suicide (along with Nadia’s family history with her grandparents), blaming herself for it even and finally getting that closure with the Blood Ties epilogue, exploring her family history and how that family history impacted her as a character and her drive. The game seems to be more about family dynamics than anything else; other than Lara’s baggage (which was mostly healthy but tragic) you have Jacob, an immortal prophet who for the longest time refused to settle down with ANYONE because he both felt selfish and didn’t want to see them pass away but did it anyways because he’s human along with his daughter (which was surprisingly healthy and not tragic, until the end at least). Then finally you have Konstantin, whose family relationship with his sister is based around manipulative gaslighting, making Konstantin think he’s some sort of second prophet that will use the Divine Source to heal his sister when really she’s been doing this shit her whole life and pushed them both into Trinity to satisfy her endgoals. I’ll just be the wordy asshole here and say thematically it’s the holy trinity; father, son and holy spirit except it’s father, daughter and deranged prophet? I don’t know, I’m not some pretentious youtube essayist so take what you want out of it but even if it’s unintentional, I still find it to be a decent way of delivery even if there were better ways for doing it. The “too long didn’t read” version: it’s a good plot, maybe not the most memorable but I’m okay with it.
So what is the Endurance Co-op? Truth be told, I wasn’t able to find someone to play this with, nor was I really bothered but generally speaking it’s a co-op session between you and one other person where you both play as Lara Croft (or in certain cases, one person apparently plays as Nadia) but I’ll put a gameplay link down below for those interested in giving it a look. One thing that I do want to mention between all of the extra game modes besides the story is that there’s a card earning system? You can purchase cards via microtransactions but aside from that you unlock these cards by playing these challenges (doesn’t have to be co-op) and completing as many parameters as you can to earn credits, which you then use to buy the cards which has perks like the ability to wear certain outfits or big head mode. I’ll be honest, I don’t understand why there had to be a microtransaction system in this game but I could’ve told you from the beginning that it would’ve flopped because I have no clue if anyone actually bought anything. I’ll post a video of the co-op mode but since I wasn’t able to play with anyone anyways (nor did I care to), I’m sure there are others who could say more about it.
The sound design aspects of the game are still pretty solid though I don’t have too much I could really say about them. Guns still sound pretty punchy, melee sounds visceral and violent and the explosions feel good too. The environmental stuff is pretty nice, with the main weather effect being extreme blizzards. The soundtrack is decent too, with an orchestral soundtrack by Bobby Tahouri who would compose a variety of things from movies and TV, though whose only work in video games included this game, a Transformers game, an Evanescence cover of a Fleetwood Mac song for Gears 5 and Marvel’s Avengers of all things. The only piece of music I really remember from this however is the music that plays for a bit when you find a secret because you hear it so much though it never bothered me. I don’t know, truth be told a lot of these orchestral soundtracks I just end up repeating in most of my reviews regardless sound good and do well blending into the background but nothing really stood out to me personally. How about voice acting? The most memorable voice acting jobs of course are Camilla Luddington for Lara who does such a fantastic job playing Lara that any other voice I would probably be okay with but wouldn’t hit me as much and Zach Ward of all people as Konstantin along with Charles Halford? I know Zach as the guy who played the Bully on Christmas Story and the Postal Dude, and I didn’t particularly recognize his voice anywhere to be honest, though I assume Charles did Konstantin’s main voice which honestly sounds like he could be a noir protagonist akin to Max Payne talking about the pain of life and the like. Everyone else does a good job though I think these two were the most recognizable to me personally.
After Rise of the Tomb Raider, I hadn’t really touched any of the Tomb Raider games for a while. Shadow of the Tomb Raider would only come out a couple of months after my expedition into the Siberian Mountains to find the Divine Source and after enjoying my 27 or so hours into my first playthrough I had moved on. Overall, if you were to go in to try all of the content at least once (the main story with the DLCs that would be considered story) I would say you could get at least a good 25 hours or more if that includes getting all of the collectibles and such. The story, while less interesting as an actual treasure adventure, just meshes a lot better with more interesting stakes and a more fleshed out feeling than the first. The gameplay is pretty much improved in every way and if you get all of the DLC then you WILL have your money’s worth playing through the game though I don’t really have much to say about it as it is pretty much basically the same. The sound design still holds up with a decent soundtrack and the graphics mixed with the art design feel a lot more colorful and interesting than the bleak and oppressive island of Yamatai from the previous game. If you liked the previous Tomb Raider or you’re looking for a casual adventure game that has a bit more of an emotional nuance than something like Uncharted then I would highly recommend a pickup. My final thoughts on this game are that it is technically better in every way, but that the first game is a lot more interesting. I guess it’s sort of fitting that after I had platinumed all of the Uncharted games that I would move onto Tomb Raider, and I intend on finishing Shadow next as a blind playthrough. I had already gone into what had happened for the most part with the rest of the history of the first two “Survivor Trilogy” which involved comic tie-ins and such but after this they kind of went straight to work on the sequel for three or so years.
Links:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=gpxNrb1XTGo
https://www.ign.com/wikis/rise-of-the-tomb-raider/Soviet_Installation
https://www.svg.com/792202/the-tomb-raider-plot-rhianna-pratchett-regrets-writing/
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/RiseOfTheTombRaider
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D15eRe0cgMw&ab_channel=LaraCroftTombRaiderGamingChannel (Soundtrack)
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3791072/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eq7CWxuzOdc&ab_channel=ThaiGameGuide-Let%27sPlayCo-opGames
From Steam Reviews: https://steamcommunity.com/id/gamemast15r/recommended/
Rise of the Tomb Raider came for me at a time around Christmas of 2017, one year or so fresh out of high school and into my first job working minimum wage at the local old folks home being a dishwasher. I had previously 100 percent completed the other Tomb Raider reboot game on the Xbox One as it was a Games for Gold for one of the months. I had enjoyed that game and at the time I delved into achievement hunting on the Xbox One, at least to a certain extent even if I was frustrated at the constant backtracking for collectibles and the like. While everyone’s kind of doing their own thing, I’m going to shoutout Realmofwolvesx for the game; while I don’t talk to them much these days due to life stuff, they’re pretty big balling. Initially, I had played this at some point in 2018 and had beaten it all the way through, beating the base game and the collectibles while temporarily giving up on all of the Expedition side content that I had gotten with all of the DLC. However, I had been streaming games for a friend recently around the Thursday of every week and she had been requesting that I delve into the Tomb Raider reboot games in the backlog. Having picked up the first Tomb Raider reboot on Steam for free a while back, I figured I’d replay this game and give it a spin just because of the release chronology but also because I genuinely liked this game more than the previous one. Honestly while Tomb Raider is a solid title, I feel this game is the step up for what you would want in a sequel, even if they don’t change a whole lot of the fundamentals of it.
So here’s what I’m going to do here. Rise of the Tomb Raider has SO MUCH content that sitting down and rewriting them all is going to be a huge pain in the ass, and also there isn’t much in the way of expounding the formula other than adding new additions here and there. What I’m going to do is copy and paste certain bits from the Rise of the Tomb Raider Wiki Page (here: https://tombraider.fandom.com/wiki/Rise_of_the_Tomb_Raider#Plot) and I’ll give my general thoughts on it because there’s A LOT of content and DLC that factors into the character development. However, I will be giving my thoughts in between on gameplay, graphics, atmosphere and art design as well.
“The game begins with a small camp in Siberia, where Lara Croft is gazing at the huge mountains that await them. Jonah tells her that the others won't be accompanying them anymore except him. The climb soon becomes challenging, with Lara nearly falling down to her death. As Lara reaches the top, she sees the ruins of Kitezh from afar, but the storm strikes the mountain and separates the two.”
Just for the first bit, what I’ll say graphically is that this game looks pretty fucking good. I love the hostility of the weather and pardon the terrible pun, the cold open that sets the tone for what the adventure is going to be like. You are Lara Croft and you’re thrown into the middle of it, however after the previous game she knows how to handle things a bit more. However, I’ll be honest I was very much confused about the fate of the Endurance crew. It’s revealed more in the comics but truthfully, the fact that Jonah is here just feels…strange? I don’t know, he was cool in the last game but I never really thought he was the “go-to” person for Lara as I always felt that him and Sam would be the ones to stick it out. However, she would later get removed from the series anyways via the comics and it just feels…off. I don’t know, I don’t hate Jonah but at this point I felt “lets see how this goes”. You also get introduced to Ana, Lara’s stepmother sometime around this scene and if you look really closely in the background you’ll find references to Yamatai and apparently previous Survivor Era comics and a book. The whole cutscene is basically Lara saying “she has to do this” while Ana is saying “don’t”.
“The scene then reverts to Syria, where a man drives Lara through the northwest borders of Syria's deserts. The man tells her that they are heading for a war zone and she better be sure about this, to which Lara exclaims that they are close to an oasis near a canyon up ahead. Suddenly a chopper appears and chases them, in which the man tells her that it's just local militia. Lara realizes that the man is lying and the chopper is actually Trinity. The man admits to telling Trinity because they paid better than her. Then the chopper fires, crashing the truck and killing the driver. Lara survives the explosion and falls off a cliff. But she survives with the aid of her climbing ax. She explores the mountain cliffs and eventually finds a secret entrance that leads her to the Prophet's tomb. After exploring inside, she finds a marker saying that the prophet tomb is near and murals depicting the prophet performing healing miracles and preaching to the people about the Divine God. Lara soon learns that Trinity was after a prophet who they believed was preaching about a Divine Source. They supposedly killed him and his followers and had been looking for the Divine Source many centuries ago. As she evades the deadly traps in the area and nearly drowns, she finally finds the shrine dedicated to the tomb of the deathless prophet. After finding a way to raise the water level by opening the floodgates, she reaches the top and finds the tomb. However, as she opens it, she is surprised to see it empty. The area is soon stormed by Trinity's armed forces led by a man named Konstantin. As they open the tomb, Lara comes out and aims a gun on them. Konstantin asks where the Divine Source is, to which Lara answers and tells him that there was no artifact there. Konstantin does not believe Lara and attempts to kill her, but Lara activates the explosives that Trinity set in the area. The area collapses, killing most of Trinity's forces. Lara barely manages to exit the water flooding the area, and soon finds a mysterious cross insignia engraving on the floor.”
Syria is the first gameplay section, but don’t expect it to be really big. You have two areas you can go to, one is a small circle room and you can pick up some collectibles over there and after you run through some scripted set pieces you’ll end up in the big ass room at the end where you’ll have some more stuff to pick up. You don’t really get into combat too much as it’s the tutorial section, but if you’re really thorough you could probably get almost everything in one go possibly. Now once you leave Syria you won’t be able to teleport back until after the main story is finished, and as such it was the last place that I had to get everything 100 percent. Looking out to see the desert landscape surrounded my mountains and a city down below. Also, the driver didn’t exactly think it through when he got murked through the windshield, selling out information like that. If you sell someone out, leave the scene or separate yourself because the people who paid you likely won’t care for your safety.
“The scene then reverts to Croft Manor in Surrey, England where Lara is doing some research on the mysterious cross insignia she found earlier. Jonah enters the room and after a short reunion, asks Lara about her adventure in Syria. Lara told him that she did find the Prophet's tomb, but it was empty, and she was being followed by an organization named Trinity who was also after the Divine Source. She told Jonah that she found a mysterious insignia of a cross during her escape. In one of her father's books, it says that the insignia is linked to the lost city of Kitezh in Siberia, which sank under a lake during the eve of the Mongol horde's invasion in the 12th century. Lara believes that if this really contains the secret of immortality, then it could change everything like sickness, death, to which Jonah becomes angered and regards that she has gone insane. He says he'd lost a lot of friends already and doesn't want to lose her. An angry Jonah leaves the room. Lara loses hope and shoves all the papers away. She kneels down and hugs the book. Later she sees a mysterious shadow on the vase and thinks it is Jonah. But she soon realizes that the mysterious figure behind her is not Jonah and immediately throws the vase at the intruder. An intense hand-to-hand fight ensues between the two. Jonah hears the commotion and helps Lara. The man steals her father's book and jumps out the window before Lara can shoot him. Jonah now becomes determined to help Lara find the Divine Source before Trinity does in Siberia.”
Nothing really to point out here for the most part, other than I’m surprised Lara didn’t just shoot the guy? I guess I wouldn’t have wanted to because I didn’t want to destroy the book but she really should’ve just popped his ass like Jules and Vincent would have in Pulp Fiction. Also again, Jonah was cool but I never really saw him as “bestie” status, so I must have missed something in the lore between the comics and books that had this become a thing. Who knows, maybe I’m daft and I didn’t notice either, so it could be my fault. Also, keep in mind that between Syria and Siberia is where 95% Blood Ties DLC takes place in, so I guess if you want to do that now then you can, with the post-game mop up taking place afterwards. However, the only thing you can really do other than find stuff that you missed is pick up three collectibles in Richard’s office from your previous two adventures and a letter from the front door I believe? I’m sure there’s more I just don’t remember.
“The scene then goes back to the present day in Northeastern Siberia. Lara awakens and tells Jonah to go back to shelter because she needs to finish the quest alone via radio. Lara then overhears a conversation from Konstantin saying that they are now looking for the artifact in the mountains and the Remnant, a group of natives trying to protect the Divine Source, is resisting them, but they will be handled. After gathering some sticks for fire and making a camp, she sleeps for the night, waiting for the storm to stop. Meanwhile, in the forest, a remnant (remnants are the natives who stayed in the area to protect the Divine Source) named Sofia and her companion are chased by Konstantin's forces. They managed to capture the remnant. Sofia urges them not to kill him, but the remnant tells her to go and leave him. Trinity kills the remnant and Sofia flees. The group split up to look for Sofia, and one of them finds Lara's campfire. Lara overhears the noise and manages to hide up in a tree. As the soldier investigates the campfire, Lara jumps down and kills him. As she explores the forest further, she manages to sneak in and kills many soldiers quickly. Then she overhears someone screaming and rushes. After finding the radio which was the source of the screaming, a large grizzly bear appears out of its hiding in a cave and chases Lara. Lara runs and tries to fight the bear, which overpowers and injures her. She barely manages to escape and soon finds Trinity's base of operations in a cold war installation. Lara has a flashback of her childhood years. She climbs the window to her father's room, and her father laughs, saying that she refuses to use the door again. Lara says that it's the fastest way. They then embrace. Lara says that he is going on another adventure and she should be his assistant. Her father says that his adventure would be really dangerous. Then he told Lara that she will make such a mark on history and make him proud. Then the phone rings and the flashback stops. The scene goes back to Lara in the present day. She realizes that the only way to the installation is through the bear cave. After a short fight, Lara explores the ruins inside the cave and the flashbacks continue. Young Lara overhears her father having an argument on the phone with a mysterious caller, presumably Trinity, over his discovery. Trinity hangs up, angering her father. Lara gets mad at her father and tells him to stop his adventures and be her father again. Then the scene reverts back to Lara's adventure. While walking, an arrow almost hits her. As she draws her bow, she finds Sofia, the one who fired the arrow.“
Again with Jonah, you won’t end up seeing him for most of the game ‘til the very end anyways because of this so why bother putting him in? Keep in mind, I don’t hate Jonah, he’s a nice guy and he’s cool as hell! I’m just surprised that they would put him in like this, give him some emotional depth and then essentially throw him out for most of the game like this. I kind of forgot he was in it until the end because of this. Nonetheless, this is where the game really starts as Lara repeats what she did when she arrived in Yamatai: hunt animals (including creating poison arrows to take down a bear), establish a campfire and stuff like that. You’ll also get your first taste in real collectibles, roadblocks in which you’ll have to come back to later (mainly the explosive arrows I think?) for other Metroidvania styled gameplay (the process of backtracking to unlock new things with equipment you haven’t used before) as well as murdering soldiers. The game here really doesn’t focus on PTSD or trauma this time around, or at least not in the way that the first game did. In fact, they don’t really go with this at all as Lara just kills indiscriminately and it’s not thought of much. The main type of trauma they deal with here is family trauma, how her father affected her life both through his work and love and also the fact that realistically she was neglected due to his own trauma losing his wife.
“Lara tells Sofia that she is not her enemy. Sofia tells Lara that she killed many of Trinity's forces, to which Lara replies that she killed them to survive and she suspects Sofia did the same. Sofia tells Lara that Trinity had been there for days and that she must leave the place before it's too late. Lara says she can't because she came there for something important. Sofia then says that they did too and if she sees Lara again she will put an arrow into her throat. Lara says that they are on the same side and tries to prove this to her. However, a distant building in the soviet installation explodes, catching Lara's attention. As she was about to ask Sofia, she realized that she had disappeared. After delving further into the installation and killing many of the mercenaries there, she discovers that many remnants were being tortured by Trinity to reveal the location of the Divine Source. All of the remnants remained faithful and did not reveal the location, even if it meant death. After finding a pistol from a dead remnant, Lara overhears Konstantin explaining their objective to get the Divine Source which will open to a "new world." Konstantin blinds one of the mercenaries who failed to do his duties with his own fingers. A mercenary then contacts Konstantin via radio and tells him that they found a captive who might know the location of the Divine Source. Lara sneaks in, bombs the building, and escapes. While exploring, she finds more of the remnants, who give Lara missions like breaking the communication repeaters in the area and more, therefore gaining the trust of the remnants. Lara overhears conversations via radio that the captive seems to be the leader of the remnants and might know the location of the Divine Source. The captive seems to have some experience with interrogation techniques and the man on the radio tells them to get "creative" with doing the interrogation because if Konstantin does it, he won't like it. As Lara sneaks in behind a small cabin, she overhears a conversation with Konstantin and a mysterious man on the radio. The man (probably the head of the whole Trinity) tells Konstantin that his reports have ceased. Konstantin says that they were having difficulty with torturing the faithful remnants and the communications became offline, but they managed to put it under control. A mercenary sees Lara from behind. As Lara flees, a mercenary appears in front of her and knocks her unconscious.“
Meeting Sofia (who I nicknamed Aloy because they look almost exactly the same here) was interesting but I don’t really think factors in much except to hint at a greater set of allies and guilt trip Lara a bit about the path to the “Divine Source”, as the only way Trinity discovered it was through Lara’s book. I wouldn’t blame Lara too much for this as Trinity was the one who went out of their way to raid her place to begin with. However, their presence should alert them that something is up. How did they get this information to begin with? Time will tell, but regardless I remember this coming section very well due to the old Soviet architecture, and you’ll go through and kill everything but there’s something funny here. The mercenary that Konstantin blinds has the same model as the book thief, so I always took it as they’re the same guy and adds an extra layer of irony somewhat to the story for me as the dude was useful until he screwed up once. While this area does give you access to the first optional deep cave where you could find a whole bunch of stuff, going through the Installation and sliding down the rope will reveal your first BIG open area, also called the Soviet Installation? It includes the main sawmill, extra caves, the prison nearby and a mill of sorts that you’ll get too later in the story and is one of two open areas that you’ll be able to truly explore with different entrances to different areas. It’s also here that you’ll be given missions by a group called the Remnant, missions that were similar to the dummied out ones that were supposed to be in the previous game but were cut. Doing these missions will award you with upgrades and such so I would say you should do them, but you also don’t NEED too unless you’re on a higher level. On the way into the prison to sneak around you’ll also meet a Maintenance Tech, who runs the supply shack that harbors the lines to get into the prison. He’s not going to report you, in fact if you end up giving him any of the gold you’ve found collectible wise then you can trade it in for upgrades. HOWEVER, there is a trap here, one that I fell into the first playthrough: there isn’t enough ancient coins for everything in here, and as such I would say do your research and see what tools appear in game later and which ones don’t because some of these tool’s only purpose is just to unlock some stuff early that if you’re going to do 100 percent anyways, you can always do later. Overall, this is a cool looking area though with backtracking collectible stuff it starts to become a real pain in the ass later to do it here.
“She awakens, tied bound to a chair with all of her equipment removed from her. Lara sees Ana in front of her, also tied to a chair and captured. Lara asks her what she was doing there, to which Ana replied that "she doesn't know and she is scared." Lara apologizes for getting her involved in the situation. She didn't know they would come after Ana, to which Ana asks who are "they." Lara says they were after the same thing her father was, which annoys Ana. Konstantin enters the room and forces Lara to reveal what she knows about the Divine Source by slowly choking Ana in front of her, but Lara cannot provide useful information. After Ana tells Konstantin that Lara is telling the truth, Konstantin releases her. It is then that Ana reveals the truth: she has been working for Trinity all along, having only posed as a prisoner. An angered Lara insults Ana and is slapped viciously by Konstantin. Ana tells Lara that she couldn't let it go and that Ana knew Lara would find her way to the place they are currently in. Ana offers Lara a deal - Trinity could use an experienced adventurer like her to find the Divine Source both of them seek, and that since Lara wants a purpose in life, Trinity could give her one. Lara refuses, knowing how Trinity operates. Lara furiously asks Ana if she was already with Trinity before or after screwing with her father. Ana replies that she loved Richard, but idealism blinded and destroyed him. Ana asks her what she would do with the artifact, to which Ana replies herself that Lara would show it to the world and redeem her father's good name. She tells Lara that she is so naive, "like a frightened little girl trying to walk in her daddy's shoes." Then she spits in Ana's face, resulting in Konstantin wanting to kill Lara. Ana refuses to let him in case they find use for Lara, and Konstantin locks her inside a prison cell. Lara meets another prisoner. After seeing Lara use a small earring to release her handcuffs, the prisoner becomes impressed. Then he asks if Lara could get both of them out of there. Lara says that she can't trust him because she doesn't even know who he is or why he is there. Lara apologizes for not really being in the trusting state at that time. The man tells her that she won't get far without him, to which Lara answers that he doesn't know how far she has come. Lara asks the man about what he knows about Trinity, to which the man says that they are a secretive sect who believes they are doing the work of God, which Lara regards Trinity as pretty "far from holy." Lara breaks the water pipe in the cell and breaks the wall. She manages to get to the other side of the room, where she retrieves her bow and arrow along with some rope, allowing her to craft rope arrows. Using her rope arrows, she manages to pull down the upper portion of her cell gate and crawl through to escape. The prisoner attempts to persuade her to help him, to which Lara says she can't trust him. The man says that they may not be enemies and that he can help her. Lara answers by saying she works better alone. The man still attempts to persuade her by saying that he knows the layout of the area, to which Lara responds by saying that she is a fast learner. The man says that he knows what she and Trinity are all after. Lara then agrees to help him. She retrieves all her equipment and opens the prisoner's cell. The man introduces himself as Jacob and thanks Lara. Lara then gives him a radio in case they get separated. Jacob guides Lara through the area.“
So right off the bat here, I didn’t really expect this “stepmother is actually a Trinity plant” twist, but also this brings something up for me. You only get to see her once before, so there’s no real character development here that makes his an actual surprising “twist”, even if it’s painted as such. The lack of build up makes me honestly not give a shit about this character and it’s a shame, because there are details in documents pointed out later that give her an interesting backstory. This woman is evil and manipulative, having given Konstantin (her brother) this stigmata god complex and luring him into the Trinity organization for her own ends. She’s not to be trusted and her relationship with Lara’s father is inevitably painted in a negative light because of this, but you won’t know unless you go out of your way to pick up documents and learn about it. Otherwise, she’s just some blonde chick who you’ll forget about by the end of the story and it’s kind of sad how forgettable she becomes other than “stereotypical evil woman” otherwise. Also meeting Jacob was interesting, and he’ll definitely factor in the story later (in an interesting twist that I didn’t expect, in a good way this time!) but for now the only thing I can remember is that this is where you can create the rope arrows to which you could backtrack and perhaps use on different areas for collectibles if you want to get them now.
“Lara soon learns that the soviets were sent there to work in the mines, excavating ancient artifacts. The two soon discover that Trinity has been conducting operations in the area, and that the gate to the train yard that leads to Jacob's village in the valley is closed. Lara sneaks in and opens the gate. The two enter a building and overhear a conversation between Ana and Konstantin, who chastises her for being sentimental towards Lara. Ana realizes that Konstantin had doubted her, and becomes furious. Then she coughs, revealing she suffers from a terminal illness. Konstantin says life has been hard on both of them and that he will protect Ana, to which Ana replies with sarcasm by asking who is being sentimental now. It is then revealed that Ana only wants the Divine Source to cure her illness, and that Konstantin is in fact Ana's brother. Ana then orders to send the men to the village to get more information from the remnants. Jacob is angered by this and tries to get to them but Lara stops him, saying it is too dangerous. A mercenary contacts Konstantin, saying that two prisoners have escaped the cells. They leave the area along with the mercenaries and goes to the cells. Meanwhile, Lara jumps down and finds an ancient text saying, "Mankind shall be judged, the non - believers turned to ash and swept away and the pure of faith will be raised up and given...life eternal." The alarm rings and the two split up as troopers storm the area. Lara treads the water down the basement quietly to avoid the mercenaries. Lara goes out of the basement hole and escapes in the other room. Jacob contacts her and tells her to meet him at the train yard near the end of the Gulag prison. The mercenaries find her and chase her down, with Lara managing to steal an assault rifle from a mercenary. As she reaches the train yard, she sees Jacob take down a mercenary easily. The two get chased by Trinity's chopper through the train tracks and into the trains. The chopper blows down the rest of the tracks causing a dead end. Troopers and the chopper had cornered Lara, with the two escaping by jumping down a nearby river. They barely survive the freezing waters. The chopper continues to chase down Lara, separating the two temporarily. After an intense, death - defying chase, Lara jumps down a zip line which soon gets cut down. Lara falls down a nearby river and nearly drowns.“
I like the idea of Ana only going after the Divine Source to cure her terminal illness, that is something I think is an interesting angle and adds a bit of depth to her character. The only other thing I could really add to this section other than the reveal of the two as siblings is just the fact that the game really knows how to pull off some pretty damn great action set pieces, and the whole train track helicopter chase explosion thing was actually pretty solid though.
“After another flashback of young Lara seeing her father dead in his office, she awakens with Jacob in a small camp. Jacob gives Lara some soup. Lara tells Jacob that he could've left her to die, to which Jacob replies and asks if Lara has left him. Jacob asks her why she risked so much to get to that place to seek the Divine Source. Lara says that when she was young, it was just her and her archaeologist father who in his last years was obsessed with myths about immortality in which no one believed him, including Lara, with their last conversation being a fight where he took his own life. She thought she had come to terms with it, but something else happened. During her experience in Yamatai, she saw something supernatural, and had started to believe her father. Her father died alone and broken, but died for something. Jacob asks her if she believes that the Divine Source is real, to which Lara says she honestly doesn't know, but if there is some truth to it, she must find out because the Divine Source is something not to be hidden, something that needs to be researched, studied, something that could make a difference to the world, with Jacob answering back by saying a difference is not always for the best. Then he asks Lara if she thinks Trinity should have the secret to immortality, to which Lara answers no. Jacob then asks her not to abandon her quest but to alter its path by joining his people in repelling Konstantin and Trinity. Lara asks after that what's to be done. Jacob answers that she leaves their valley untouched, but knowing she did the right thing. She refuses, saying that she will fight Trinity alongside Remnant but her goal remains the same. She says that once she gives up she will be letting her father down and she herself needs to understand. Jacob grows concerned about his village and leaves, saying that his village is a day's travel on foot over the mountain pass, but there is a shortcut through the old copper mine. He tells Lara to rest and he'll be back soon.“
I have nothing really to say here story wise, but what I will give is some of the improvements that the gameplay has taken compared to the first Tomb Raider. If you’ve gone this far you’ve at least been to a campfire, and you might have already seen it. If you get the DLC then you’ll have unlocked multiple separate outfits from classic Tomb Raider outfits as well as separate DLC outfits and weapons. With the weapons system in this game compared to the first one, there are multiple different weapons for each type which is upgraded from the first game, along with the fact they shared upgrades for each other (most of them anyhow). I’ll admit however, I really miss the evolution of watching your gun go from a Type-whatever Japanese machine gun into a makeshift AK. How about the outfit abilities? They all have different abilities but at the same time, they never really made too much of a difference for me personally and I rather stuck to the aesthetically pleasing stuff as if you’re going to 100 percent, most of the time it worked well regardless.
“The next day, Lara resumes her quest and follows Jacob's directions on her radio by going to the base of the old Soviet mill to meet her at the mine entrance at the top of the facility. Soon Jacob contacts her again and tells her that he is pinned down and Lara must escape. Lara infiltrates the base where the soviets had stored the ancient artifacts and kills the mercenaries trying to catalog the Soviet's relics. After throwing a molotov cocktail, the building starts to burn and Lara gets attacked by troopers armed with shields, but Lara manages to fend them off. She escapes the building and makes it through the mine where Jacob saves her from nearly getting killed by a mercenary. While exploring the mine, Lara realizes that the mines were once paths leading to Jacob's village. After the Soviets explored the area and used machines and explosives to search for artifacts that Trinity is now continuing, many of the old paths collapsed, which complicated things. Trinity's forces start to destroy the whole area separating Lara and Jacob, who become trapped by rocks. Jacob tells her to go find Sofia and tell her that Trinity is preparing an attack on the Remnants. Lara barely escapes, avoiding the machinery. Lara explores part of the lost city of Kitezh, where Trinity was trying to break open a large gate by attaching a cable to a truck and attempting to pull it down. Using her logic and intellect, Lara manages to find ways to use the obstacles in the area to open the door. The area nearly collapses and Lara jumps just in time to reach the entrance. Inside Lara finds a statue of the immortal prophet and murals. The first mural shows the exodus of the prophet's followers in Syria, then another mural shows the prophet and his followers building a village in the valley which is Kitezh. The third mural depicts the building of an army to protect the prophet and the city itself. And lastly, a mural depicting the creation of a small artifact known as the atlas so that the prophet can know his city and its secrets. Lara realizes she must get this atlas to find the Divine Source.“
Here is where I’m going to bring up two separate gameplay elements: the tombs and the set pieces. The tombs is where I’ll start as it’s a considerable step up from the previous game’s tombs that you’d raid. There’s only one more (or two if you have the DLC) tomb than in the previous game and they still give rewards like bow parts or a codex, which gives you specialized skills that you can’t unlock otherwise. However, they also feel a lot more puzzle based than the previous games and that may or may not be a good or bad thing depending on who plays. I’ll straight up tell you that I blow at puzzles, and as such attempting to play the puzzle portions I half sucked and half was able to wing it and figure it out compared to the first where I was almost always able to wing it with the exception of one physics based timing puzzle. I’m personally mixed on it though I’ll accept that the game is called “Tomb Raider” and is about raiding tombs and solving puzzles rather than murdering dozens of people at once. Thank god for guides (Shoutout to Stella’s guides) and the help of my more intellectually superior friends to give me help as well. Also the set pieces are still phenomenal like the one with the drill in this section or the burning mill though I don’t find them always as memorable as the first one.
“Lara finds the village where she gets surrounded by remnants led by Sofia. Lara tells her that she is not with Trinity, and that she escaped with Jacob, which Sofia does not believe and regards that Jacob would never trust an outsider. Lara says they were exploring the mines when the whole place collapsed, trapping Jacob, which one of the remnants regard as killing him. Just as she was about to shoot Lara with a bow, Jacob miraculously appears and stops Sofia. They embrace, and Jacob asks Lara to forgive Sofia for being cautious. Jacob tells Sofia that Trinity is about to prepare an attack on the Remnants and they must prepare. Jacob orders that no harm will reach Lara. Then he orders the preparations of the weapon stores and the battlements. He says that they are outnumbered, and the ones unable to fight go to the catacombs. Jacob tells her to work hard with the villagers to gain their trust. Jacob then tells her to light the signal tower to warn the people to evacuate, which Lara complies. Trinity choppers start to attack the area and soon the entire village is engulfed in flames. Jacob and two others are taken hostage, with their captor shooting them one by one. Lara tries to help him but Jacob stops her. After the first remnant is shot, the captor is about to shoot the second remnant until Jacob tells him not to do it. Just as the captor was about to shoot him, the second remnant tells him of an atlas that can show the way to the Divine Source, enough diversion for Jacob to kill the captor and give Lara his shotgun. After an intense gunfight with a mercenary armed with a flamethrower, Trinity's forces retreat as the natives shoot fire arrows at them. In a chapel at the Soviet installation, Konstantin hears the news of Lara's cooperation with the Remnants to fend off Trinity and becomes violently frustrated. Konstantin tells Ana that they should have killed her, to which Ana replies that he has nothing to do for his efforts and she'll succeed when he's failing. Konstantin furiously answers that he will not fail, to which Ana answers back that Trinity will step in if he does, and that means she is expendable. They will not care about her survival and that she needs the power of the source. Ana then coughs, with which Konstantin tells her not to lose faith in God and that their success is inevitable. Konstantin then prays and asks for the way to find the Divine Source and grant him strength to commit the sins just to get through the barriers between him and the Source. After blood drips from his hands, he presumes that it is the only way.“
This is the beginning of your second “hub” in the game, where you can go and interact with villagers and engage in some moments of peace along with a huge amount of collectible hunting as well. Compared to the old and snowy areas of the previous level, Geothermal Valley is easily the most beautiful and peaceful looking area of the entire game as it feels like it’s at the edge of the forest and not in danger. There’s new ways of traversal as well that you either have done throughout the campaign or will, like swinging from little hook areas as well as climbing trees and swimming as well, which adds a lot more variation compared to the last game as the last one had to cut swimming due to programming issues I believe? Also you get to meet Aloy again which is cool. As for the rest of it? The set pieces are still cool as hell, as there’s something that yells “awesome” watching as the entire place around you burns but otherwise not much to say here.
“Meanwhile, while Lara and Jacob treat the wounded remnants in the village, Lara apologizes for what is happening to his people and says Trinity won't stop. Jacob answers that it has been their duty and it is always difficult. Lara then asks about the atlas, which Jacob says that it is an ancient map of the lost city which Trinity will never find at the tower. Jacob says that many of his people are living by the tower and won't be prepared for what's coming ahead, so Lara volunteers to help them. Jacob then asks if she is doing this for the sake of his people, or for the Divine Source which she seeks, to which Lara answers both. After exploring the tower area, she finds no sign of the people, to which Jacob tells her via radio to find them in the catacombs because Sofia might have evacuated them there. Lara realizes that Trinity had taken the remnants as hostages in the area and infiltrates the underground catacomb ruins where Trinity's forces had Sofia's group as hostages, killing each of them one by one until they reveal the location of the atlas. Lara rescues them just in time and Sofia reconciles with her. Sofia then tells her that she wants to lead her people to safety, but the catacomb entrance is locked. Lara offers to help by bombing the gate. Sofia then tells her that although she seeks the Divine Source, her people are dying to protect it. Lara answers back, saying that her people are already dying and they can't protect it forever. Sofia tells her that they've already lasted so long and are glad to have her as an ally. Lara then goes to the tower where Trinity is converging and tries to rescue the people there. Jacob radios her and tells her that they are receiving fire from the chopper. He tells Lara to try and catch the attention of the chopper, to which Lara succeeds to get the upper hand. The remnants manage to take down the chopper with fire arrows, but Sofia tells her that Trinity's forces are still swarming the area. After an intense gunfight, Lara manages to fend off all of Trinity's forces in the area.
“Lara then asks Jacob about what really is the Divine Source, to which Jacob says that it is a long forgotten artifact that their Prophet took and hid in the lost city of Kitezh. They believed it holds a part of God's souls and that it will grant anyone who held it with immortality. The remnants are trying to stop Trinity from spreading darkness around the world and that if they find the Divine Source, their soldiers will be unstoppable. Lara then tells him to help her find the artifact before they do. She says that it is not just their burden but also her burden because her father died for it. Jacob tells her that she can't fill the emptiness inside her, but only set it free. She then continues her quest, with which Sofia tells her that since she helped them, she'll help Lara. Sofia tells her that the atlas is in the cathedrals but they won't follow her because there are the "deathless ones" in the area who will kill anyone who even trespasses. Lara accepts the challenge, and explores the cathedral. Sofia gives her a grapple/wire spool to help her reach the area. After stealthily avoiding Trinity's forces guarding the area, she finds access to the inner ruins and sees Ana overseeing the operations. Trinity is trying to bomb the floor, believing that the atlas is hidden underground. Lara ambushes them and threatens to kill Ana. Ana tells her that she'll never shoot her because it will be too cold even for Lara. Lara realizes her foot is tied to the explosives on the floor. Ana then shouts and orders to kill her, in which Lara responds by shooting the explosives. Lara and Ana fall underground with Ana falling on a higher platform than Lara. Ana tells Lara to reconsider her offer before it's too late, with which Lara says that it was already too late when Ana betrayed her family. Then she shoots Ana in the right arm and tells her to go to hell. Furious but still clinging to life, Ana radios trinity and orders them to give her the atlas. Lara delves deeper and finds the artifact, only to be ambushed by Trinity's forces. Lara makes advantage of the Greek fire vessels in the area to kill the mercenaries. She swims under the archives only to be chased down by a flamethrower-wielding mercenary. With him, the water starts to burn and the upper areas explode one after the other as sulfur surrounds the area. Then she uses the Greek Fire to take down a statue and blow her exit, only to be shot down by Greek fire arrows from the deathless ones. Lara manages to escape. Jacob contacts her and tells her to bring the atlas to the observatory.
Jonah finally finds a way to contact her and is relieved after realizing that Lara is still alive. Lara finds her way back to the observatory and reunites with Jonah. Lara then uses the atlas to determine the location of Kitezh and realizes that it is under the glaciers. However, Trinity's forces storm and attack the area. Lara falls off the window but manages to grab the chains. Jonah immediately grabs the atlas and attacks the mercenaries. Before one of the mercenaries could kill Lara, Jonah pushes him out the window. As he pulls Lara, a mercenary grabs Jonah and the artifact and escapes via a chopper. With Jacob wounded and Jonah and the artifact in Trinity's hands, Lara chases Trinity and starts from the old Copper Mill to the Gulag Prison, staging a daring rescue to save Jonah even if it means losing the Divine Source. Meanwhile, Ana and Konstantin had used the atlas in Trinity's Observatory and had started digging operations under the glacier. Ana fears that Trinity is just using them and will not let Konstantin keep the artifact to save her. Konstantin tells her to have faith.
Lara discovers that Trinity is beating and interrogating Jonah about the Divine Source, but he is resistant, causing Konstantin to lose patience and does the torturing himself. Lara helps the remnant prisoners escape and shoots the bulletproof glass window overlooking the room Jonah and Konstantin are in, causing a diversion. Jonah attacks Konstantin and steals his gun, threatening to shoot him, but Konstantin begs for his life. Lara insists that Jonah execute Konstantin but Jonah cannot bring himself to shoot an unarmed man, allowing Konstantin to pull out a knife and stab Jonah, to Lara's horror. Konstantin escapes and orders his men to sweep the area and kill her. The remnant prisoners help Jonah, telling Lara that only Jacob can help Jonah. Lara tells them to barricade the door and leaves to secure the area. After killing Konstantin's men, Lara returns to Jonah and the two Remnants, Jonah tells Lara that she has to stop blaming herself for everything that happened before passing out. One of the Remnants tells a tearful Lara that his time is short, though Jacob may be able to save him. Using a makeshift stretcher, Lara and the Remnant prisoners bring Jonah to the observatory and leave him under Jacob's care. Lara notes that has healed from his own injuries wordlessly. Jacob chants a prayer and uses his healing miracles, seals Jonah's wound.“
Again this is towards the latter half of the game, and while I understand that these two are supposed to be best friends, there’s nothing here to really suggest anything substantial to the overall plot. He shows up here for a bit, runs around and gets wounded. Sure, he provides some sound advice to Lara about not blaming herself and such but otherwise he doesn’t really do anything for the story here. You literally could’ve taken Jonah out and honestly nothing would have really changed. He’s here to add SOME emotional stakes and to ultimately reveal the next plot twist in the story which could’ve been done with anyone to be honest. I don’t know, I hate dogpiling on the guy like this but he just doesn’t do anything for me here.
“Lara confronts Jacob about who he is, having figured out that he is the Deathless prophet. Jacob reveals to her that the Divine Source is a deeply powerful artifact he found long ago, but is not actually divine. He lied to his people to protect them. He once used the source to grant his armies their immortality, but it was a terrible mistake. When enemies attacked Kitezh, the Deathless Ones brought the ice down upon the city. Thousands were killed, and they committed an atrocity to keep the power, and so will Trinity but on a much larger scale. Suddenly Trinity's choppers fly past in the direction of the glacier, Jacob realizes that they are going to use brute force to smash through the ice and take the source. Lara asks about the secret path leading to the city, which Jacob reveals as the dangerous Path of the Deathless, with no time left, Lara asks to be taken to the path. Jacob agrees, he orders Sofia to open the path before she takes their troops to hold Trinity off.“
This was a bit of an unexpected twist and while he as a character wasn’t really interesting to remember him in a later playthrough, I actually appreciate the motivations behind what will soon be revealed as this game’s undead army (like the samurai enemies in 2013 Tomb Raider) and it’s personal connection to the story. You can also find some documents that provide flavor text on his personality, his sadness as the people around him die with him staying the same age eternally.
“Jacob radios Lara inside and tells her about the Orrery, which was built by ancient astronomers before the deathless buried the area in ice. Jacob tells her that she needs the Orrery mechanism to open the entrance to Kitezh. Sofia radios Lara and tells her that they are on the mountain glaciers and are ready to fight Trinity, but Lara tells her to not attack too soon. She delves deeper into the Old City and sneaks past the deathless ones, who are preparing for an attack on Trinity as well. However, their attack is delayed when one of the Deathless Ones sees Lara. Lara narrowly avoids the Greek fire and kills the Deathless Ones. As she explores the village of the Deathless Ones, she realizes that a gate is blocking the entrance to the Chamber of Souls where the Divine Source is located. Soon, more of the Deathless Ones attack. Lara kills them and uses their trebuchet to bomb the entrance. Once she gets inside, Trinity finally break through the glacier, causing huge chunks of ice to drop. Things quickly escalate into a three way stand off between the Remnants, Trinity and the Deathless, as Lara scales her way to the chamber of souls. As she explores the village of the Deathless Ones, she realizes that a gate is blocking the entrance to the Chamber of Souls where the Divine Source is located. Soon, more of the Deathless Ones attack. Lara kills them and uses their trebuchet to bomb the entrance. Once she gets inside, Trinity finally break through the glacier, causing huge chunks of ice to drop. Things quickly escalate into a three way stand off between the Remnants, Trinity and the Deathless, as Lara scales her way to the chamber of souls.“
I love the medieval looking architecture along with the ice cave skybox colored textures, it provides a bit of a unique look for one of the game’s areas even if it looks familiar. Also the trebuchet is used for a challenge that I didn’t know about til’ looking it up late game so if you want to use it then try to take care of it while you’re there.
“Mortally wounded, Konstantin laments that this was not supposed to be his destiny and says that he was meant for greatness, as it was God's will. Lara tells him that it was never his destiny, that his sister deceived and tricked him into thinking that he was chosen. Konstantin is shattered by this revelation, as everything he had done was for her. Lara begins to leave to stop Ana. Konstantin demands she not walk away from him, telling her that Trinity killed her father, calling him pathetic and a failure and that he begged for his life, when that failed, he begged for Lara's. The game then offers a choice. The Player can execute Konstantin, or walk away, leaving him to be killed when the floor collapses causing him to plummet into the flames below.“
Honestly, spoiler alert, he still dies anyway so it doesn’t really matter. I ended up murking his ass both times so do your thing ya know? And also it’s kind of sad seeing this homicidal mercenary man with a divine complex to finally see his hopes get shattered like that though truth be told it’s hard seeing anyone’s hopes get crushed.
“Lara rushes to the very center of the city, where Ana is about to use the Divine Source. Lara tells her that her men are defeated and Konstantin is dead, and that is what Trinity had always wrought - death. Ana is shaken by her brother's death but refuses to give up the Divine Source, telling her that she doesn't want to give it to Trinity and that Lara is dooming her father to be mocked by history. Ana is dismayed by her and tells her how she can let it go when she is so close. Lara answers, stating that she is ready to make a sacrifice. Lara tells her that she can't let her take it. Ana replies, saying that they could save millions of suffering and dying people and change the world together. Lara says that the cost is too high and that they aren't meant to live forever because death is a part of live. Ana answers back, saying that it's easy for her to say because she is not the one who is dying. Lara tells her that it isn't about her but it is about protecting what it means to be human. She tells Lara "Another Croft doesn't have to die for this. One of Trinity's soldiers appears and tells Ana that they are surrounded, but soon gets stabbed by Jacob. Ana quickly shoots Jacob multiple times in retaliation, injuring but not killing him. Wounded, Jacob shouts that the divine source is not meant for the world. As Lara aims her gun at Ana, she aims her gun at Lara as well, beginning a standoff. Ana tells Lara that it's her chance to prove herself after everything they've both done. An army of the deathless ones advance on Ana, she empties her gun into them, to no avail. With no other way out, she uncovers the source and gazes upon it.“
“The artifact overpowers Ana, dropping the shining blue crystal. Lara grabs it but would not look at it for it might overpower her as well. Surrounded, Lara looks to Jacob, who tells her it's okay. Lara apologizes, (possibly to her father) and shatters the Divine Source, freeing the trapped souls, and causing its power to cease, to Ana's dismay. Now that the Divine Source is destroyed, causing any who had gained immortality from it to lose it, including Jacob, mortally wounded, Jacob begins to die. Lara tells him to hold on, though he laments, he's held on for too long, and begins laughing as his end is near. He tells Lara that he's met few as extraordinary as Lara. Lara apologizes saying she only wanted to make a difference, Jacob merely tells her "You already have", before he peacefully turns to dust. In Croft Manor, Lara had listened to his father's last words on a tape, "My dearest Lara, I often think about how my father would turn over in his grave if he knew the shame I had brought upon my family name. Croft....what does it even mean? I just hope you can make your own mark on this world someday. Remember that the extraordinary is in what we do, not who we are." Jonah tells her that breaking the source was the right thing to do. Lara replies, thinking that she still let him down. Jonah told her that he would've made the right choice. Jonah then tells her that she still has a plane to catch. Then the two leave off in the manor.“
The fun fact here is that this time, they actually do a bit of teaser material correctly! In the previous Tomb Raider game, they had teased Roanoke only to totally flub that and instead go for Siberia instead. In this game, they actually tease Mexico which is at the very least the first part of this game’s sequel, Shadow of the Tomb Raider.
“After the credits roll, a post credits scene starts two weeks before Lara was at the manor, happening just after Lara destroys the Divine Source. Lara and a sickly weakened Ana walk through the snow in Northeastern Siberia. A weak Ana sits on a rock and coughs. Lara asks what she meant when she said 'another Croft doesn't have to die for this.' After Ana gives Lara a few moments, Lara points her gun at Ana and demands to know if she killed her father. Ana explains to her that Trinity ordered his execution but she couldn't do it. Lara dismisses it as a lie. Ana then tells her that she loved him, before being shot dead by a hidden sniper. The hidden sniper, while aiming directly at Lara's head, asks his boss on the radio if he should kill Lara, to which the unseen superior responds "No, not yet".
This twist apparently has a bit of a similarity to a cut Tomb Raider: Underworld ending, but it’s an ending that I actually genuinely enjoyed. For all the manipulative shit that Ana has put Lara through, the idea that she genuinely loved her father is an interesting detail that adds two layers: one is that there is some genuineness underneath her demeanor, though the detail I prefer is that she’s obviously trying to get into Lara’s head so she could be spared. The hidden sniper though is definitely something that’s really cool and adds a bit of mystery and impact. The sniper is probably part of Trinity but who was it? Why? Why does the sniper’s boss want to be spared? Apparently this is all answered in the sequel, Shadow of the Tomb Raider, but it’s an interesting game to leave off of.
“After finishing the story mode, if you go back to the world, you will get a scene where Lara is talking to Sofia about her father with Sofia replying that she trusts her and is thankful for her help against Trinity.“
That’s basically it for my review breakdown for the main plot of the game, though the only thing I can add here is that always while it doesn’t feel as bad as I thought it was going to be, backtracking for collectibles like this still blows and in a lot of cases feels bloated and eye rolling. Of course I didn’t have to do it so that’s on me, but I was surprised when coming back that it wasn’t as tedious as I thought it was because aside from a few instances, I actually fell into a rhythm of being able to find everything pretty easily.
Baba Yaga: The Temple of the Witch
Lara investigates a disturbance within the Soviet mining facility. After fighting off a Trinity patrol, she discovers a young girl named Nadia hiding in a sawmill. Nadia confides in Lara, recounting her search for her grandfather, Ivan. Ivan has disappeared while trying to enter the Wicked Vale, a valley rumored to be haunted by Baba Yaga, a witch from Russian folklore. Ivan blames the witch for the death of his wife and seeks to kill her. Lara is skeptical of Baba Yaga's existence, but as Nadia is injured, she agrees to enter the Wicked Vale and locate Ivan.
So, the beginning of this DLC takes place I believe the first or second time you enter the Soviet Installation map, where a Trinity patrol will be scouring through the sawmill in the middle of it. This DLC could be done at any point in the game I believe, though certain collectibles are only available to pick up after grabbing certain tools later on. I personally would place it to be immediately, as soon as you get it BUT my friend didn’t want to see the DLC because she thinks Baba Yaga stuff is freaky and also because I don’t know when Cold Darkness takes place so you could really place the DLC anywhere in the map. Luckily Baba Yaga connects to the main game so you could really do anything at any point anyways.
Once in the Vale, Lara is exposed to a rare pollen with potent hallucinogenic properties. After stumbling through a forest, tormented by visions of her father's suicide, she encounters Baba Yaga and a pack of demonic wolves. Lara narrowly escapes with her life and finds herself in a small Soviet-era outpost. There she unearths evidence of a secret Soviet biological weapons project that attempted to harness the pollen as a weapon; however, the project came to an abrupt end after the researchers, including Serafima, a biochemist imprisoned in a nearby gulag, succumbed to the hallucinations.
Now this is where the DLC really kicks into itself, and I appreciate offhand that whilst it’s an obvious hallucination that it also hits Lara personally as well. The entire hallucination sequence you’ll be dealing with her father and his suicide as well as some of the blame that she places upon herself. The atmosphere in this section is pretty good, and there’s a bit of a claustrophobic feeling walking through these woods. Seeing the hallucination however of the giant house with the feet like in the legends were freaky as hell, though the shadow wolf re-skins were kind of blatantly stereotypical and obvious. I don’t know, I can’t judge too much because it would be nitpicky and they were working with what they had but it did pull me out a bit. Also, I’m not sure why Lara would be reluctant to believe that Baba Yaga exists considering that she’s seen a LOT of supernatural shit going on at Yamatai, and even later with the Deathless Ones? That’s kind of strange and feels a bit out of character but I guess no one could really believe that a walking house has chicken legs so whatever there.
Realizing that Serafima resented her captors, Lara correctly deduces that she had successfully weaponized the pollen and developed an antidote and kept her research secret from the military. With Nadia's help, Lara synthesizes a rudimentary antidote from Serafima's recipe and returns to the Wicked Vale. Resisting the effects of the pollen, Lara finds Ivan injured at the entrance to Baba Yaga's lair.
This is kind of a padded fetch quest a bit, one where you go back to the Soviet Installation and trudge into different caves and hunt some animals in order to find things you need for the antidote. Luckily it’s not too bad that it’s a problem, however (and this is probably a skill issue), the puzzle to GET to the house lift that takes you to Baba Yaga’s lair? Fuck that shit, that was so frustrating actually trying to figure out that even with a Youtube guide I was getting everything all wrong. It’s goofy as hell and while it’s thankfully minimal and while I understand that post-launch DLC should probably challenge current veterans a bit, this area is the area I remember the most from the entire game just due to how frustrating it can get.
Unable to leave the Wicked Vale so long as Baba Yaga continues to control it, Lara ventures on to confront the witch and is forced to battle Baba Yaga under the effects of the pollen. Lara prevails, destroying the source of the weaponized pollen. Baba Yaga is revealed to be Serafima, who was led to believe that her husband, Ivan, was dead, and so used the pollen to become Baba Yaga and torment her captors in revenge. With Ivan, Serafima and Nadia reunited, Lara leaves the Wicked Vale.
See, my main issue with the DLC is that if you had found ANY of the documents you kind of realize what the full picture story is before Lara even does, or at the very least you realize that Serafima IS Baba Yaga. It’s not a bad twist by any means but with the limited amount of characters introduced plus the context that these documents were written in? It’s basically the only plausible explanation, though I’ll admit story wise that thinking about the distance between the grandparents for decades made me a bit sad. However, if she was able to get all of the supplies to build a giant house lift, I’m surprised she didn’t venture out more and perhaps find the natives that Ivan was living with? Also, the final boss here was actually pretty cool with you juggling both hallucination enemies (basically reskins of Deathless Ones) as well as using the rope arrow trick multiple times and ascending the layers makes for an engaging and challenging fight.
However, if I were to give any criticism to this final arena, it would be that backtracking into the final boss letter to collect all of the documents and such is probably one of my least favorite areas to do it in, mainly because some of the ways to the actual documents are honestly kind of frustrating and I had to look up a guide for it. In fact, another reason to beat the DLC after the base game is just because they seemed to have ramped up puzzle difficulty to an annoying level and that’s what might’ve ultimately pushed me to say “fuck this” and stop trying for 100 percent last time.
Cold Darkness Awaken:
“Lara enters a decommissioned Soviet weapons bunker that has been breached by a Trinity patrol. Trinity has inadvertently released an unstable pathogen into the air, which causes the people it infects to regress to a zombie-like state. Men are particularly vulnerable as the virus stimulates testosterone and adrenaline production. The pathogen was created by a Soviet researcher with the intention of creating an army of unstoppable super-soldiers, but all of his experiments ended in failure. Following an accident that released the pathogen, he died in the facility, proud that he had at least created a weapon to protect his homeland. With Sofia and Nadia providing support from a helicopter, Lara attempts to find the source of the pathogen before an enormous cloud is released into the atmosphere and contaminates the Remnant valley.”
My thoughts on this DLC were as follows: it’s a solid short-form horror based DLC where you essentially fight zombies in a small, sectioned off map separate from the main campaign itself. The only way to access it is through the Expeditions Mode I believe, yet contains an actual plot in relation to the main game. The atmosphere is dark and weather oppressive while pretty creepy and tense with an emphasis on stealth gameplay. Making noises unleashes a horde of infected dudes on you that while limited, feels like there’s just reserves of infected everywhere and it can basically get pretty scary. I also appreciate that this takes place inside of an abandoned Soviet facility, as these were basically my favorite environments in Rise of the Tomb Raider to begin with.
However, I was also kind of confused as to WHY this DLC was happening and HOW; maybe I missed it but there isn’t much in the way as to how Lara and the others even discovered the facility to begin with. You’ll load in to hear a Soviet researcher going on about his grand designs to create the ultimate super soldier for his country, but other than discussing with Nadia the plan to take down the facility and the stakes that it would have if the infectious gas were to hit the valley, there isn’t any inciting plot hooks to get us in.
“The three women hatch a plan to channel the pathogen from three towers into the central tower, and cause it to explode, which will hopefully burn off the toxin. Lara shuts down each tower while collecting equipment, rescuing female prisoners and eliminating waves of the infected Trinity soldiers, and finally enters the core tower. While fighting off the infected soldiers, she triggers a catastrophic explosion and jumps from the tower to Nadia and Sofia's helicopter. Nadia and Lara watch the explosion as they fly to safety. Although the resulting fire burns the remaining reserves of the pathogen, documents found throughout the facility reveal that the release was no accident; Trinity reactivated the facility to acquire a sample of the pathogen, and an agent of Trinity escaped with it before the bunker was destroyed.”
So what’s the gameplay like? It’s basically the same as the base game where you explore the map, solve puzzles (mainly revolving around the gas towers), kill enemies and grab collectibles which expound upon the background of the Soviet experiments as well as how Trinity is trying to grab samples of the serum for future. There’s a lot of randomized elements as well, mainly in terms of upgrade box locations (I think?), possible weapon placements (you don’t start with your campaign gear) but the female prisoners as well. These prisoners will appear on the map either randomly as you find them, or Nadia will point them out to you. Oftentimes they’ll appear JUST as you finished clearing out that section of the map and it’s kind of annoying to backtrack a bit just to rescue them in an area that you previously cleared but it’s not a super huge map anyways so whatever. Also, I appreciate but kind of find it funny as to why Lara is unaffected by any of the pathogens: she’s a wahman. The infection only attacks testosterone and while I think it’s a good excuse, it also kind of adds another layer to the horror mainly due to gender dynamics.
One of the documents does actually state that one of the agents managed to make an escape with it though I don’t remember actually seeing a bunker as much as I saw three towers and a giant building in the middle. I’m sort of curious as to how they’ll ever follow up on this DLC or if they even will in the future? Will a future Tomb Raider have this zombie pathogen at some point being used as a weapon? Probably not realistically, but it would be interesting to see it if not to resolve a plot point in general. Depending on how you complete the DLC, you unlock loot box rewards for the microtransaction system that I honestly haven’t followed/don’t really care for that much but does include things like “Big Head Mode” and other cool cheats. It’s a short DLC that’s randomized and ends on a cool bang but is isolated in itself that one would question whether this piece of DLC is canon at all. Regardless, I would give it a recommend and if you take your time with it, you could probably milk around two hours or so?
Blood Ties:
“Set between the prologue in Syria and Siberia, Lara receives a letter from her uncle, Atlas, who claims that she has no legal claim to the manor and he is the rightful owner of the Croft estate. Lara realizes that if her father left a will it's probably in his safe. She finds a note which offers hints as to what the safe combination is, and begins to search the house to find more clues. As she roams around the manor she reminisces as she finds mementos from her childhood. As well as this she finds her parents journals, chronicling their first meeting, time together as a couple, marriage, Lara's birth and culminating in her mother's death which acted as the catalyst for her father's obsession with finding proof of an immortal soul.”
Atlas is written like such a fucking chud here that it’s almost funny how easily hateable this dude is written. In some ways it even feels like a stereotype how much a douche he is but some people are just like this. This is also where I’ll address the gameplay of Blood Ties: the plot feels VERY similar to games in the “walking simulator” genre, in a sense like What Remains of Edith Finch. You explore your old home, picking up and reading bits and pieces of lore while listening to the main protagonist recount their feelings as the echoes of the past replay moments trapped in time. It’s homely and comfortable, though the puzzle aspects feel like it could be confusing as hell. Most documents aren’t totally needed to push the story forward but some art for the sake of puzzle solving, especially if it has anything to do with the safe code. I would recommend having a guide nearby BUT I would also say that for the most part that the game actually does a solid job at keeping the progress going and letting you figure stuff out. Also, this DLC is apparently VR approved and I’m not surprised considering the simple concept of it. There’s no violence here, and atmospherically it’s actually pretty comfortable and peaceful to go through even if the DLC isn’t exactly a long game; the longest parts you’ll be dealing with is trying to find the safe code to be honest.
“After finding all the clues connected to the safe combination, Lara heads to open the safe. Inside she finds some personal belongings of Lord Croft, but no will. However, she finds a page which she discovers holds directions to a secret room in the cellar. Lara discovers her father's secret lab where he conducted research after deciding it was too risky to allow his research to be public. Lara finds another clue, which leads to Lara discovering that her father had found her mother's body and brought her home (though not before attempting to resurrect her). Lara discovers a clue that leads to a hidden crypt behind a wall in the main lobby of the house.”
The attempted resurrection of Lara’s mother actually made me feel sad here, the saddest the game had actually made me feel. The sadness of loving that loved one and feeling desperate to find ANYTHING that would bring her back is a feeling that’s very real. I can’t say that I’ve ever had any death in my life that made me feel like that but I couldn’t imagine the toll it takes on other people. It’s also delivered so well, the voice actor for Lord Croft really pushes the limits here and delivers a fantastic performance as a grieving father.
“Lara breaks down the wall which leads to a passage to the crypt, finding an elaborate sarcophagus where her mother is interred. Lara finds a letter from her mother, telling her that no matter what, they will always be connected, and that she hopes she finds success and happiness in her life.”
This was a pretty cathartic moment and made me tear up a little bit, but also I’m a huge sucker for sentimental moments in ANYTHING really. That’s really it, this feels like the culmination of all of the family trauma that Lara has endured throughout the entirety of Rise and it feels cathartic to finally get all of that to get some form of closure.
“Lara has the grave verified and sends the documentation to her uncle. Several weeks later (after the events of the main campaign) Lara receives another letter from her uncle, confirming that his claim on the manor as well as the rest of her family's assets has been rendered null and void as a result of her mother's death being verified. As such all of the Croft family assets have been transferred to her giving her sole control of the Croft estate. Lara muses to herself that she'd been so occupied with trying to stop her uncle from claiming the manor that she had not realized that it had so many memories and so much sentimental value. Wanting to honor her parents and ancestors, Lara swears to return her family's name to its former glory.”
So this section apparently takes place AFTER the campaign in a sort of time skip, which actually makes sense considering how the legal process goes. I had always felt however that this DLC could’ve taken place entirely AFTER the main game. It felt kind of strange and contradicting that during the base game she would relive the trauma of her father’s suicide when in Blood Ties it felt like she had actually wrapped up all of her issues and acknowledged her issues. That and the fact that there’s absolutely no combat in the slightest feels like the sort of epilogue that the game deserves and makes context within the sense of the campaign. However, technically I don’t think the game explicitly said (unless I’m wrong) that the epilogue to Blood Ties takes place AFTER the base campaign so I’m going to choose to take this whole campaign as the final piece of healing in Lara’s personal journey with her family history. It’s a pretty good DLC and would give this a recommendation.
Lara’s Nightmare:
“In Lara's Nightmare the sequence begins similarly to Blood Ties, but instead Lara's uncle is unwilling to give her the Manor. She fights off hordes of zombies and skulls before finding the Master Key. Finally, she kills the large skull in the main hallway, successfully ending her nightmare.”
See, this one takes place in the Croft Manor just like Blood Ties, and even opens up almost verbatim except this one clearly took an ominous horror tone to it. The atmosphere is creepy with constant darkness, reused zombie assets from Cold Darkness Awaken and I believe Baba Yaga dogs and other ideas like picking up random gun placements. The goal is to find three separate floating skulls around Croft Manor while these zombies hunt you down with limited ammo around the map as a sort of survival game mode. While it’s a simple premise and doesn’t add much to the story, it does a pretty good job holding a solid tone of tension regardless and might be the closest that the game and possibly the series gets to survival horror. As for where it stays in the story, it would be obvious to place it around the same time as Blood Ties.
Thoughts on the Plot:
The thing about the main plot for me is that it originally could’ve been so different in how it tackles stuff. The writer, Rhianna Pratchett, had originally wanted to focus on the PTSD that Lara faced after her time on Yamatai. This was apparently scrapped due to the company wanting her to focus on writing the story around the gameplay, amongst other studio decisions like focusing heavily on Lara’s dad. Everybody and their grandmother stuck their fingers into the proverbial plot bowl and therefore I can understand the frustration and lament the fact that the narrative dissonance is still a thing. Lara still goes on giant murder sprees and feels even less than she does in the previous game, and while I’m sad that it doesn’t attempt to expound upon trauma, I can also say that I can understand that there might not have been a consistent way with showing that while keeping up with decent gameplay at that time. Narrative wise you could explain it as Lara is becoming emotionally hardened because of her experiences to where she doesn’t feel it anymore, but realistically I just think it’s because the studio didn’t really give a shit and just wanted to make a good gameplay centered title. A lot of people gave it criticism for underdeveloped characters and admittedly that is true: Konstantin was remembered because of his stigmata and nothing else, I remembered Ana’s character arc but not her name, I completely forgot Jonah was even in the game, I forgot that there was even a Prophet and that his daughter existed and even his daughter I just ended up calling her Aloy all the time which is ironic because I always found the Horizon game plots to be boring. That being said, I surprisingly wasn’t bothered at all by this? For one, I think a lot of it was just because I appreciated the art direction that it was going, and that the gameplay was expanded in all the right places. I remember my time that I enjoyed with the game previously, and remember it being more fun than the previous game even if it wasn’t as memorable as the depression fest that the last title was.
However, going through it now I actually do appreciate a lot of the storytelling that the game does now even if it’s not as memorable. While I would’ve preferred the PTSD angle more, I surprisingly do appreciate the impact that Lara’s father had on her, and the storytelling as a whole. The whole plot is based around Lara trying to prove her father’s name and restoring his reputation at any costs, an action that of course leads to the consequences of secret society Trinity going into the Siberian mountains and waging war against the locals in order to find this treasure. The Baba Yaga DLC has her deal directly with her father’s suicide (along with Nadia’s family history with her grandparents), blaming herself for it even and finally getting that closure with the Blood Ties epilogue, exploring her family history and how that family history impacted her as a character and her drive. The game seems to be more about family dynamics than anything else; other than Lara’s baggage (which was mostly healthy but tragic) you have Jacob, an immortal prophet who for the longest time refused to settle down with ANYONE because he both felt selfish and didn’t want to see them pass away but did it anyways because he’s human along with his daughter (which was surprisingly healthy and not tragic, until the end at least). Then finally you have Konstantin, whose family relationship with his sister is based around manipulative gaslighting, making Konstantin think he’s some sort of second prophet that will use the Divine Source to heal his sister when really she’s been doing this shit her whole life and pushed them both into Trinity to satisfy her endgoals. I’ll just be the wordy asshole here and say thematically it’s the holy trinity; father, son and holy spirit except it’s father, daughter and deranged prophet? I don’t know, I’m not some pretentious youtube essayist so take what you want out of it but even if it’s unintentional, I still find it to be a decent way of delivery even if there were better ways for doing it. The “too long didn’t read” version: it’s a good plot, maybe not the most memorable but I’m okay with it.
So what is the Endurance Co-op? Truth be told, I wasn’t able to find someone to play this with, nor was I really bothered but generally speaking it’s a co-op session between you and one other person where you both play as Lara Croft (or in certain cases, one person apparently plays as Nadia) but I’ll put a gameplay link down below for those interested in giving it a look. One thing that I do want to mention between all of the extra game modes besides the story is that there’s a card earning system? You can purchase cards via microtransactions but aside from that you unlock these cards by playing these challenges (doesn’t have to be co-op) and completing as many parameters as you can to earn credits, which you then use to buy the cards which has perks like the ability to wear certain outfits or big head mode. I’ll be honest, I don’t understand why there had to be a microtransaction system in this game but I could’ve told you from the beginning that it would’ve flopped because I have no clue if anyone actually bought anything. I’ll post a video of the co-op mode but since I wasn’t able to play with anyone anyways (nor did I care to), I’m sure there are others who could say more about it.
The sound design aspects of the game are still pretty solid though I don’t have too much I could really say about them. Guns still sound pretty punchy, melee sounds visceral and violent and the explosions feel good too. The environmental stuff is pretty nice, with the main weather effect being extreme blizzards. The soundtrack is decent too, with an orchestral soundtrack by Bobby Tahouri who would compose a variety of things from movies and TV, though whose only work in video games included this game, a Transformers game, an Evanescence cover of a Fleetwood Mac song for Gears 5 and Marvel’s Avengers of all things. The only piece of music I really remember from this however is the music that plays for a bit when you find a secret because you hear it so much though it never bothered me. I don’t know, truth be told a lot of these orchestral soundtracks I just end up repeating in most of my reviews regardless sound good and do well blending into the background but nothing really stood out to me personally. How about voice acting? The most memorable voice acting jobs of course are Camilla Luddington for Lara who does such a fantastic job playing Lara that any other voice I would probably be okay with but wouldn’t hit me as much and Zach Ward of all people as Konstantin along with Charles Halford? I know Zach as the guy who played the Bully on Christmas Story and the Postal Dude, and I didn’t particularly recognize his voice anywhere to be honest, though I assume Charles did Konstantin’s main voice which honestly sounds like he could be a noir protagonist akin to Max Payne talking about the pain of life and the like. Everyone else does a good job though I think these two were the most recognizable to me personally.
After Rise of the Tomb Raider, I hadn’t really touched any of the Tomb Raider games for a while. Shadow of the Tomb Raider would only come out a couple of months after my expedition into the Siberian Mountains to find the Divine Source and after enjoying my 27 or so hours into my first playthrough I had moved on. Overall, if you were to go in to try all of the content at least once (the main story with the DLCs that would be considered story) I would say you could get at least a good 25 hours or more if that includes getting all of the collectibles and such. The story, while less interesting as an actual treasure adventure, just meshes a lot better with more interesting stakes and a more fleshed out feeling than the first. The gameplay is pretty much improved in every way and if you get all of the DLC then you WILL have your money’s worth playing through the game though I don’t really have much to say about it as it is pretty much basically the same. The sound design still holds up with a decent soundtrack and the graphics mixed with the art design feel a lot more colorful and interesting than the bleak and oppressive island of Yamatai from the previous game. If you liked the previous Tomb Raider or you’re looking for a casual adventure game that has a bit more of an emotional nuance than something like Uncharted then I would highly recommend a pickup. My final thoughts on this game are that it is technically better in every way, but that the first game is a lot more interesting. I guess it’s sort of fitting that after I had platinumed all of the Uncharted games that I would move onto Tomb Raider, and I intend on finishing Shadow next as a blind playthrough. I had already gone into what had happened for the most part with the rest of the history of the first two “Survivor Trilogy” which involved comic tie-ins and such but after this they kind of went straight to work on the sequel for three or so years.
Links:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=gpxNrb1XTGo
https://www.ign.com/wikis/rise-of-the-tomb-raider/Soviet_Installation
https://www.svg.com/792202/the-tomb-raider-plot-rhianna-pratchett-regrets-writing/
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/RiseOfTheTombRaider
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D15eRe0cgMw&ab_channel=LaraCroftTombRaiderGamingChannel (Soundtrack)
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3791072/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eq7CWxuzOdc&ab_channel=ThaiGameGuide-Let%27sPlayCo-opGames
From Steam Reviews: https://steamcommunity.com/id/gamemast15r/recommended/
2022
This review contains spoilers
Blank Frame is a “COVID Era isolation” walking simulator horror game developed by Through Tunnel (aka Riku Lempiäinen), a solo developer who according to a Steam review by Sebas-Chan recruited a bunch of his friends to create this singular game as their first title. That’s all I’ve been able to really find persay without doing a fifteen hour super deep dive through their Discord server. However, I can at least tell you how I was able to find the game, and that was mainly through something simple: a friend of mine wishlisted the game and I took a look at it and said “Wow, a short indie atmospheric horror game? Sign me up!”. A little while later, they funnily enough bought me the game, and then eventually I sat down and streamed it for a friend of mine.
The plot takes obvious inspiration from Silent Hill 4, waking up as a man named Henri trapped in his own apartment in the town of Dim River. Going out to his hallway after a loud bang reveals a giant, rusty cabinet blocking both his front door and his bathroom. Exasperated and confused, Henri goes about exploring for ways to escape his apartment when he strikes up a friendship and eventually a flirtatious back and forth with his neighbor Aava. The game’s premise is simple and mostly just revolves around ways to escape the apartment during one really long night, it’s moreso the lore around the game and the symbolism behind it that’s really interesting. Lore reveals graffiti that teases the monsters surrounding Dim River, created by a group called the Lincoln Street Junkies who seem to be a cult that surrounds the town and engage in numerous crimes while worshiping these entities. Henri himself is a depressed loner, and symbolically the game felt like an obvious metaphor for loneliness, from the empty picture frame the guy has to his awkward demeanor talking about his hobbies walking through the woods. It’s a simple premise with decent character building between Aava and Henri about reaching out in hard times and it was enjoyable. There are two endings of course, the good ending (“Euneirophrenia”, aka the peaceful state of mind after a pleasant dream according to Google) and the bad ending (“Valveilla, apparently a translation for Up) which depends on whether or not you open a window for a creature and either leave or not open the window/open the window but slam a dresser on it’s hands. The good ending has you meet up with Aava in person and go out on a date while the other one has a bit of confusing lore but ends abruptly with body pain. Overall, it’s a simplistic plot but one which I enjoyed for the creepy atmosphere and the themes.
I’m sure you could sit down and say that the game is partially a walking simulator, I mean for the most part you just interact with your limited environment and combine certain items together to solve puzzles to move the plot forward. There isn’t really much in the way of “combat” aside from perhaps the final fight in the Good Ending where you have to take photos of creatures in a limited amount of time. I think if anything, I’ll probably have to criticize it a bit for just how confusing it can be sometimes to navigate to certain things? For example, if I hadn’t looked at the guide below I wouldn’t have figured out the code to the television puzzle as I thought you just had to click through the channels to find something. However, it turns out that you have to literally press the channel numbers in the correct order (062 I think?) and the only way you would’ve found that out is by looking it up, brute forcing it, luck or thinking way outside the box (like finding the numbers in your environment). Aside from that and waiting around in certain instances, it’s honestly just a game of exploration and trying to figure stuff out. The only other things I could think of are the fact that getting one of the two endings depends on whether you open a window or not, with some slight variation; also there’s only two places I believe you could die, at this window or the final boss of the game. Otherwise there aren’t any “cheap deaths”, though it is annoying to have to restart EVERYTHING without an autosave.
The steam page for the game advertises this as early 2000s PC/PS2 graphics; an advertisement that truthfully I’m not totally sure about. It feels a lot more in line personally for the Playstation 1 feeling but honestly I’m a sucker for nostalgia anyways so I wasn’t particularly bothered by it, overall I love the old crunchy looking models. However, that’s not what makes this game’s atmosphere interesting. It’s the art design and the color palettes, the atmospheric direction so to speak and what I can say on this end is that this game’s atmosphere is pretty unnerving. For the most part you will only see darker colors, and I don’t mean the fact the game takes place late night/early morning; see you’ll be seeing a lot of darker shades of neon, dim and flickering lights; a sort of feeling that you could see in a sort of Youtube lofi and chill thumbnail that makes it both feel comfy but mixed in with this disheveled and rusty design around you from the rusty cabinet blocking the door or the shady alleyway with the p o r n buildings nearby. If I could assign this game a color then it would definitely be whatever is between purple and black, and it looks great! The actual monster designs are pretty freaky too whenever you see them (which is sort of rare), and mixed with the lower graphical fidelity made me wonder when they would pop out of the shadows surrounding the building. Most of them made me feel uncomfortable except the last monster, which looked like the wooden frame that holds up a canvas but with legs which I guess evokes the Blank Frame symbolism but it’s kinda goofy if anything. Everything else however? It feels like it could come straight out of a Gothcore music video with elongated pointy boots or nose and some straight up monster kaiju designs that feel like it could come from Siren of all things. They’re pretty uncomfortable yet effective and I was always trying to be aware of my surroundings in case they could trigger one of the “kill states” that was advertised.
The soundtrack, composed by Robbert van Bruggen & Johann Hackl (aka Glazers), feels like it could take its influence from the pinnacle survival horror series: Silent Hill. It sounds verbatim to a lot of games that I’ve played in the indie PS1 graphics horror genre but truthfully I don’t see what else this could feel like. Some tracks like Self Condemned Part 1 sound like a straight up panic attack, slowly building as the track’s heart beats faster and faster before fading into this slow-synth sounding string section. Self Condemned Part 2 evokes imagery of solemnly looking into the distance of an alien landscape, wondering if everything was worth it in the end yet glad that the nightmare is finally over. A Theme of Dreams basically evokes the feeling of the title, feeling like you’re stuck in a happier part of a dream while Essence of Death evokes safety and belonging. The game switches between these sort of moods with ease and blends it in easily with the silence as you roam your apartment, making it a sort of mood booster when you do hear something. The sound design in general basically consists of silence, the noise that taps as you scroll through dialogue and random bits and bobs around the environment like doors opening, picture frames smashing and the like. It feels familiar, comfortable yet uneasy and evokes a sort of slow burn horror that I vibe with when I see it, enhancing the environment around you as the tension creeps in. How about voice acting? There is none really, and in those cases I always felt it enhanced the immersion for me anyways so overall, the vibe check with the sound design like the graphics and art design is pretty damn good.
My feeling on Blank Frame going through it was that it was a pretty solid first game for a group of indie developers who never created before. The art direction was creepy and sad if not disturbing and confusing at the same time, mixed with that low poly graphical style that I simply can’t help but utterly simp for. The Sound Design is solid as hell in this territory too with it’s minimalist atmosphere while the soundtrack has this haunting dreamscape quality that sounds comforting sometimes yet utterly unnerving in other times; the only way I could describe it is beautiful. However, when you go into the game you have to be aware that this is a “sit down and play in one sitting” kind of game, with a couple of confusing gameplay sections that I ended up needing a guide and the metaphoric allegorical horror plot that left me scratching my head and trying to interpret its themes. Overall, it’s a solid time and I would think it’s definitely worth the five dollars or so though I didn’t buy it, so shout out to the homie Elephantmonstermcgee for the game! The developers are also seeming to keep at it, with their next game called “A Path That Lingers” being teased a bit on their Discord server.
Links:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2738565131 (Guide)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LgoRZkZUAWw&list=OLAK5uy_lGWcTQzgjFuk_sRvn68aIeSYuFEHUK1jA&index=1&ab_channel=Gazers-Topic (Soundtrack)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_2So1CCZaeM&ab_channel=TheGameArchivist (Playthrough)
https://throughtunnel.itch.io/blank-frame#:~:text=The%20game%20is%20about%20an,The%20game%20contains%20two%20endings (Itch link)
https://twitter.com/ThruTunl
From Steam Reviews: https://steamcommunity.com/id/gamemast15r/recommended/
The plot takes obvious inspiration from Silent Hill 4, waking up as a man named Henri trapped in his own apartment in the town of Dim River. Going out to his hallway after a loud bang reveals a giant, rusty cabinet blocking both his front door and his bathroom. Exasperated and confused, Henri goes about exploring for ways to escape his apartment when he strikes up a friendship and eventually a flirtatious back and forth with his neighbor Aava. The game’s premise is simple and mostly just revolves around ways to escape the apartment during one really long night, it’s moreso the lore around the game and the symbolism behind it that’s really interesting. Lore reveals graffiti that teases the monsters surrounding Dim River, created by a group called the Lincoln Street Junkies who seem to be a cult that surrounds the town and engage in numerous crimes while worshiping these entities. Henri himself is a depressed loner, and symbolically the game felt like an obvious metaphor for loneliness, from the empty picture frame the guy has to his awkward demeanor talking about his hobbies walking through the woods. It’s a simple premise with decent character building between Aava and Henri about reaching out in hard times and it was enjoyable. There are two endings of course, the good ending (“Euneirophrenia”, aka the peaceful state of mind after a pleasant dream according to Google) and the bad ending (“Valveilla, apparently a translation for Up) which depends on whether or not you open a window for a creature and either leave or not open the window/open the window but slam a dresser on it’s hands. The good ending has you meet up with Aava in person and go out on a date while the other one has a bit of confusing lore but ends abruptly with body pain. Overall, it’s a simplistic plot but one which I enjoyed for the creepy atmosphere and the themes.
I’m sure you could sit down and say that the game is partially a walking simulator, I mean for the most part you just interact with your limited environment and combine certain items together to solve puzzles to move the plot forward. There isn’t really much in the way of “combat” aside from perhaps the final fight in the Good Ending where you have to take photos of creatures in a limited amount of time. I think if anything, I’ll probably have to criticize it a bit for just how confusing it can be sometimes to navigate to certain things? For example, if I hadn’t looked at the guide below I wouldn’t have figured out the code to the television puzzle as I thought you just had to click through the channels to find something. However, it turns out that you have to literally press the channel numbers in the correct order (062 I think?) and the only way you would’ve found that out is by looking it up, brute forcing it, luck or thinking way outside the box (like finding the numbers in your environment). Aside from that and waiting around in certain instances, it’s honestly just a game of exploration and trying to figure stuff out. The only other things I could think of are the fact that getting one of the two endings depends on whether you open a window or not, with some slight variation; also there’s only two places I believe you could die, at this window or the final boss of the game. Otherwise there aren’t any “cheap deaths”, though it is annoying to have to restart EVERYTHING without an autosave.
The steam page for the game advertises this as early 2000s PC/PS2 graphics; an advertisement that truthfully I’m not totally sure about. It feels a lot more in line personally for the Playstation 1 feeling but honestly I’m a sucker for nostalgia anyways so I wasn’t particularly bothered by it, overall I love the old crunchy looking models. However, that’s not what makes this game’s atmosphere interesting. It’s the art design and the color palettes, the atmospheric direction so to speak and what I can say on this end is that this game’s atmosphere is pretty unnerving. For the most part you will only see darker colors, and I don’t mean the fact the game takes place late night/early morning; see you’ll be seeing a lot of darker shades of neon, dim and flickering lights; a sort of feeling that you could see in a sort of Youtube lofi and chill thumbnail that makes it both feel comfy but mixed in with this disheveled and rusty design around you from the rusty cabinet blocking the door or the shady alleyway with the p o r n buildings nearby. If I could assign this game a color then it would definitely be whatever is between purple and black, and it looks great! The actual monster designs are pretty freaky too whenever you see them (which is sort of rare), and mixed with the lower graphical fidelity made me wonder when they would pop out of the shadows surrounding the building. Most of them made me feel uncomfortable except the last monster, which looked like the wooden frame that holds up a canvas but with legs which I guess evokes the Blank Frame symbolism but it’s kinda goofy if anything. Everything else however? It feels like it could come straight out of a Gothcore music video with elongated pointy boots or nose and some straight up monster kaiju designs that feel like it could come from Siren of all things. They’re pretty uncomfortable yet effective and I was always trying to be aware of my surroundings in case they could trigger one of the “kill states” that was advertised.
The soundtrack, composed by Robbert van Bruggen & Johann Hackl (aka Glazers), feels like it could take its influence from the pinnacle survival horror series: Silent Hill. It sounds verbatim to a lot of games that I’ve played in the indie PS1 graphics horror genre but truthfully I don’t see what else this could feel like. Some tracks like Self Condemned Part 1 sound like a straight up panic attack, slowly building as the track’s heart beats faster and faster before fading into this slow-synth sounding string section. Self Condemned Part 2 evokes imagery of solemnly looking into the distance of an alien landscape, wondering if everything was worth it in the end yet glad that the nightmare is finally over. A Theme of Dreams basically evokes the feeling of the title, feeling like you’re stuck in a happier part of a dream while Essence of Death evokes safety and belonging. The game switches between these sort of moods with ease and blends it in easily with the silence as you roam your apartment, making it a sort of mood booster when you do hear something. The sound design in general basically consists of silence, the noise that taps as you scroll through dialogue and random bits and bobs around the environment like doors opening, picture frames smashing and the like. It feels familiar, comfortable yet uneasy and evokes a sort of slow burn horror that I vibe with when I see it, enhancing the environment around you as the tension creeps in. How about voice acting? There is none really, and in those cases I always felt it enhanced the immersion for me anyways so overall, the vibe check with the sound design like the graphics and art design is pretty damn good.
My feeling on Blank Frame going through it was that it was a pretty solid first game for a group of indie developers who never created before. The art direction was creepy and sad if not disturbing and confusing at the same time, mixed with that low poly graphical style that I simply can’t help but utterly simp for. The Sound Design is solid as hell in this territory too with it’s minimalist atmosphere while the soundtrack has this haunting dreamscape quality that sounds comforting sometimes yet utterly unnerving in other times; the only way I could describe it is beautiful. However, when you go into the game you have to be aware that this is a “sit down and play in one sitting” kind of game, with a couple of confusing gameplay sections that I ended up needing a guide and the metaphoric allegorical horror plot that left me scratching my head and trying to interpret its themes. Overall, it’s a solid time and I would think it’s definitely worth the five dollars or so though I didn’t buy it, so shout out to the homie Elephantmonstermcgee for the game! The developers are also seeming to keep at it, with their next game called “A Path That Lingers” being teased a bit on their Discord server.
Links:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2738565131 (Guide)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LgoRZkZUAWw&list=OLAK5uy_lGWcTQzgjFuk_sRvn68aIeSYuFEHUK1jA&index=1&ab_channel=Gazers-Topic (Soundtrack)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_2So1CCZaeM&ab_channel=TheGameArchivist (Playthrough)
https://throughtunnel.itch.io/blank-frame#:~:text=The%20game%20is%20about%20an,The%20game%20contains%20two%20endings (Itch link)
https://twitter.com/ThruTunl
From Steam Reviews: https://steamcommunity.com/id/gamemast15r/recommended/
2019
This review contains spoilers
Truberbrook is a point and click adventure game developed by btf games for the Xbox One, PS4, Nintendo Switch and for PC Launcher releases. It originally started as a Kickstarter campaign around Late 2017 I believe, with the tagline “A Nerd Saves the World”; and was formed by a collective of art students from both Cologne and Berlin, Germany who had apparently dabbled in German TV Shows like “How to Sell Drugs Online (Fast)” which sounds like my kind of watching or “Neo Magazin Royale” and before creating the Kickstarter got initial funding from (verbatim) “Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg as part of the “programme for the development and production of innovative audio-visual content”. The Kickstarter went off with a resounding success, making twice the amount of their 80,000 dollar (or Euro?) goal and a little bit more. Some of the rewards included stuff like having your name added in the credits, the hotel’s guest book, and portraits as well as releasing digital brochures with the base game as advertisement. It was released to mixed-to-positive reviews, with a lot of criticism towards the gameplay and the story but positive stuff towards the atmospheric stuff like soundtrack and art design. I had seen this game personally on some friend’s wishlists on Steam for a while, before finally picking it up on GOG as it was free for a limited time and trying to do the “beat one game per console” goal, I had decided upon this as my GOG game of the year and had streamed it for a friend.
The plot to Truberbrook is one that I can’t really tell you much about other than a brief outline/synopsis. The introduction has you playing a woman named Gretchen, stopping at a nearby gas station to fill up the tank to her motorcycle before you’re transferred into the role of Tannhauser, a physics student who has apparently won an all expenses paid trip to the small town of Truberbrook. He didn’t get into any competitions but it’s whatever, and once he ends up there his quantum physics thesis paper gets stolen by a green ghost, and from there you try to figure out who stole it and why. There’s this overarching backstory about Truberbrook’s past involving a corporation named Millenium, who bought out the local mine and took it over under the veil of secrecy, along with sci-fi alternate dimension plots and such. My problem with the story is that while it’s a relatively simple premise, I always felt that it was kind of confusing and convoluted and I’m not exactly sure how I feel about it. Keep in mind, I love it when a plot engages me while also throwing me for a loop like Twin Peaks, but there’s something about this that doesn’t really do it for me. The plot screams urgency but it doesn’t feel urgent and overall I kinda just came out of it…confused? I didn’t hate it, mind you, but I only don’t do plot recaps if the game’s story is kinda meh, it doesn’t matter or if it’s just not entertaining and the truth be told it just doesn’t do it for me. The characters are interesting to an extent, like robot Barbossa whose loneliness of being locked up in a science bunker for god knows how long is sad and relatable. One review said that they didn’t understand if it was the writing or if it was just them in terms of why they didn’t relate to the story but truth be told, I don’t think it’s the writing (or at least the dialogue). The dialogue is often interesting and helps flesh out the characters. I just never felt like the plotting itself really struck out as something interesting and unfortunately the strength of the dialogue never really saved it for me. A positive I will give is that out of context, the introduction is actually the post credits sequence flipped around for those who went in blind like I did. Overall, I kinda feel a bit sad because I wish I had more to say but I really don’t other than a shoulder shrug.
The gameplay for Truberbrook was honestly something that I don’t really feel I can comment on much. Yeah it’s a point and click adventure game, you mostly go and click around on things to pick things up, use them on puzzles, talk to people, etc. Truberbrook doesn’t do anything really crazy with the formula, nor does it need to to be honest. My first critique with the gameplay are the controls: it’s between using the controller or the mouse/keyboard combination. I went with the controller, though this time it’s not because I’m a controller dweeb who sucks at using PC controls (even though I technically am). It’s because on the GOG version, it felt legitimately better to use, more intuitive. Everytime I tried using the mouse and keyboard for some reason it would fly all over the place, though I suspect it’s because I had weird keyboard settings or something. The controller for the most part felt better, touched up and modernized a bit with a couple of wobbles here and there, like clicking one of the four buttons (A,B,X,Y) to examine, talk to, use and take or using one of the Trigger Buttons to do a fast walk. Going through most of the environments felt fine, though walking down the stairs at the Guest Room basement felt like an actual slog that I was fighting against and my advice when traveling down those stairs is to fast walk because at least you can feel like you’re not fighting against invisible walls. Keep in mind, the controls weren’t awful at all, I guess I just struggled a bit and if there was a steady mouse/keyboard thing I couldn’t get a grasp. Besides, the only true difference between the two were how you move: controllers you can move independently of your cursor that you use to click on objects, while the mouse is just you click on a spot and the dude moves to it.
How about the puzzles? Are they okay? I’ll be honest, I used a guide through it so I can’t say anything about this section other than the guide is down there, but I will say that some of the complaints I had heard were: “You don't have an inventory, you do pick up things but there is no way to see what you have”. This is true yet untrue at the same time. There is an inventory, in which you can press Tab on your keyboard to see what it is, it’s just you have no clue how to identify it and it’s kind of annoying. “The puzzles are so obtuse that moon logic is not even enough to describe them sometimes.” Honestly? If I hadn’t had a guide, I probably wouldn’t have figured some things out anyways. Would I have been able to figure out how to use the trophy to scoop up the moon rock on my own? Probably not, but sometimes the inventory puzzles straight up give you the answer, only showing what items would work in that certain situation anyways. So either it feels like it could be kind of confusing or it would hold your hand, but again I used a guide so it’s kind of just whatever in this case. That being said, they’re often fine for the most part, sometimes confusing and baffling but otherwise straightforward. I don’t know, I was more focused on the controls felt at times but that was just my take on the whole thing. The only other things I can really note is that the longest chapter is Chapter 4, in which you’re kind of released back into the world and are given a Postcard in which you can fast travel to previous places that you’ve been, though you won’t need to visit most of them I don’t think. There’s also Chapter 5, which has a boss battle at the end with strange mechanics involving shooting your Quantum gun and teleporting into stuff that kind of felt out of place for a point and click game but it is what it is I suppose.
However, Truberbrook’s art design is what I personally feel is the most unique portion of this game period end of discussion. While the character models were obviously created on a computer (though at time does straight up look like a handmade model), the environments around them are astounding and feel like a strange combination out of a Wallace & Gromit mixed in with Wes Anderson (or at least, what I’ve seen on TV Commercials) style that truth be told feels like it could be this clashing yet connective element of isolation and feeling like I’m at home mixed together. Granted my home isn’t rural Germany, but even when the location takes place in late 1960s post Cold War, it never really felt like it was stuck. It feels whimsical, trapped in a time period yet timeless at the same time, filled with comfortable greens, nature with rocky mountains and soil covered hiking trails and woodlands, warm though I don’t know if I would stay there for an extended period of time. If I could compare this to any sort of vibe whatsoever, think of this: have you ever had parents that talk all the time about retiring to any place that’s isolated, alone with nature but with a small knit community filled with quirky characters surrounding them that feels supportive? Maybe there isn’t bum fuck to do in this town, maybe there’s a little bit of business in the center of it, or maybe the nearest city is an hour in a certain direction. Truberbrook feels like it could be that, the sort of place where one would retire when they’re done with life, when they’re nearing their end game and just want to live out sidequests. It’s a nice place, a place that one wouldn’t want to go to while they're young due to the lack of opportunities one would have if one were to stay there.
This feeling is strong enough though that it doesn’t really feel like there’s a threat in terms of the plot; like yeah, I know that the world could end and all if Gretchen goes through the portal but like it doesn’t really feel like there’s any life-altering stakes. I don’t really know if that’s more of a plot thing, a cozy environment thing or both but at the same time it leads to the same thing: the atmosphere benefits while the plot is just kind of there. Some of the inspirations that it listed off were “Inspired by Twin Peaks, The X-Files, Stranger Things & Star Trek” on the Kickstarter page, but the truth of the matter is that it feels so much like it’s own unique thing that I could barely see most of them in there EXCEPT maybe Star Trek with it’s sci-fi portal stuff later in the game. The environments (along with the lighting) were handmade according to the Kickstarter page, before later being digitized using big words like “photogrammetry” and “retopologized”, which is their way of saying they made it appear in game and with a huge amount of polygons that make it feel seamless with the character models made digitally. I can’t say much about this sort of style except I love it, it definitely feels like the most effort went into making all of the models work and it’s a beautiful game for it, plus I’m a sucker for unique/old retro styles and this stuff harkens back to my old nostalgia days.
To be honest, I’ll have to take back the “not inspired by Twin Peaks much” thing because dear god does the soundtrack reek of something that could come from the town itself. The vibe that was set was deemed “Tranquil doom jazz” on Kickstarter (inspired by the likes of quote: “Tom Waits, Angelo Badalamenti, Mark Lanegan, Timber Timbre or Bohren & der Club of Gore), and it certainly feels jazzy though I’m not sure about doom. The main theme sounds like it could be from Luigi’s Mansion of all things, while tracks like Waldeslust or Paradiso could come from different points in the Twin Peaks universe, the former being in town and the latter being the Red Room. Honestly, I’m a sucker for this type of mysterious jazz feel and the vibe it carries, though mixed in with the plot I’m not sure it really fits the sci-fi stuff? Truberbrook Reprise feels like this sort of melancholy feel, like a piece of your life is missing but there’s hope that you’ll find what you need. The best track I feel the game has is when you’re in Chapter 4 however, when you’re at the concert and listening to a live band singing “Then I’ll Make You Mine” (link below) that just fits this sort of sadboy chill vibe that’s not sad enough to make you cry but sad enough to make you reflect, or at least that’s how I felt about it. Overall, the composers Sebastian Nagel & Albrecht Schrader did a great job with portraying this calm and serene yet sad vibe that fits with the cozy feels of Truberbrook as a town. The rest could be said of the sound design as well, which as always does a pretty good job falling into place and sounding pretty good though there isn’t anything that really pops out here except the voice acting, which is solid and contains performances from the likes of Nora Tschirner and other famous German voice actors and actresses. I don’t really know most of these guys, so I don’t really know what else they’ve been in but from what I can say is that they fit right at home and do a solid job at portraying one of the game’s many quirky characters.
My feelings on Truberbrook were as follows: it’s a decent game whose focus felt more like it was trying to deliver a sort of cozy point and click adventure game then it was an actual plot based title. It delivers in the atmospheric storytelling but I felt like the actual plot, while I could follow along kind of for the most part, felt a bit on the average side and a bit convoluted at that. I had picked up this game for free on GOG, though I’d seen it here and there on some of my friend’s Steam wishlist just sitting around and while I knew of its existence, I didn’t really feel enough to really push forward to try it out. It was definitely a once and done game for me, though I respect what it was trying to do as well as the talent behind it even if it wasn’t exactly my cup of tea. I’ve seen the base price on Steam being around 30 dollars, and while I’m all for supporting creators wherever I can and generally being a bit iffy on “price equals how long/worthy the game is”, I don’t feel like most people should pick this up for thirty dollars? I could see between 5-10 dollars in all honesty, but thirty isn’t it so get it on sale. This game would be what I consider to be my GOG game to play for the year (though I might try others), as I had streamed this for a friend for the month. It wasn’t particularly long, only 4 hours or so and I probably would have completed it in one or two sittings if it wasn’t for the fact I had gotten distracted doing stuff all throughout the month. What happened after the release of Truberbrook? Honestly, I’m not sure. I haven’t really seen much from these guys other than a demo for a paint brushing metroidvania game named Constance, a “introduce your kids to Palentology” educational game and a first person “emotional narrative exploration game” about Berlin Apartments called…Berlin Apartments. Truberbrook may not be my jam, but I respect the “indie arts” vibes these guys have, and I hope to hear more from them and/or about them some time in the future.
Links:
https://www.trueachievements.com/game/Truberbrook/walkthrough/3#ChapterTwo
https://store.steampowered.com/developer/btf
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/btf/truberbrook-a-nerd-saves-the-world/description
https://soundcloud.com/truberbrook
https://www.reddit.com/r/humblebundles/comments/fzerly/we_are_the_developers_of_tr%C3%BCberbrook_ask_us/
http://trueberbrook.com/faq/
The plot to Truberbrook is one that I can’t really tell you much about other than a brief outline/synopsis. The introduction has you playing a woman named Gretchen, stopping at a nearby gas station to fill up the tank to her motorcycle before you’re transferred into the role of Tannhauser, a physics student who has apparently won an all expenses paid trip to the small town of Truberbrook. He didn’t get into any competitions but it’s whatever, and once he ends up there his quantum physics thesis paper gets stolen by a green ghost, and from there you try to figure out who stole it and why. There’s this overarching backstory about Truberbrook’s past involving a corporation named Millenium, who bought out the local mine and took it over under the veil of secrecy, along with sci-fi alternate dimension plots and such. My problem with the story is that while it’s a relatively simple premise, I always felt that it was kind of confusing and convoluted and I’m not exactly sure how I feel about it. Keep in mind, I love it when a plot engages me while also throwing me for a loop like Twin Peaks, but there’s something about this that doesn’t really do it for me. The plot screams urgency but it doesn’t feel urgent and overall I kinda just came out of it…confused? I didn’t hate it, mind you, but I only don’t do plot recaps if the game’s story is kinda meh, it doesn’t matter or if it’s just not entertaining and the truth be told it just doesn’t do it for me. The characters are interesting to an extent, like robot Barbossa whose loneliness of being locked up in a science bunker for god knows how long is sad and relatable. One review said that they didn’t understand if it was the writing or if it was just them in terms of why they didn’t relate to the story but truth be told, I don’t think it’s the writing (or at least the dialogue). The dialogue is often interesting and helps flesh out the characters. I just never felt like the plotting itself really struck out as something interesting and unfortunately the strength of the dialogue never really saved it for me. A positive I will give is that out of context, the introduction is actually the post credits sequence flipped around for those who went in blind like I did. Overall, I kinda feel a bit sad because I wish I had more to say but I really don’t other than a shoulder shrug.
The gameplay for Truberbrook was honestly something that I don’t really feel I can comment on much. Yeah it’s a point and click adventure game, you mostly go and click around on things to pick things up, use them on puzzles, talk to people, etc. Truberbrook doesn’t do anything really crazy with the formula, nor does it need to to be honest. My first critique with the gameplay are the controls: it’s between using the controller or the mouse/keyboard combination. I went with the controller, though this time it’s not because I’m a controller dweeb who sucks at using PC controls (even though I technically am). It’s because on the GOG version, it felt legitimately better to use, more intuitive. Everytime I tried using the mouse and keyboard for some reason it would fly all over the place, though I suspect it’s because I had weird keyboard settings or something. The controller for the most part felt better, touched up and modernized a bit with a couple of wobbles here and there, like clicking one of the four buttons (A,B,X,Y) to examine, talk to, use and take or using one of the Trigger Buttons to do a fast walk. Going through most of the environments felt fine, though walking down the stairs at the Guest Room basement felt like an actual slog that I was fighting against and my advice when traveling down those stairs is to fast walk because at least you can feel like you’re not fighting against invisible walls. Keep in mind, the controls weren’t awful at all, I guess I just struggled a bit and if there was a steady mouse/keyboard thing I couldn’t get a grasp. Besides, the only true difference between the two were how you move: controllers you can move independently of your cursor that you use to click on objects, while the mouse is just you click on a spot and the dude moves to it.
How about the puzzles? Are they okay? I’ll be honest, I used a guide through it so I can’t say anything about this section other than the guide is down there, but I will say that some of the complaints I had heard were: “You don't have an inventory, you do pick up things but there is no way to see what you have”. This is true yet untrue at the same time. There is an inventory, in which you can press Tab on your keyboard to see what it is, it’s just you have no clue how to identify it and it’s kind of annoying. “The puzzles are so obtuse that moon logic is not even enough to describe them sometimes.” Honestly? If I hadn’t had a guide, I probably wouldn’t have figured some things out anyways. Would I have been able to figure out how to use the trophy to scoop up the moon rock on my own? Probably not, but sometimes the inventory puzzles straight up give you the answer, only showing what items would work in that certain situation anyways. So either it feels like it could be kind of confusing or it would hold your hand, but again I used a guide so it’s kind of just whatever in this case. That being said, they’re often fine for the most part, sometimes confusing and baffling but otherwise straightforward. I don’t know, I was more focused on the controls felt at times but that was just my take on the whole thing. The only other things I can really note is that the longest chapter is Chapter 4, in which you’re kind of released back into the world and are given a Postcard in which you can fast travel to previous places that you’ve been, though you won’t need to visit most of them I don’t think. There’s also Chapter 5, which has a boss battle at the end with strange mechanics involving shooting your Quantum gun and teleporting into stuff that kind of felt out of place for a point and click game but it is what it is I suppose.
However, Truberbrook’s art design is what I personally feel is the most unique portion of this game period end of discussion. While the character models were obviously created on a computer (though at time does straight up look like a handmade model), the environments around them are astounding and feel like a strange combination out of a Wallace & Gromit mixed in with Wes Anderson (or at least, what I’ve seen on TV Commercials) style that truth be told feels like it could be this clashing yet connective element of isolation and feeling like I’m at home mixed together. Granted my home isn’t rural Germany, but even when the location takes place in late 1960s post Cold War, it never really felt like it was stuck. It feels whimsical, trapped in a time period yet timeless at the same time, filled with comfortable greens, nature with rocky mountains and soil covered hiking trails and woodlands, warm though I don’t know if I would stay there for an extended period of time. If I could compare this to any sort of vibe whatsoever, think of this: have you ever had parents that talk all the time about retiring to any place that’s isolated, alone with nature but with a small knit community filled with quirky characters surrounding them that feels supportive? Maybe there isn’t bum fuck to do in this town, maybe there’s a little bit of business in the center of it, or maybe the nearest city is an hour in a certain direction. Truberbrook feels like it could be that, the sort of place where one would retire when they’re done with life, when they’re nearing their end game and just want to live out sidequests. It’s a nice place, a place that one wouldn’t want to go to while they're young due to the lack of opportunities one would have if one were to stay there.
This feeling is strong enough though that it doesn’t really feel like there’s a threat in terms of the plot; like yeah, I know that the world could end and all if Gretchen goes through the portal but like it doesn’t really feel like there’s any life-altering stakes. I don’t really know if that’s more of a plot thing, a cozy environment thing or both but at the same time it leads to the same thing: the atmosphere benefits while the plot is just kind of there. Some of the inspirations that it listed off were “Inspired by Twin Peaks, The X-Files, Stranger Things & Star Trek” on the Kickstarter page, but the truth of the matter is that it feels so much like it’s own unique thing that I could barely see most of them in there EXCEPT maybe Star Trek with it’s sci-fi portal stuff later in the game. The environments (along with the lighting) were handmade according to the Kickstarter page, before later being digitized using big words like “photogrammetry” and “retopologized”, which is their way of saying they made it appear in game and with a huge amount of polygons that make it feel seamless with the character models made digitally. I can’t say much about this sort of style except I love it, it definitely feels like the most effort went into making all of the models work and it’s a beautiful game for it, plus I’m a sucker for unique/old retro styles and this stuff harkens back to my old nostalgia days.
To be honest, I’ll have to take back the “not inspired by Twin Peaks much” thing because dear god does the soundtrack reek of something that could come from the town itself. The vibe that was set was deemed “Tranquil doom jazz” on Kickstarter (inspired by the likes of quote: “Tom Waits, Angelo Badalamenti, Mark Lanegan, Timber Timbre or Bohren & der Club of Gore), and it certainly feels jazzy though I’m not sure about doom. The main theme sounds like it could be from Luigi’s Mansion of all things, while tracks like Waldeslust or Paradiso could come from different points in the Twin Peaks universe, the former being in town and the latter being the Red Room. Honestly, I’m a sucker for this type of mysterious jazz feel and the vibe it carries, though mixed in with the plot I’m not sure it really fits the sci-fi stuff? Truberbrook Reprise feels like this sort of melancholy feel, like a piece of your life is missing but there’s hope that you’ll find what you need. The best track I feel the game has is when you’re in Chapter 4 however, when you’re at the concert and listening to a live band singing “Then I’ll Make You Mine” (link below) that just fits this sort of sadboy chill vibe that’s not sad enough to make you cry but sad enough to make you reflect, or at least that’s how I felt about it. Overall, the composers Sebastian Nagel & Albrecht Schrader did a great job with portraying this calm and serene yet sad vibe that fits with the cozy feels of Truberbrook as a town. The rest could be said of the sound design as well, which as always does a pretty good job falling into place and sounding pretty good though there isn’t anything that really pops out here except the voice acting, which is solid and contains performances from the likes of Nora Tschirner and other famous German voice actors and actresses. I don’t really know most of these guys, so I don’t really know what else they’ve been in but from what I can say is that they fit right at home and do a solid job at portraying one of the game’s many quirky characters.
My feelings on Truberbrook were as follows: it’s a decent game whose focus felt more like it was trying to deliver a sort of cozy point and click adventure game then it was an actual plot based title. It delivers in the atmospheric storytelling but I felt like the actual plot, while I could follow along kind of for the most part, felt a bit on the average side and a bit convoluted at that. I had picked up this game for free on GOG, though I’d seen it here and there on some of my friend’s Steam wishlist just sitting around and while I knew of its existence, I didn’t really feel enough to really push forward to try it out. It was definitely a once and done game for me, though I respect what it was trying to do as well as the talent behind it even if it wasn’t exactly my cup of tea. I’ve seen the base price on Steam being around 30 dollars, and while I’m all for supporting creators wherever I can and generally being a bit iffy on “price equals how long/worthy the game is”, I don’t feel like most people should pick this up for thirty dollars? I could see between 5-10 dollars in all honesty, but thirty isn’t it so get it on sale. This game would be what I consider to be my GOG game to play for the year (though I might try others), as I had streamed this for a friend for the month. It wasn’t particularly long, only 4 hours or so and I probably would have completed it in one or two sittings if it wasn’t for the fact I had gotten distracted doing stuff all throughout the month. What happened after the release of Truberbrook? Honestly, I’m not sure. I haven’t really seen much from these guys other than a demo for a paint brushing metroidvania game named Constance, a “introduce your kids to Palentology” educational game and a first person “emotional narrative exploration game” about Berlin Apartments called…Berlin Apartments. Truberbrook may not be my jam, but I respect the “indie arts” vibes these guys have, and I hope to hear more from them and/or about them some time in the future.
Links:
https://www.trueachievements.com/game/Truberbrook/walkthrough/3#ChapterTwo
https://store.steampowered.com/developer/btf
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/btf/truberbrook-a-nerd-saves-the-world/description
https://soundcloud.com/truberbrook
https://www.reddit.com/r/humblebundles/comments/fzerly/we_are_the_developers_of_tr%C3%BCberbrook_ask_us/
http://trueberbrook.com/faq/
This review contains spoilers
Batman: Arkham Asylum is a “IT’S THE BAT” simulator and “metroidvania” styled superhero game developed by Rocksteady, whose history before this was one that was in its infancy. Rocksteady was created by Sefton Hill (the director for AA) and a guy named Jamie Walker, whose previous studio (named Argonaut Games, creator of the original Star Fox on NES, Croc: Legend of the Gobbos and it’s sequel, the first two Harry Potter games on PS1 AND the Catwoman game based on the box office bomb of the same name with similar results) had closed and was put up for sale in 2004 to recover from the lack of publishing deals. Many would hop over to Rocksteady, whose first game would be the only non-related DC title they’ve ever made: Urban Chaos: Riot Response. After average reviews and god knows how many sales their publisher, Eidos Interactive, would pop up with the rights to create a Batman game. Rocksteady had jumped at the chance, working on the concept that would become Arkham Asylum, written by DC Comics pen Paul Dini and taking inspiration from known Batman comics like Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth by Grant Morrison along with the likes of other authors such as Frank Miller (of course) and Neil Adams, at least according to Wikipedia though I haven’t read enough Batman comics to really get a grasp on everything (though I would love to one day). The development goal was to create a game that could be beaten in 8-10 hours, with a story written around the gameplay and game design centered around isolation: Arkham Asylum fit just this design. The release of Arkham Asylum would lead to critical acclaim and sales up the iz-a s s as well as redefining the entire superhero genre with its intricate gameplay, its high stakes story and true to the comics style atmosphere.
Batman: Arkham Asylum is an experience to me personally that I don’t think I really remember where I first heard it from, or when I first played it. I remember specifically playing it and really enjoying the plot, though being disappointed at the lack of enemies to beat up post-game as well as dreading the “metroidvania” riddler trophy collect-a-thon, ESPECIALLY the cave systems underneath the Asylum man I dreaded playing that s h i t (though I played both the OG and the Game of the Year Edition on Xbox 360). However, I remember at least this being one of my first true exposures to the Batman mythos (along with Heath Ledger Joker impressions, Batman: Begins the game and the Tim Burton Batman film) and finally becoming engrossed and interested in this dark, gloomy superhero character. Imagining where the series would go next was a fascinating thing for me, I imagined a sort of open world Gotham City (which we would eventually sorta get with City/Origins and later fully with Knight) where you could fly into and beat up bad guys and have a fun time. Having last played Knight on the Xbox One, a buddy of mine DarkRaptor (shoutout to Dino AGAIN) sent me this game for Christmas and I’ve been itching to get back into the series. However, I had this hyper-fixation for Arkham Origins after getting belt fed youtube shorts and wanted to play that; however my buddy Steve (shoutout to SuperPunchGod) told me I should just start again with Asylum because mechanically it was in its infancy and so that’s what I did. How has Asylum held up to me personally compared to how it held up nigh a decade ago?
The plot starts straight after one of Joker’s schemes is foiled by Batman, one which apparently involves assaulting Gotham City Hall along with the Mayor. Having recently broken out of Arkham Asylum to do this, the Bat captures him and brings him back to their special place in the middle of a giant rainstorm while the Jonkler cackles in the backseat. Bringing him inside, Warden Quincy Sharp is waiting for him along with Officer Frank Boles, who seems to want to beat him up. They strap him to a gurney thing and walk him along, with Batman joining due to a strange feeling going on with the Goober. Along the way you’ll meet other characters like Dr. Penelope Young (Warden Sharp’s protege with a personal stake in curing the asylum’s inmates), Aaron Cash (a no-nonsense security guard with a family and a stub for a hand due to inmate Killer Croc), and finally Killer Croc (a man with a life altering disease that gives him scales, who also ate Cash’s hand). Meeting up with Jim Gordon downstairs, the guards lead Joker the rest of the way while Bats and Gordon talk about whenever it's clear that Batman’s suspicions of ulterior motives prove to be correct. Joker strangles a guard and breaks out, with Harley Quinn helping them in the breakout attempt, putting one of the force fields up as Batman jumps through a window. It’s here where the first combat section goes off, and Batman pummels a bunch of Joker’s goons who were transferred to Arkham Asylum from Blackgate Correctional Facility due to a “mysterious” fire.
Chasing after the Joober, he gets sidetracked when serial killer Victor Zsasz holds a security guard hostage with the electric chair. Sneaking into the room and knocking him out, he saves the guard but learns that Harley has kidnapped Warden Sharp. The security system goes offline, and the Joker threatens to bomb the city if anyone attempts to penetrate the Asylum. Forced to work alone, Batman follows a trail to the processing corridor where he sees the Joobler all alone on top of a suspended cell. Throwing a batarang at him for…some reason, Joker gets cocky and releases a giant behemoth of a monster who proceeds to charge though gets knocked out even with difficulty. Joker decides to give Batman a shot to end it all there, to kill him though Batman doesn’t take him up on his offer with the whole “no kill” code thing. Saving a nearby guard from being trapped, the Joker contacts Batman and shows a backup plan: Officer Balls is actually under Jonkler’s payroll, and knocks out Jim Gordon as a part of a kidnapping plan. If Batman follows him, Gordon dies though we all know that he’s going to follow them anyways. Following the trail back from the area where Joker escaped, Batman follows Officer Ball’s trail (filled with pure unbridled alcoholism) and traces him to the exit of Intensive Treatment, where of course he ends up a LITERAL dead end for being a backstabbing piece of shit.
Escaping to the outside, Joker gloats about the location of the Batmobile, being outside of the front gates. Heading back to the car and beating the shit out of all of Joker’s goons kicking it in, he pulls out the Explosive Gel he has hidden in the trunk and follows a tobacco trail left by Gordon which leads him to the Medical Facility. Entering inside, he finds only Harley kicking her feet up behind a security gate and talking to Joker on a TV with Gordon held nearby. Batman sneaks in a different way, and after going through numerous goons rescues Dr. Young, who warns him that Joker has kidnapped a bunch of doctors. Going to every one of them and saving them, they rendezvous in the center where Dr. Young flees to Arkham Mansion to snatch away some research notes in case Joker decides to steal them, with Aaron Cash following behind her as protection. Following the tobacco trail after knocking out a bunch of armed goons coming to storm the facility, he ends up in the basement where he’s hit with Scarecrow’s fear gas and hallucinates Gordon to be dead. Attempting to call Oracle (Barbara Gordon) fails, so chasing the killer into the morgue reveals hallucination of Bruce Wayne’s dead parents begging him not to let them die. He proceeds to wake up in a hallucination, a floating world with bits and pieces of Arkham infrastructure as a giant, high-pitched Scarecrow patrols looking for Batman. Batman sneaks up to a giant light and shines it on him, waking up in the real world morgue.
Following further into the facility, Gordon is revealed to be alive and still held by Harley, who is watching over…something. She gets knocked the hell out by Batman, who saves Gordon and they both infiltrate the lab. The computer inside is revealed to be Dr. Young’s, who seems to have strapped Bane via multiple tubes to a nearby wall for strange experiments, involving draining the Venom from his blood. Joker activates the tubes again and turns Bane mad, who proceeds to grow super sized and throws Batman through a wall. Another boss battle (that plays like the big guy from earlier, throwing batarangs as they charge) plays out where Batman rips out the venom tubes on his back, and the entire infrastructure crumbles as Batman and Gordon escape outside. Bane breaks out and attempts to kill Batman once more, but Batman remote controls the Batmobile to crash Bane into the ocean where they both sink to the bottom. Batman brings Gordon to the nearby boat and tells them to go back to Gotham to calm the civilians with the bomb threats. Batman tells Oracle to find everything she can on Dr. Young, while he goes to the Batcave; yes it turns out Batman has a batcave ON Arkham Island as a backup plan in case. Batman climbs up to a cave near Intensive Treatment and glides down into the secret entrance of the Batcave. It’s here where he looks into the research Oracle sent, which involves Dr. Young experimented on patients with a modified version of Venom, nicknamed Titan and externally funded by a mysterious person. However, the formula is missing and that’s apparently the secret that Dr. Young is trying to hide. Batman theorizes that Joker’s endgame is to acquire an army in comparison to “a thousand Banes”. He leaves the Batcave to chase after Young when it’s learned that the mysterious funder is “Jack White”, one of the old aliases of Joker. Dr. Young blocked the payments so he proceeded to get captured by Batman just so he could get the formula back for himself, after of course sending email death threats involving dead babies.
Making his way to Arkham Mansion, Joker yells at his thugs to search the entire place while he’s interrogating Dr. Young for the location. Making his way to her office, he finds the safe empty and follows her trace to the library, where Joker has taken two doctors hostage. He ends up cracking a chandelier and has it crash to the bottom, saving the doctors who confirm Batman’s suspicions that Dr. Young ran in before being captured. It’s probably reversed but either way, Batman finds the formula in the library and burns it before Joker can obtain it. Joker reveals a new backup plan: Dr. Young has been captured by Zsasz again. He gets hit by some gas as he exits the library and ends up in ANOTHER Scarecrow hallucination, this time re-enacting his parents murder in Crime Alley, all while experiencing it as a child again. Ending up in another game of hide and seek with Scarecrow, he AGAIN gets the spotlight and shines it on him before waking up in the clock tower. Batman throws one of his ‘rangs at it, with the giant crash below opening up a new way to get to Zsasz and Dr. Young in the Warden’s Office. The Bat manages to get her safe by throwing a batarang straight at the dude’s forehead, knocking him out cold. Young freaks out at him before crying to Batman that she tried to give him his money back before warning him about a lab hidden in the Gardens, the codes being in the warden’s safe. However, the safe is booby trapped and Dr. Young is now mucho deado. For some reason, Harley appears with the kidnapped Warden who is beaten up and leaves an easily followed trail and a bunch of goons as cannon fodder to get beaten up.
Batman follows the trail easily left by Harley and the Warden to the Penitentiary, where Poison Ivy begs to be let out. This of course is denied by Batman, who instead continues to follow the trail and finds the Warden, watching a tv feed of Harley letting Poison Ivy free to roam. Joker of course frees all of the “looneys” and the Warden gives Batman the sequencer to hack into the systems. Warden hangs back for safety reasons, and Batman chases Harley Quinn while beating up multiple goons to Extreme Incarceration, where a giant fist fight ends in Harley being defeated. Joker gives her “encouragement” by removing her from the “party list” (revealing names from Selina Kyle to Rocksteady contest winner Luke Oliver, though none of it really matters). Harley attempts a sucker punch but gets flipped over and her fingerprints scanned before being thrown into this cell and Batman makes his way over to the lab in the botanical gardens. He confronts Joker, who responds by throwing the guard into an electrified pool of water. Chasing him to the Aviary, he knocks out the patrols holding hostages before opening up the secret lab with Joker and two of his guards inside. He shoots his goons with the Titan formula, who transform body horror style and prepare for combat. The fight ends with the goons knocked out and the Titan Production Facility destroyed, though with Joker escaping with a whole bunch.
Batman narrows it down to a Venom Hybrid plant, and tracks Poison Ivy’s pheromone sample nearby to ask for her help. After some “tough persuasion”, she reveals that there’s a plant that can counteract this Titan…located inside of Killer Croc’s lair. He makes his way out, but it’s learned that Joker injected Ivy with Titan, which causes freaky plants to grow all around the island. Now there’s a time limit before the entirety of Arkham Island is overrun, and Batman races to the mansion to talk to Aaron Cash about a way into Killer Croc’s cell. Batman makes his way to Intensive Treatment once again for the most memorable section in the game: Scarecrow’s last hallucination. First it hits you with a glitch of sorts, making you think that the game’s seemingly crashed. Then it hits you with a reversal of the opening cutscene, Joker as Batman and Batman as Joker. Batman is brought to Arkham Asylum and strapped to a gurney, pushed along as he screams for help. Scarecrow and Zsasz inspect him before Joker pulls out a gun and shoots him, leading to an unavoidable game over screen where he’s told to “wiggle the mouse to dodge his bullets”. Waking up out of Bruce Wayne’s grave, he finds himself in one last Scarecrow hallucination involving Batmen eating dead rats and a giant searchlight being shined on Scarecrow. Waking up in the real world with Scarecrow’s neck wrapped around Batman’s hand, he attempts to jab him with more fear toxin which pits Batman against skeletal enemies. However, this backfires as Batman gains clarity once more, having “ingested enough toxins to drive 10 men insane” and he escapes, planning to flood the water in Croc’s lair with enough fear toxin to drive everyone insane. Chasing him down there, this fails as Scarecrow is grabbed by Killer Croc for lunch before a batarang/shock collar combo brings them both into the waters nearby.
With Scarecrow’s plans now failed, Batman enters Croc’s lair to find all of these plant spores meant to build the counteracting chemicals. This game of cat and mouse has Batman slow walking, quickly reacting with more shock collar/batarang combos and a whole lot of running, which ends in Croc having a floor blown out from under him and into the abyss below. Making his way to the Batcave, where he creates an antidote to reverse engineer Ivy, planning on giving her the cure while the computer creates more. In the meanwhile, plants raid the entire lair and Batman barely gets away, making his way back to the asylum. Climbing up through the sewers, Oracle reveals that Joker is polluting Gotham river with Titan waste and Batman proceeds to shut down all of the control rooms. Batman then makes his way back to Ivy, who overrun the ENTIRE Botanical building with plants and red mist. Attempting to inject the plant results in Ivy going berserk, and a boss battle ensues with a giant plant. Of course, Batman manages to crack through the shell with explosive gel before the entirety of the greenhouse collapses. Batman glides out as fireworks engage, and Joker’s “party” is finally announced as Batman makes his way over.
If you’ve been going to the Visitor’s Room throughout the game, you’ll notice a mannequin with a TV strapped to its head as Joker’s voice taunts Batman about a variety of subjects and changing positions. Going back here now, it’s revealed that it’s NOT actually a mannequin but actually the Joker himself…sticking his head through a TV? How this works I’m not totally sure, but it’s cool nonetheless! Batman follows the Joker after the TV blows up to reveal a giant lair covered in barbed wire, the Joker sitting atop a throne with Scarface the doll on his hand and two giant titan goons chained to the wall. One last fight in this throne room leads to Gordon AGAIN having revealed to have been kidnapped, though how this time is unknown. Joker attempts to shoot Gordon with Titan, only for Batman to jump in and take the hit. However, Batman resists the Titan formula as the Joker attempts to tickle him with a feather, going on a rant about wanting to bring down Batman’s facade of the world. He then shoots himself with the Titan as the news helicopters surround the entire island, with Jack Ryder having been sent a news message to look upon the rooftops. Titan Joker appears, throwing Batman into an arena as Gordon is strapped in a nearby electric chair. Batman injects himself with the antidote, and defeats the Titan Joker and his goon squad, which ends in Titan Joker getting pulled down into a floor and electrified. The fight ends with a Mike Tyson punch-out as Batman puts explosive gel on his fist, punching Jonkler in the face and knocking them both back. Probably dislocating his arm and messing up a couple of fingers, the night is saved as the GCPD takes control and criminals are brought back to their cells. Everyone who was injected with Titan transforms back to normal, even if the process is painful. If one were to wrap up the Riddler trophies before then, Batman also sent the location of the Riddler to GCPD, where he’s arrested in an apartment building. The game ends with Batman racing off in the Batwing to take down Two-Face, who's robbing a bank and the final post credits shot concludes with a box of Titan formula floating outside of Arkham Asylum, with one of three hands popping up for a grab: Scarecrow, Killer Croc or Bane.
The plot to Arkham Asylum, while it’s not my favorite of the series, is still a lot of fun. It feels like a classic Batman plot, a Joker scheme where he sends you out on a wild goose chase to stop a bunch of plans before the reveal of “the party” which has been built up all night. The whole Titan monster plot feels a bit weird sometimes of course, like a bit out of tone for the rest of the Arkham franchise but considering that this was the first game in the series it’s not a surprise that over time the tone would change into something more dark and a bit less fantastical then “super soldier enemies”. I appreciate all the little details, the plot twists, and honestly let’s just be real about the VIP here: the Scarecrow hallucinations. I knew it was coming this time, but both of the previous times I played this game on the Xbox 360, it really shook me up and wigged me out, making me panic that the game actually crashed. The whole meta thing of that made for a pretty damn good Scarecrow moment, and followed up by the tense Killer Croc sewer segments made these to be the two best moments in the game for me. I love the lore that Rocksteady managed to put in here between the Riddler trophies or even things that aren’t related to that but reference other DC and Batman media as little easter eggs. I sometimes think that the game has a couple of strange plot twists (mainly how did Commissioner Gordon get kidnapped AGAIN after being sent out via police boat, why does Hush appear as an entry here when he only later shows up for the first time in City or how did Riddler get all of his trophies around the asylum) but overall, a solid plot. I was reading up on TVTropes (as always my go-to site) trying to learn new things about the game and apparently, the game had featured the Mad Hatter inside of a botanical garden maze which would’ve been interesting as well as a Mr. Freeze section. These were either cut for pacing purposes or because in Freeze’s case, the motives don’t line up really well. I also appreciate the brisk pace that the game goes in, with me beating the game in around 10-11 hours or so and it never felt like it overstayed its welcome with how small and honestly claustrophobic the Asylum is.
So what’s the gameplay like for Batman: Arkham Asylum? It’s a sort of “Metroidvania” style game, where you explore different areas of the asylum, later backtracking to follow different story objectives with new gadgets or collecting “Riddler Trophies”. The Riddler collectibles consist of actual hidden trophies, riddles which require either painfully obvious answers or semi-confusing puzzles (almost always consisting of scanning/holding down the detective vision button) that gives greater context to DC lore or gets you THIS much closer to taking down Riddler himself. While I loved getting a bit of background lore to the world, the Riddler trophies are always going to be the Arkham game’s biggest pain in the a s s, with the thing I honestly dreaded most replaying the game. The gadgets (which consist of things like Remote Controlled Batarangs, Explosive Gel, Grapple Hooks and other stuff) were also apparently influenced by Metroid and even The Legend of Zelda for their out of the box environmental puzzle solving. For the most part this works, there’s definitely a bit of puzzle solving that once you figure it out can make you feel pretty smart. That being said, if one decides to just use a guide I wouldn’t blame you considering how frustrating finding some of these guys are.
What else do you do in the open world? Other than grapple to certain spots (which change over time due to story events), you can engage in combat (or stealth knock out some goons). The stealth combat is pretty simple, you can either literally sneak around (in which case the field of vision/retention meter is pretty solid) or grapple between gargoyles as you try to make your way around the arena to knock out Joker goons. This can be done in many ways, between capturing goons and strapping them to the gargoyles, to corner takedowns, grate takedowns, explosive gel takedowns, grapple hooking people off of ledges; the list while not the most expansive goes on a bit and makes you feel pretty great when taking down goons. That being said, the AI reacts pretty decently to this too and adapts accordingly, like looking through nearby grates if a goon was taken down near one or even later on placing bombs on gargoyles to give you less advantage. Best part is, unlike later games, henchmen don’t try to wake each other up either so you’re given a lot more breathing room to interact, wait and plan how you want to.
So what’s combat like? For the most part seamless! Originally the game was planned to be sort of a rhythm game and you could tell just due to how rhythm based the combat is set up to be. Obviously you can punch people, and punching enough people builds up a combo; the higher the combo, the more powerful and the faster you get and such. Along the way you have to be careful to counter certain goons (marked with blue lightning above a goon’s head) or dodge them entirely (red lights above a goon’s head), and certain goons have a certain way of being fought. Electric prod ones you need to jump over their heads before punching them in the back while the big knife guys you have to stun with your cape before beating them up. Titan guys you have to wait till they charge before quickly throwing a batarang and dodging, which allows you to punch them a bit before riding their back and forcing them to knock out other goons. Again while there isn’t as much variation as the later games would have, it’s a pretty solid system that works pretty well and feels powerful. That being said, it can be a bit touchy and one accidental press of the counter button (Y on the Xbox controller) will mess up your whole combo so you need to pay attention to your surroundings but be quick enough to actually dodge everything. It’s a system that while in it’s infancy stage, really blossomed into something that later games would take influence from and use for their own games which is awesome. And another thing, the more Riddler trophies you get through the entire game, the more combat maps/takedown maps you’ll unlock in the main menu. Luckily, if you don’t want to do that, the PC version has all of the DLC maps (like the Scarecrow one) for free which is nice! The only thing it doesn’t have though is the Joker maps, exclusive to PS3 and the Linux apparently? However, there are guides to actually mod that in (one of which I posted in the links below), so if you want a bit more Arkham Asylum feel free to go through that.
Built on Unreal Engine 3, the amount of graphical fidelity that this game has is honestly pretty astounding. It has this sort of detail in the environmental and character modeling that the truth is sometimes the other games don’t really match up with. Don’t get me wrong, the other games don’t look bad in the slightest. However, there’s something about Asylum that just has more of a strike to it, though this could be due to the bigger scope of the latter three games leading to it being taken down a notch. If the devil is in the details then this game definitely leads a satanic cult because this game is packed full of them. Over the course of the game the Batsuit will experience damage due to story events and his beard stubble will grow over time as you go through the set pieces. If one were to compare the Return to Arkham Ports with the current PC port you’ll notice a bit of a difference graphically: number one is that the older ports will always have this greenish hue of sorts that makes it feel surprisingly…dead almost? Apparently the game was supposed to include rain (later added to the Xbox One/PS4 ports) though was cut from the original releases due to technical limitations, but in a strange sense it actually enhances the dread for me even more? With the graphics mixing into the atmosphere section now, how's the atmospheres? It’s this mixture of this gothic seriousness thrown into a blender and shaken up a bit with a little goofiness here and there. Another thing, the detective mode that you get in this game is actually pretty cool looking, so much in fact that players would go through the entire game just using that mode as a sort of filter (enough so that the developers would nerf it for Arkham City and beyond).
Understandably, the idea of superheroes and villains as a concept are goofy; that’s a lot of the reason why something like the Marvel Cinematic Universe hit as hard as it did because it didn’t take itself too seriously. This game is what I would consider to be the closest to that in the Arkham franchise I would say, but that’s for later on. Arkham Asylum as a location is gloomy and oppressive, secluded on its own island in a sort of vibe where it looks like it could fall apart at any moment, only to reveal something airtight and state of the art underneath and while it’s not art deco, apparently a lot of this boils down to apparent “Bioshock” influence that game had on developers. This only gets worse and more oppressive as the night goes on, between the destruction wrought on by Joker and his goon squad and Poison Ivy’s giant plant vines literally inserting itself into every little facet of Arkham Asylum’s architecture. The empty rooms with flipped tables and leftover paperwork, especially after you’ve beaten the game (or right before) and are just wrapping up Riddler trophies could feel like it’s this bizarre, maze-like liminal space that’s hostile and instantly uncomfortable. Honestly it was so effective (along with the Metroidvania styled collectible stuff) that it was a huge part of the reason why I didn’t want to come back and play this game for a long time. The Medical Wing is I think one of the biggest offenders, with the path going to the basement becoming kind of confusing, and the paths have details ranging from liquid-filled jars with severed heads to the cell that USED to hold Killer Croc. It looks like something honestly out of an 80s horror movie, like Herbert West’s Re-Animator or something (though I never watched that movie sadly). Don’t even get me started about the Scarecrow hallucinations, usually marked with dutch camera angles, glitches or long hallways that even though doesn’t hit rated-R levels of creep factor does a really good job messing with Batman in a seamless manner.
The sound design in terms of the noises, how things sound reminds me in a strange way of a filing cabinet. That slick papery sound as you pass through page after page, it’s especially prevalent in the biography pages when you earn entries through Riddler trophies or interview tapes. This smooth sound of paper being flicked back and forth just fills this weird ASMR brain thing in my head, along with the audio tapes being activated. Gliding using the cape also elicits the paper ASMR in a similar sense from earlier, and while not as strong certainly sounds appealing as hell. Punching and kicking people, while not as striking or appealing as the later games, still have this oomph to it that just feels satisfying kicking the s h i t out of everyone and everything you see. The noises and little jingles that go off as either the Joker or a pre-recorded message from the Asylum itself goes off and recites statistical facts or vague threats feel right at home. There are so many noises and sounds that just fit the feeling of what Arkham Asylum IS, I honestly can’t think of a single sound that doesn’t fit at home here or isn’t perfect. How about the soundtrack, does it have a unique flare to it or tracks I could listen to away from the game? The composers for the score here consist of Nick Arundel and Ron Fish, who manage to make this mysterious sound as if it comes straight out of a noir film. Another track they did, Enter the Asylum, is probably what I would say their “main track” is, which while repeated and altered in other locations kind of reminds me of how Halo would pull off their compositions. Other tracks consist of a lot of choir chanting, which I’m always a bit of a sucker for. Like the case for most other soundtracks, it really works within the game’s environment even if there’s no memorable tracks that I would say “slaps in the whip” so that’s all I really have to say here. It’s perfect, fits the atmosphere, no honest complaints.
Voice acting across the board is pretty fantastic, bringing in a lot of the talent from the Batman: The Animated Series cast like Kevin Conroy as Batman (Rest in Peace to THE definitive Batman), Mark Hamill as The Joker, Arleen Sorkin as Harley Quinn like other than the movie adaptations of these characters I don’t really see anything to change. It’s almost effortless how they knock it out of the park, even with the producers having told Kevin Conroy to use his general speaking voice it just feels like I’m hearing Bruce Wayne speak. I think the main things to point out honestly would come from the other members of the cast: Tom Kane (Takeo from Call of Duty: Zombies fame, Dr. Loomis impersonator from Halloween H20, etc.) has such a magnificent boomy voice performance it feels like he should be involved in public speaking of sorts, and plays both Commissioner Gordon as well as Warden Quincy Sharp and while they both sound similar they’re both different enough to be unique. While Steven Blum mainly plays Killer Croc with this vicious snarl, talking as if he’s drowning in water, he also plays other characters (like a doctor at the beginning) in his regular voice that always sounds iconic. Wally Wingert plays The Riddler and others and by god does his Riddler voice sound like such a narcissistic pompous ass that honestly feels perfect. I also recognize Cree Summer as Dr. Penelope Young, a performance that while sounding like Cree Summer, she always sounds recognizable in everything which in this case is a good trait. These are only a couple of examples, these guys exemplify the characters in-game and it’s honestly hard to see them as anything else (except maybe Steven Blum I can always pick that dude out of a crowd to be honest).
Having replayed Arkham Asylum, I had found a lot of my old frustrations that built up in my mind to honestly be unfounded. I dreaded replaying this game, doing all those damn Riddler trophies and coping with fighting mechanics that was stuck in its infancy compared to the upgraded arsenal and fluidity that we would later have in City and Knight. But honestly? Replaying this game gave me a sort of newfound respect for the game, as truth be told the title is to me an inherent classic with its influence on future games. Other games (mostly superhero) would attempt to ape the freeflow combat style from Spider-Man games to Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor/War, Sleeping Dogs to Mad Max to even the likes of the awful game Ride to Hell: Retribution. However, what really holds this game up for me other than the combat system is just genuinely it’s delivery, it’s atmosphere, it’s reverence for the DC history. Riddler Trophies or without, the amount of details they put into this game is just so astounding that even to this day I’m still learning new details about this game (like the beard stubble), and it’s genuine foreshadowing on Arkham City with the secret room, or even obscure stuff that I wouldn’t have even recognized without doing deep dive stuff. Rocksteady cared about this product and it truly shows with the popular reception this game gave, that even now people will still list this as their favorite game even if it doesn’t deliver as hard compared to the rest of them. I’ll still always prefer Knight mechanically or Origins/City for their plots but the game has my deep respect and admiration and honestly deserves it as one of the greatest games of all time, a forerunner in the superhero genre that showed making these games CAN be good, that it’s not all a one time fluke or having to be tie-ins to movies or cartoons. Releasing to the aforementioned critical acclaim, the developers must’ve known how good they had it because they pulled off a bit of a risky gamble: staging hints of a sequel in the base game. Going into the Warden’s Office area and blowing up a wall with the max amount of explosive jail would reveal the Warden’s secret plans for a special prison, sectioning off a piece of Gotham. Going back to the Morgue where Ra’s Al Ghul’s corpse was for the riddle would later reveal that it disappeared, also setting up the sequel. This sequel would become Arkham City, and with the sequel in development along with the success of Asylum, Rocksteady would be purchased in 2010 by Warner Bros. There’s not much else historically wise that I know of that I wouldn’t cover in the next game’s review other than the fact Arkham Asylum was later re-released as Game of the Year along with being remastered for Xbox One/PS4 and ported to Switch, but the impact Asylum had is not to be understated in the slightest. It may not be my favorite superhero game, but it helped influence the industry and cemented its influence as a classic game.
Links:
https://web.archive.org/web/20120712005612/http://www.arkhamcare.com/prices/
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Trivia/BatmanArkhamAsylum
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=nRBWe14tYdo (Easter Eggs)
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/video-games/6126146/Batman-Arkham-Asylum-interview-with-Paul-Dini.html
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3179787276 (Joker install guide)
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=6Th1-HHfLAk (Officer Balls)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VuuHMPqrXy8&list=OLAK5uy_k0DH8cZzBb9Uq-1L6M2H7c2lGKJZK7mvI&index=1 (Soundtrack)
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1282022/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tcveNqT6Lfg&ab_channel=Gamer%27sLittlePlayground (Cutscenes)
From Steam Reviews: https://steamcommunity.com/id/gamemast15r/recommended/
Batman: Arkham Asylum is an experience to me personally that I don’t think I really remember where I first heard it from, or when I first played it. I remember specifically playing it and really enjoying the plot, though being disappointed at the lack of enemies to beat up post-game as well as dreading the “metroidvania” riddler trophy collect-a-thon, ESPECIALLY the cave systems underneath the Asylum man I dreaded playing that s h i t (though I played both the OG and the Game of the Year Edition on Xbox 360). However, I remember at least this being one of my first true exposures to the Batman mythos (along with Heath Ledger Joker impressions, Batman: Begins the game and the Tim Burton Batman film) and finally becoming engrossed and interested in this dark, gloomy superhero character. Imagining where the series would go next was a fascinating thing for me, I imagined a sort of open world Gotham City (which we would eventually sorta get with City/Origins and later fully with Knight) where you could fly into and beat up bad guys and have a fun time. Having last played Knight on the Xbox One, a buddy of mine DarkRaptor (shoutout to Dino AGAIN) sent me this game for Christmas and I’ve been itching to get back into the series. However, I had this hyper-fixation for Arkham Origins after getting belt fed youtube shorts and wanted to play that; however my buddy Steve (shoutout to SuperPunchGod) told me I should just start again with Asylum because mechanically it was in its infancy and so that’s what I did. How has Asylum held up to me personally compared to how it held up nigh a decade ago?
The plot starts straight after one of Joker’s schemes is foiled by Batman, one which apparently involves assaulting Gotham City Hall along with the Mayor. Having recently broken out of Arkham Asylum to do this, the Bat captures him and brings him back to their special place in the middle of a giant rainstorm while the Jonkler cackles in the backseat. Bringing him inside, Warden Quincy Sharp is waiting for him along with Officer Frank Boles, who seems to want to beat him up. They strap him to a gurney thing and walk him along, with Batman joining due to a strange feeling going on with the Goober. Along the way you’ll meet other characters like Dr. Penelope Young (Warden Sharp’s protege with a personal stake in curing the asylum’s inmates), Aaron Cash (a no-nonsense security guard with a family and a stub for a hand due to inmate Killer Croc), and finally Killer Croc (a man with a life altering disease that gives him scales, who also ate Cash’s hand). Meeting up with Jim Gordon downstairs, the guards lead Joker the rest of the way while Bats and Gordon talk about whenever it's clear that Batman’s suspicions of ulterior motives prove to be correct. Joker strangles a guard and breaks out, with Harley Quinn helping them in the breakout attempt, putting one of the force fields up as Batman jumps through a window. It’s here where the first combat section goes off, and Batman pummels a bunch of Joker’s goons who were transferred to Arkham Asylum from Blackgate Correctional Facility due to a “mysterious” fire.
Chasing after the Joober, he gets sidetracked when serial killer Victor Zsasz holds a security guard hostage with the electric chair. Sneaking into the room and knocking him out, he saves the guard but learns that Harley has kidnapped Warden Sharp. The security system goes offline, and the Joker threatens to bomb the city if anyone attempts to penetrate the Asylum. Forced to work alone, Batman follows a trail to the processing corridor where he sees the Joobler all alone on top of a suspended cell. Throwing a batarang at him for…some reason, Joker gets cocky and releases a giant behemoth of a monster who proceeds to charge though gets knocked out even with difficulty. Joker decides to give Batman a shot to end it all there, to kill him though Batman doesn’t take him up on his offer with the whole “no kill” code thing. Saving a nearby guard from being trapped, the Joker contacts Batman and shows a backup plan: Officer Balls is actually under Jonkler’s payroll, and knocks out Jim Gordon as a part of a kidnapping plan. If Batman follows him, Gordon dies though we all know that he’s going to follow them anyways. Following the trail back from the area where Joker escaped, Batman follows Officer Ball’s trail (filled with pure unbridled alcoholism) and traces him to the exit of Intensive Treatment, where of course he ends up a LITERAL dead end for being a backstabbing piece of shit.
Escaping to the outside, Joker gloats about the location of the Batmobile, being outside of the front gates. Heading back to the car and beating the shit out of all of Joker’s goons kicking it in, he pulls out the Explosive Gel he has hidden in the trunk and follows a tobacco trail left by Gordon which leads him to the Medical Facility. Entering inside, he finds only Harley kicking her feet up behind a security gate and talking to Joker on a TV with Gordon held nearby. Batman sneaks in a different way, and after going through numerous goons rescues Dr. Young, who warns him that Joker has kidnapped a bunch of doctors. Going to every one of them and saving them, they rendezvous in the center where Dr. Young flees to Arkham Mansion to snatch away some research notes in case Joker decides to steal them, with Aaron Cash following behind her as protection. Following the tobacco trail after knocking out a bunch of armed goons coming to storm the facility, he ends up in the basement where he’s hit with Scarecrow’s fear gas and hallucinates Gordon to be dead. Attempting to call Oracle (Barbara Gordon) fails, so chasing the killer into the morgue reveals hallucination of Bruce Wayne’s dead parents begging him not to let them die. He proceeds to wake up in a hallucination, a floating world with bits and pieces of Arkham infrastructure as a giant, high-pitched Scarecrow patrols looking for Batman. Batman sneaks up to a giant light and shines it on him, waking up in the real world morgue.
Following further into the facility, Gordon is revealed to be alive and still held by Harley, who is watching over…something. She gets knocked the hell out by Batman, who saves Gordon and they both infiltrate the lab. The computer inside is revealed to be Dr. Young’s, who seems to have strapped Bane via multiple tubes to a nearby wall for strange experiments, involving draining the Venom from his blood. Joker activates the tubes again and turns Bane mad, who proceeds to grow super sized and throws Batman through a wall. Another boss battle (that plays like the big guy from earlier, throwing batarangs as they charge) plays out where Batman rips out the venom tubes on his back, and the entire infrastructure crumbles as Batman and Gordon escape outside. Bane breaks out and attempts to kill Batman once more, but Batman remote controls the Batmobile to crash Bane into the ocean where they both sink to the bottom. Batman brings Gordon to the nearby boat and tells them to go back to Gotham to calm the civilians with the bomb threats. Batman tells Oracle to find everything she can on Dr. Young, while he goes to the Batcave; yes it turns out Batman has a batcave ON Arkham Island as a backup plan in case. Batman climbs up to a cave near Intensive Treatment and glides down into the secret entrance of the Batcave. It’s here where he looks into the research Oracle sent, which involves Dr. Young experimented on patients with a modified version of Venom, nicknamed Titan and externally funded by a mysterious person. However, the formula is missing and that’s apparently the secret that Dr. Young is trying to hide. Batman theorizes that Joker’s endgame is to acquire an army in comparison to “a thousand Banes”. He leaves the Batcave to chase after Young when it’s learned that the mysterious funder is “Jack White”, one of the old aliases of Joker. Dr. Young blocked the payments so he proceeded to get captured by Batman just so he could get the formula back for himself, after of course sending email death threats involving dead babies.
Making his way to Arkham Mansion, Joker yells at his thugs to search the entire place while he’s interrogating Dr. Young for the location. Making his way to her office, he finds the safe empty and follows her trace to the library, where Joker has taken two doctors hostage. He ends up cracking a chandelier and has it crash to the bottom, saving the doctors who confirm Batman’s suspicions that Dr. Young ran in before being captured. It’s probably reversed but either way, Batman finds the formula in the library and burns it before Joker can obtain it. Joker reveals a new backup plan: Dr. Young has been captured by Zsasz again. He gets hit by some gas as he exits the library and ends up in ANOTHER Scarecrow hallucination, this time re-enacting his parents murder in Crime Alley, all while experiencing it as a child again. Ending up in another game of hide and seek with Scarecrow, he AGAIN gets the spotlight and shines it on him before waking up in the clock tower. Batman throws one of his ‘rangs at it, with the giant crash below opening up a new way to get to Zsasz and Dr. Young in the Warden’s Office. The Bat manages to get her safe by throwing a batarang straight at the dude’s forehead, knocking him out cold. Young freaks out at him before crying to Batman that she tried to give him his money back before warning him about a lab hidden in the Gardens, the codes being in the warden’s safe. However, the safe is booby trapped and Dr. Young is now mucho deado. For some reason, Harley appears with the kidnapped Warden who is beaten up and leaves an easily followed trail and a bunch of goons as cannon fodder to get beaten up.
Batman follows the trail easily left by Harley and the Warden to the Penitentiary, where Poison Ivy begs to be let out. This of course is denied by Batman, who instead continues to follow the trail and finds the Warden, watching a tv feed of Harley letting Poison Ivy free to roam. Joker of course frees all of the “looneys” and the Warden gives Batman the sequencer to hack into the systems. Warden hangs back for safety reasons, and Batman chases Harley Quinn while beating up multiple goons to Extreme Incarceration, where a giant fist fight ends in Harley being defeated. Joker gives her “encouragement” by removing her from the “party list” (revealing names from Selina Kyle to Rocksteady contest winner Luke Oliver, though none of it really matters). Harley attempts a sucker punch but gets flipped over and her fingerprints scanned before being thrown into this cell and Batman makes his way over to the lab in the botanical gardens. He confronts Joker, who responds by throwing the guard into an electrified pool of water. Chasing him to the Aviary, he knocks out the patrols holding hostages before opening up the secret lab with Joker and two of his guards inside. He shoots his goons with the Titan formula, who transform body horror style and prepare for combat. The fight ends with the goons knocked out and the Titan Production Facility destroyed, though with Joker escaping with a whole bunch.
Batman narrows it down to a Venom Hybrid plant, and tracks Poison Ivy’s pheromone sample nearby to ask for her help. After some “tough persuasion”, she reveals that there’s a plant that can counteract this Titan…located inside of Killer Croc’s lair. He makes his way out, but it’s learned that Joker injected Ivy with Titan, which causes freaky plants to grow all around the island. Now there’s a time limit before the entirety of Arkham Island is overrun, and Batman races to the mansion to talk to Aaron Cash about a way into Killer Croc’s cell. Batman makes his way to Intensive Treatment once again for the most memorable section in the game: Scarecrow’s last hallucination. First it hits you with a glitch of sorts, making you think that the game’s seemingly crashed. Then it hits you with a reversal of the opening cutscene, Joker as Batman and Batman as Joker. Batman is brought to Arkham Asylum and strapped to a gurney, pushed along as he screams for help. Scarecrow and Zsasz inspect him before Joker pulls out a gun and shoots him, leading to an unavoidable game over screen where he’s told to “wiggle the mouse to dodge his bullets”. Waking up out of Bruce Wayne’s grave, he finds himself in one last Scarecrow hallucination involving Batmen eating dead rats and a giant searchlight being shined on Scarecrow. Waking up in the real world with Scarecrow’s neck wrapped around Batman’s hand, he attempts to jab him with more fear toxin which pits Batman against skeletal enemies. However, this backfires as Batman gains clarity once more, having “ingested enough toxins to drive 10 men insane” and he escapes, planning to flood the water in Croc’s lair with enough fear toxin to drive everyone insane. Chasing him down there, this fails as Scarecrow is grabbed by Killer Croc for lunch before a batarang/shock collar combo brings them both into the waters nearby.
With Scarecrow’s plans now failed, Batman enters Croc’s lair to find all of these plant spores meant to build the counteracting chemicals. This game of cat and mouse has Batman slow walking, quickly reacting with more shock collar/batarang combos and a whole lot of running, which ends in Croc having a floor blown out from under him and into the abyss below. Making his way to the Batcave, where he creates an antidote to reverse engineer Ivy, planning on giving her the cure while the computer creates more. In the meanwhile, plants raid the entire lair and Batman barely gets away, making his way back to the asylum. Climbing up through the sewers, Oracle reveals that Joker is polluting Gotham river with Titan waste and Batman proceeds to shut down all of the control rooms. Batman then makes his way back to Ivy, who overrun the ENTIRE Botanical building with plants and red mist. Attempting to inject the plant results in Ivy going berserk, and a boss battle ensues with a giant plant. Of course, Batman manages to crack through the shell with explosive gel before the entirety of the greenhouse collapses. Batman glides out as fireworks engage, and Joker’s “party” is finally announced as Batman makes his way over.
If you’ve been going to the Visitor’s Room throughout the game, you’ll notice a mannequin with a TV strapped to its head as Joker’s voice taunts Batman about a variety of subjects and changing positions. Going back here now, it’s revealed that it’s NOT actually a mannequin but actually the Joker himself…sticking his head through a TV? How this works I’m not totally sure, but it’s cool nonetheless! Batman follows the Joker after the TV blows up to reveal a giant lair covered in barbed wire, the Joker sitting atop a throne with Scarface the doll on his hand and two giant titan goons chained to the wall. One last fight in this throne room leads to Gordon AGAIN having revealed to have been kidnapped, though how this time is unknown. Joker attempts to shoot Gordon with Titan, only for Batman to jump in and take the hit. However, Batman resists the Titan formula as the Joker attempts to tickle him with a feather, going on a rant about wanting to bring down Batman’s facade of the world. He then shoots himself with the Titan as the news helicopters surround the entire island, with Jack Ryder having been sent a news message to look upon the rooftops. Titan Joker appears, throwing Batman into an arena as Gordon is strapped in a nearby electric chair. Batman injects himself with the antidote, and defeats the Titan Joker and his goon squad, which ends in Titan Joker getting pulled down into a floor and electrified. The fight ends with a Mike Tyson punch-out as Batman puts explosive gel on his fist, punching Jonkler in the face and knocking them both back. Probably dislocating his arm and messing up a couple of fingers, the night is saved as the GCPD takes control and criminals are brought back to their cells. Everyone who was injected with Titan transforms back to normal, even if the process is painful. If one were to wrap up the Riddler trophies before then, Batman also sent the location of the Riddler to GCPD, where he’s arrested in an apartment building. The game ends with Batman racing off in the Batwing to take down Two-Face, who's robbing a bank and the final post credits shot concludes with a box of Titan formula floating outside of Arkham Asylum, with one of three hands popping up for a grab: Scarecrow, Killer Croc or Bane.
The plot to Arkham Asylum, while it’s not my favorite of the series, is still a lot of fun. It feels like a classic Batman plot, a Joker scheme where he sends you out on a wild goose chase to stop a bunch of plans before the reveal of “the party” which has been built up all night. The whole Titan monster plot feels a bit weird sometimes of course, like a bit out of tone for the rest of the Arkham franchise but considering that this was the first game in the series it’s not a surprise that over time the tone would change into something more dark and a bit less fantastical then “super soldier enemies”. I appreciate all the little details, the plot twists, and honestly let’s just be real about the VIP here: the Scarecrow hallucinations. I knew it was coming this time, but both of the previous times I played this game on the Xbox 360, it really shook me up and wigged me out, making me panic that the game actually crashed. The whole meta thing of that made for a pretty damn good Scarecrow moment, and followed up by the tense Killer Croc sewer segments made these to be the two best moments in the game for me. I love the lore that Rocksteady managed to put in here between the Riddler trophies or even things that aren’t related to that but reference other DC and Batman media as little easter eggs. I sometimes think that the game has a couple of strange plot twists (mainly how did Commissioner Gordon get kidnapped AGAIN after being sent out via police boat, why does Hush appear as an entry here when he only later shows up for the first time in City or how did Riddler get all of his trophies around the asylum) but overall, a solid plot. I was reading up on TVTropes (as always my go-to site) trying to learn new things about the game and apparently, the game had featured the Mad Hatter inside of a botanical garden maze which would’ve been interesting as well as a Mr. Freeze section. These were either cut for pacing purposes or because in Freeze’s case, the motives don’t line up really well. I also appreciate the brisk pace that the game goes in, with me beating the game in around 10-11 hours or so and it never felt like it overstayed its welcome with how small and honestly claustrophobic the Asylum is.
So what’s the gameplay like for Batman: Arkham Asylum? It’s a sort of “Metroidvania” style game, where you explore different areas of the asylum, later backtracking to follow different story objectives with new gadgets or collecting “Riddler Trophies”. The Riddler collectibles consist of actual hidden trophies, riddles which require either painfully obvious answers or semi-confusing puzzles (almost always consisting of scanning/holding down the detective vision button) that gives greater context to DC lore or gets you THIS much closer to taking down Riddler himself. While I loved getting a bit of background lore to the world, the Riddler trophies are always going to be the Arkham game’s biggest pain in the a s s, with the thing I honestly dreaded most replaying the game. The gadgets (which consist of things like Remote Controlled Batarangs, Explosive Gel, Grapple Hooks and other stuff) were also apparently influenced by Metroid and even The Legend of Zelda for their out of the box environmental puzzle solving. For the most part this works, there’s definitely a bit of puzzle solving that once you figure it out can make you feel pretty smart. That being said, if one decides to just use a guide I wouldn’t blame you considering how frustrating finding some of these guys are.
What else do you do in the open world? Other than grapple to certain spots (which change over time due to story events), you can engage in combat (or stealth knock out some goons). The stealth combat is pretty simple, you can either literally sneak around (in which case the field of vision/retention meter is pretty solid) or grapple between gargoyles as you try to make your way around the arena to knock out Joker goons. This can be done in many ways, between capturing goons and strapping them to the gargoyles, to corner takedowns, grate takedowns, explosive gel takedowns, grapple hooking people off of ledges; the list while not the most expansive goes on a bit and makes you feel pretty great when taking down goons. That being said, the AI reacts pretty decently to this too and adapts accordingly, like looking through nearby grates if a goon was taken down near one or even later on placing bombs on gargoyles to give you less advantage. Best part is, unlike later games, henchmen don’t try to wake each other up either so you’re given a lot more breathing room to interact, wait and plan how you want to.
So what’s combat like? For the most part seamless! Originally the game was planned to be sort of a rhythm game and you could tell just due to how rhythm based the combat is set up to be. Obviously you can punch people, and punching enough people builds up a combo; the higher the combo, the more powerful and the faster you get and such. Along the way you have to be careful to counter certain goons (marked with blue lightning above a goon’s head) or dodge them entirely (red lights above a goon’s head), and certain goons have a certain way of being fought. Electric prod ones you need to jump over their heads before punching them in the back while the big knife guys you have to stun with your cape before beating them up. Titan guys you have to wait till they charge before quickly throwing a batarang and dodging, which allows you to punch them a bit before riding their back and forcing them to knock out other goons. Again while there isn’t as much variation as the later games would have, it’s a pretty solid system that works pretty well and feels powerful. That being said, it can be a bit touchy and one accidental press of the counter button (Y on the Xbox controller) will mess up your whole combo so you need to pay attention to your surroundings but be quick enough to actually dodge everything. It’s a system that while in it’s infancy stage, really blossomed into something that later games would take influence from and use for their own games which is awesome. And another thing, the more Riddler trophies you get through the entire game, the more combat maps/takedown maps you’ll unlock in the main menu. Luckily, if you don’t want to do that, the PC version has all of the DLC maps (like the Scarecrow one) for free which is nice! The only thing it doesn’t have though is the Joker maps, exclusive to PS3 and the Linux apparently? However, there are guides to actually mod that in (one of which I posted in the links below), so if you want a bit more Arkham Asylum feel free to go through that.
Built on Unreal Engine 3, the amount of graphical fidelity that this game has is honestly pretty astounding. It has this sort of detail in the environmental and character modeling that the truth is sometimes the other games don’t really match up with. Don’t get me wrong, the other games don’t look bad in the slightest. However, there’s something about Asylum that just has more of a strike to it, though this could be due to the bigger scope of the latter three games leading to it being taken down a notch. If the devil is in the details then this game definitely leads a satanic cult because this game is packed full of them. Over the course of the game the Batsuit will experience damage due to story events and his beard stubble will grow over time as you go through the set pieces. If one were to compare the Return to Arkham Ports with the current PC port you’ll notice a bit of a difference graphically: number one is that the older ports will always have this greenish hue of sorts that makes it feel surprisingly…dead almost? Apparently the game was supposed to include rain (later added to the Xbox One/PS4 ports) though was cut from the original releases due to technical limitations, but in a strange sense it actually enhances the dread for me even more? With the graphics mixing into the atmosphere section now, how's the atmospheres? It’s this mixture of this gothic seriousness thrown into a blender and shaken up a bit with a little goofiness here and there. Another thing, the detective mode that you get in this game is actually pretty cool looking, so much in fact that players would go through the entire game just using that mode as a sort of filter (enough so that the developers would nerf it for Arkham City and beyond).
Understandably, the idea of superheroes and villains as a concept are goofy; that’s a lot of the reason why something like the Marvel Cinematic Universe hit as hard as it did because it didn’t take itself too seriously. This game is what I would consider to be the closest to that in the Arkham franchise I would say, but that’s for later on. Arkham Asylum as a location is gloomy and oppressive, secluded on its own island in a sort of vibe where it looks like it could fall apart at any moment, only to reveal something airtight and state of the art underneath and while it’s not art deco, apparently a lot of this boils down to apparent “Bioshock” influence that game had on developers. This only gets worse and more oppressive as the night goes on, between the destruction wrought on by Joker and his goon squad and Poison Ivy’s giant plant vines literally inserting itself into every little facet of Arkham Asylum’s architecture. The empty rooms with flipped tables and leftover paperwork, especially after you’ve beaten the game (or right before) and are just wrapping up Riddler trophies could feel like it’s this bizarre, maze-like liminal space that’s hostile and instantly uncomfortable. Honestly it was so effective (along with the Metroidvania styled collectible stuff) that it was a huge part of the reason why I didn’t want to come back and play this game for a long time. The Medical Wing is I think one of the biggest offenders, with the path going to the basement becoming kind of confusing, and the paths have details ranging from liquid-filled jars with severed heads to the cell that USED to hold Killer Croc. It looks like something honestly out of an 80s horror movie, like Herbert West’s Re-Animator or something (though I never watched that movie sadly). Don’t even get me started about the Scarecrow hallucinations, usually marked with dutch camera angles, glitches or long hallways that even though doesn’t hit rated-R levels of creep factor does a really good job messing with Batman in a seamless manner.
The sound design in terms of the noises, how things sound reminds me in a strange way of a filing cabinet. That slick papery sound as you pass through page after page, it’s especially prevalent in the biography pages when you earn entries through Riddler trophies or interview tapes. This smooth sound of paper being flicked back and forth just fills this weird ASMR brain thing in my head, along with the audio tapes being activated. Gliding using the cape also elicits the paper ASMR in a similar sense from earlier, and while not as strong certainly sounds appealing as hell. Punching and kicking people, while not as striking or appealing as the later games, still have this oomph to it that just feels satisfying kicking the s h i t out of everyone and everything you see. The noises and little jingles that go off as either the Joker or a pre-recorded message from the Asylum itself goes off and recites statistical facts or vague threats feel right at home. There are so many noises and sounds that just fit the feeling of what Arkham Asylum IS, I honestly can’t think of a single sound that doesn’t fit at home here or isn’t perfect. How about the soundtrack, does it have a unique flare to it or tracks I could listen to away from the game? The composers for the score here consist of Nick Arundel and Ron Fish, who manage to make this mysterious sound as if it comes straight out of a noir film. Another track they did, Enter the Asylum, is probably what I would say their “main track” is, which while repeated and altered in other locations kind of reminds me of how Halo would pull off their compositions. Other tracks consist of a lot of choir chanting, which I’m always a bit of a sucker for. Like the case for most other soundtracks, it really works within the game’s environment even if there’s no memorable tracks that I would say “slaps in the whip” so that’s all I really have to say here. It’s perfect, fits the atmosphere, no honest complaints.
Voice acting across the board is pretty fantastic, bringing in a lot of the talent from the Batman: The Animated Series cast like Kevin Conroy as Batman (Rest in Peace to THE definitive Batman), Mark Hamill as The Joker, Arleen Sorkin as Harley Quinn like other than the movie adaptations of these characters I don’t really see anything to change. It’s almost effortless how they knock it out of the park, even with the producers having told Kevin Conroy to use his general speaking voice it just feels like I’m hearing Bruce Wayne speak. I think the main things to point out honestly would come from the other members of the cast: Tom Kane (Takeo from Call of Duty: Zombies fame, Dr. Loomis impersonator from Halloween H20, etc.) has such a magnificent boomy voice performance it feels like he should be involved in public speaking of sorts, and plays both Commissioner Gordon as well as Warden Quincy Sharp and while they both sound similar they’re both different enough to be unique. While Steven Blum mainly plays Killer Croc with this vicious snarl, talking as if he’s drowning in water, he also plays other characters (like a doctor at the beginning) in his regular voice that always sounds iconic. Wally Wingert plays The Riddler and others and by god does his Riddler voice sound like such a narcissistic pompous ass that honestly feels perfect. I also recognize Cree Summer as Dr. Penelope Young, a performance that while sounding like Cree Summer, she always sounds recognizable in everything which in this case is a good trait. These are only a couple of examples, these guys exemplify the characters in-game and it’s honestly hard to see them as anything else (except maybe Steven Blum I can always pick that dude out of a crowd to be honest).
Having replayed Arkham Asylum, I had found a lot of my old frustrations that built up in my mind to honestly be unfounded. I dreaded replaying this game, doing all those damn Riddler trophies and coping with fighting mechanics that was stuck in its infancy compared to the upgraded arsenal and fluidity that we would later have in City and Knight. But honestly? Replaying this game gave me a sort of newfound respect for the game, as truth be told the title is to me an inherent classic with its influence on future games. Other games (mostly superhero) would attempt to ape the freeflow combat style from Spider-Man games to Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor/War, Sleeping Dogs to Mad Max to even the likes of the awful game Ride to Hell: Retribution. However, what really holds this game up for me other than the combat system is just genuinely it’s delivery, it’s atmosphere, it’s reverence for the DC history. Riddler Trophies or without, the amount of details they put into this game is just so astounding that even to this day I’m still learning new details about this game (like the beard stubble), and it’s genuine foreshadowing on Arkham City with the secret room, or even obscure stuff that I wouldn’t have even recognized without doing deep dive stuff. Rocksteady cared about this product and it truly shows with the popular reception this game gave, that even now people will still list this as their favorite game even if it doesn’t deliver as hard compared to the rest of them. I’ll still always prefer Knight mechanically or Origins/City for their plots but the game has my deep respect and admiration and honestly deserves it as one of the greatest games of all time, a forerunner in the superhero genre that showed making these games CAN be good, that it’s not all a one time fluke or having to be tie-ins to movies or cartoons. Releasing to the aforementioned critical acclaim, the developers must’ve known how good they had it because they pulled off a bit of a risky gamble: staging hints of a sequel in the base game. Going into the Warden’s Office area and blowing up a wall with the max amount of explosive jail would reveal the Warden’s secret plans for a special prison, sectioning off a piece of Gotham. Going back to the Morgue where Ra’s Al Ghul’s corpse was for the riddle would later reveal that it disappeared, also setting up the sequel. This sequel would become Arkham City, and with the sequel in development along with the success of Asylum, Rocksteady would be purchased in 2010 by Warner Bros. There’s not much else historically wise that I know of that I wouldn’t cover in the next game’s review other than the fact Arkham Asylum was later re-released as Game of the Year along with being remastered for Xbox One/PS4 and ported to Switch, but the impact Asylum had is not to be understated in the slightest. It may not be my favorite superhero game, but it helped influence the industry and cemented its influence as a classic game.
Links:
https://web.archive.org/web/20120712005612/http://www.arkhamcare.com/prices/
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Trivia/BatmanArkhamAsylum
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=nRBWe14tYdo (Easter Eggs)
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/video-games/6126146/Batman-Arkham-Asylum-interview-with-Paul-Dini.html
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3179787276 (Joker install guide)
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=6Th1-HHfLAk (Officer Balls)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VuuHMPqrXy8&list=OLAK5uy_k0DH8cZzBb9Uq-1L6M2H7c2lGKJZK7mvI&index=1 (Soundtrack)
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1282022/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tcveNqT6Lfg&ab_channel=Gamer%27sLittlePlayground (Cutscenes)
From Steam Reviews: https://steamcommunity.com/id/gamemast15r/recommended/
2013
This review contains spoilers
The reboot has a bit of a history within the pantheons of the Tomb Raider series, one of which starts soon after Tomb Raider: Underworld in 2008. The title apparently was called Tomb Raider: Ascension and would be considered a bit of a cross-breed between a survival horror title as well as taking influences from games like Ico and Shadow of the Colossus. The game would’ve included a fully open world, horseback riding, a small female sidekick, and apparently a doppelganger version of Lara. A lot of the development cycle would be released under “Final Hours of Tomb Raider”, a documentary which chronicled the early years of the reboot. Whatever the case, this iteration didn’t end up working out and would later form into the beginning of the “Survivor Trilogy”; darker reboots of the Tomb Raider series that would deal with PTSD, Trauma, Survivor’s Guilt and other fun themes. This trilogy would go under the tagline: “A Survivor is Born” and would form itself as an origin story for a younger, less experienced Lara Croft. Gameplay trailers would start showing up at the beginning of 2012 and would continue to be promoted on schedule until March of 2013.
Tomb Raider (2013) as well as its sequel, Rise of the Tomb Raider, were honestly my only introductions into the Tomb Raider series as a whole. I’ve heard of and I’ve seen the original games but I’ve never sat down and actually played them nor have I experienced much in the way of anything else in the way of Tomb Raider media. I originally played this on the Xbox One back in the latter 2010s, as it was released for free for a limited time due to the Xbox Gold strategy at the time (for those not in the know, free games every month). I sat down, played it and enjoyed my time with it, but I haven’t really sat down and analyzed what I really liked about it other than it felt great as well as the fact that Lara’s accent in game was COOL AS S H I T but I’m also a simp for cool accents. I’d later go on to play Rise on Steam (shoutout to Realmofwolves for the copy) separately and enjoy that too, but I ended up picking this game up for free due to Steam giving it out for some reason. Having recently found some opportunities to stream for a friend of mine, this was the first game that she wanted me to stream for her. So how did I feel about the game for the second time around? Did the entry point into the “Survivor” arc feel better the second time around?
The story begins with a young Lara Croft, who takes her first voyage upon The Endurance having just gotten out of college in order to find the lost kingdom of Yamatai. The crew for the Endurance is composed of Lara herself, her father figure/sailor Conrad Roth, her best friend Sam (whose family is descended from Yamatai and helped fund the expedition), Dr. Whitman (a celebrity archeologist who is about to go through a bad divorce), Reyes (a single mother/mechanic), fisherman Jonah, electronics guy Alex and angry Scotsman Grim. The beginning is paved with decent times, as the crew get along (or in Lara and Whitman’s case, not so much) and talk about the trip, along with filming B-Roll footage on fish before the ship abruptly starts to tank and everything goes awry. The crew manage to make it out alive amongst the heavy storms, however on the beach where the others have set up camp, Lara gets knocked the hell out before she’s able to reach her friends. Waking up in a decrepit cave hung upside down, she manages to break out and escape from the scavenger with the cave crushing everything behind her.
Making her way through forests and creepy shacks, she manages to contact Roth on the radio before picking up the pickaxe in the basement of the creepy shack. Bypassing that, she finally runs into Sam along with a mysterious stranger named Mathias who seems fascinated by stories of Sam’s heritage, having been descended from the enigmatic Queen Himiko herself. Lara proceeds to fall asleep during this story, only for her to wake up and find that her friend and the stranger have disappeared entirely. Trying to follow the trail, she walks straight into a deadly bear trap and has to kill a bunch of wolves before being saved by Reyes and the rest of the group. Telling the group about Sam’s disappearance, the group splits up with Lara and Whitman going to find Roth while the rest of the group follow the trail to Sam. Following a trail, it leads them to a sort of gate that shows signs of worshiping Himiko, confirming that they in fact found Yamatai before they’re surrounded by men aggressive with guns. They’re okay at first until Whitman takes the coward’s way out and tells Lara to do whatever they say, which involves crew members of the Endurance (not the main ones) being executed piece by piece while Whitman is taken elsewhere. Of course, there’s this uncomfortable tension between Lara and her captor, however that ends real quick as Lara makes her escape before murdering him in a struggle. She freaks out a bit before she makes her escape again, shooting through multiple dudes and reuniting with Roth, who is wounded and surrounded by dead wolves after John Woo-ing the hell out of them.
Lara lays Roth down safely and travels to find the medkit needed to bandage Roth up from the wolves who survived the assault. Traveling into the cave and nearly getting almost murdered, she makes it back down the small mountain and heals Roth’s wounds. However, Roth lays something down on her real fast: in his condition, he needs her to bring up some equipment needed to hack into a relay and contact the outside world for a pickup. Shooting and stabbing her way up some cold ass mountains (and not picking up jackets from ANYONE’s corpse), she manages to climb her way up the relay tower and ACTUALLY call for help from the outside world. However, this doesn’t go very far before the giant cargo plane (with absolutely nowhere to land by the way!) gets struck by lightning and crashes into the forest below. Lara slides her way down the mountain and nearly dies, while one of the two survivors of the plane gets mucho deado by nearby cultists. She makes her way back to Roth, who somehow was able to climb up the mountain before insisting on saving the remaining surviving pilot as well. The others tell Roth and Lara that they tracked Sam to some sort of ancient city before Lara finds the pilot, who is nigh dead and is ambushed into a trap. Matthias appears and taunts her before the nearby “Oni” murder all of his goons, conveniently thinking Lara to be dead.
She wakes up in a room filled with dead bodies like it’s a mafia owned pork store in New Jersey and barely manages to evade the Oni herself in the escape. She finds the “tomb” of Himiko, and learns of a fire ritual while narrating to herself in an AHA moment. She finally comes to the conclusion that Himiko’s “fire ritual” is actually transferring power, as in the power of reincarnation. She’s barely able to make it out alive before she’s contacted over the radio by Sam, who tells her about the fire ritual and that she’s “fucking terrified”. Believing her to be about to be sacrificed, she and Roth make their way over to the “palace” as the others have been captured as well. Sam’s caught by guards and Lara tumbles her way down a waterfall using her training from slip and fall school before conveniently parachuting her way down to the shanty town where this fortress holds Sam and the others (though not before getting nigh injured). She heals her own injuries via a fire arrow and heads out into the Shanty Town, killing goons in the process. Here she finds Grim being held hostage, who sacrifices himself and takes some goons down with him into the abyss below. Afterwards she continues to climb up, with Roth providing surprise sniper cover fire while she slowly climbs across the bridge. Of course it’s here where someone sees her and attempts to kill her but that doesn’t work, as she makes a quick getaway across a bunch of collapsing shanties. Making her way through a cave, she spots a ritual between Matthias, Sam and all of the Solarii cult and decides of all things to pull out a bow instead of murdering everyone with the automatic rifle or the shotgun she has. This fails, and Lara is captured to watch her friend die; however it turns out this ritual is supposed to prove if someone truly is a relative of Himiko and when Sam survives, the cult turns to the next plan as Lara is led out of the area.
However, Lara has other plans and gets the jump on her captors before jumping into the river of blood below, peeking her head out like a scene from Apocalypse Now. Fighting her way through the caves, she manages to save her friends before blowing up a gas leak below, letting everyone escape (barely) but in the process wreaking havoc on the entire palace above. Climbing through the wreckage, she finds a room where Matthias has been planning this transfer (between questioning why he’s so interested in it, even if the text in the middle of the screen says VESSEL). A bit later she runs into Dr. Whitman again, who finds these cult guys to be fascinating and tells Lara to “keep a lookout and holler when it’s safe”. Matthias rants at Samantha and giving his motive: he wants to do the ritual so he can leave the godforsaken island. Lara kills Sam’s guard and almost rescues her, finding Dr. Whitman again who is supposedly “held hostage”. The fire ranges as well as a bloodbath that accentuates the carnage as Lara and Sam are split up. Lara goes to war and takes down a whole lot of goons before barely escaping a burning bridge as Roth and the others come around on a helicopter. I forget how they get the helicopter but this isn’t a great idea as the helicopter attempts to escape without the others, before Lara holds a gun to the dude’s head. The helicopter crashes, only survivors being Roth and Lara; however Mathias catches up and just throws an axe into Roth’s spine, killing him permanently. The others make their way back and frustrations are at an all time high with the blame game, however they all agree to find a safe place and make funeral arrangements.
Lara insists that the storms are meant to keep them on the island, though Reyes stubbornly disagrees and thinks she’s crazy. Mourning at Roth’s grave, the others make their way back to the beach in order to salvage a boat to head off the island. Lara instead plans to use it to go back to the monastery filled with Oni from before, planning on stopping the Solarii cult once and for all. An action set piece filled with makeshift elevators later and she’s down at the beach, where Whitman suspiciously comes back unharmed. Jonah also tells Lara about how Alex went to go and find some tools, so Lara proceeds to go back to where it all started: the wreck of the Endurance in order to find Alex and the tools. He stubbornly refuses to help, as he’s so intensely focused on impressing Lara due to a hidden crush that he ends up dying, though he makes a sacrifice for Lara (getting a kiss in the process). Lara makes her way back to the others and after more tense words with Reyes, she and the others chill out and eat at the campfire. Lara (having found intel about the Japanese military trying to control the storms), is led to believe they may have found answers at an old base beneath the cliffside. Infiltrating it, she finds the dead body of a samurai and learns that the guy (who was a general) unalived himself due to his failure in stopping the unaliving of the next in line priestess used for the reincarnation ritual. Himiko has been trapped inside of her body the entire time in her ritual chamber, screaming and waiting for release. Over the radio, gunfire goes off at the base camp and the Solarii get the drop on everyone including Lara, who shoots her way back to base camp.
Whitman has taken Sam and brought her back to Mathias, and with basically everyone dead now except Jonah and Reyes, they all agree to stage a rescue operation at the ritual chamber. Jonah and Reyes stay behind to stop any Oni, and Lara climbs up to the monastery, where she sees Whitman and Mathias carrying Sam. The cult leader tells him to greet the Oni as a savior for bringing back the sacrifice and the dumb fuck actually believes it, getting killed and providing a distraction while thinking in her ego that he’s going to be a hero. From here it’s a mad dash up the mountain monastery, between shooting cult members and ducking a giant army of undead Oni. She finally manages to climb her way up and kills all manners of beings before she finally confronts Mathias in the final ritual. One quicktime battle later and Mathias gets a pickaxe to the back and John-Woo’d off of the ritual chamber entirely before stabbing Himiko’s corpse, saving Sam and clearing up the weather phenomenon plaguing the island. The sun proceeds to shine harder than a Jesus savior complex and she carries Sam out of their bridal style onto the boat, where the four sail their way out to a rescue ship. Over the course of the story, Lara has dismissed her father’s adventures as crazy, and the media publicity had apparently led him to unaliving himself. However, Lara vows to find answers to the world’s mysteries to live up to her father’s legacy, hoping to eventually clear his name. The final frame shows the words: “A Survivor is Born”, before an eventual cut to black.
With the recap done, how do I view this plot? Honestly I enjoyed it, and compared to the Uncharted titles which has a bit more of an upbeat vibe, I appreciate the darker turn that this game gives on Lara’s character. In a lot of ways the development of Lara as a character had a pretty good start here, dealing with the themes of trauma, which I feel like I’ll explain better in the atmosphere section. However, what doesn’t get stated are the undercurrent LGBT tones between Lara and Sam. It’s not like a super huge thing of course, but it’s clear that they deeply care about each other and they’re pretty good foils for each other. Sam is very much supportive of Lara and gets her out of her shell and is more of the extrovert while Lara herself is the introverted and reserved friend who appreciates what Sam brings to her life. How they talk to each other, how Lara carries her to safety towards the end of the game, it’s something that was intended to be built upon according to writer Rhianna Pratchett. It was originally the plan to have them be a couple, and while it was dashed due to the higher ups, it would’ve been interesting to see Lara in a different light then before. Her relationship with Conrad Roth is pretty warm and caring, with Roth being supportive even if he doesn’t agree with her ideas (such as attempting to save the pilot even though that could get her killed). I think for the most part the rest of the crew members are okay: Grim you don’t see much of, Alex is there but the whole crush thing on Lara comes out of nowhere and doesn’t really add up to anything, Reyes is the stereotypical hardass and Jonah is nice though how they decided to keep him and not go with Roth I’m not too sure. The main hate sink is Dr. Whitman, who is played as such an unbelievably narcissistic asshole that it’s not even funny, though sometimes it kind of is with how stupid everyone comes off believing him. Originally there was supposed to be another crew member named Steph who was found in concept art, though this was scrapped due to the amount of characters already on screen. Matthias as an antagonist is pretty okay for the most part, he plays the role well though and through backstory you learn of how he was stranded and eventually turned into the crazed cult leading puppet in Himiko’s Solarii Brotherhood, desperate to escape the island that he was stranded on for thirty years or so. As for the mystery behind Himiko herself, I love the idea of this warrior queen who constantly reincarnates, conquering other lands and rulers and commanding this supernatural reign over the elements only to be trapped in a decayed corpse and driven mad due to the ritual needed to sustain life. One thing that intrigues me a bit is time, like how long does time last on this island? According to TVTropes it’s most likely anywhere between two to three days, and while that’s probably accurate just due to the sheer scope of the paranormal phenomenon it feels like it could take weeks or even longer. I doubt that of course, but the sheer sense of time scale is interesting to me since it was brought up because transition wise it honestly feels pretty smooth even with segments cut between time jumps. Overall however, Tomb Raider was a dark yet enjoyable satisfying time; it’s not perfect in all of it’s choices but for the most part it sticks the landing and created an enjoyable adventure, even if it wasn’t the most memorable the first time around.
Tomb Raider’s gameplay in a lot of ways has been compared to the Uncharted games, and to say that it isn’t would be both blind to the trends though to completely say that it ripped it off would be false. Games inspire each other all the time, and Tomb Raider’s over the shoulder gameplay shooter style mixed in with mythological treasure hunting is pretty much basically two of the only similarities it has to Uncharted (I guess other than collecting artifacts and climbing stuff). Let’s start with the basic gist of the gameplay: Lara will be traveling through different areas, following story events, picking up artifacts and exploring side tombs while shooting members of the Solarii Brotherhood and hunting small animals. So how does that go? Let's go with the open world-esque segments: this game is definitely what you would call a “Metroidvania”. There are a set of different regions, all with their own collectibles and puzzles and some of which you can’t access until much later in the story when you find the tool needed to solve the puzzle which is standard for “Metroidvania”. The whole philosophy for this is the idea that you need to backtrack to explore areas once again, sometimes with enemy respawns and sometimes without. In games like Tomb Raider and Batman: Arkham Asylum (another game I’ve played recently), it’s basically barely any enemies. But that’s the overall concept, and you’ll pick up small artifacts which give a backstory to the goings for Yamatai Island. I’m not a particular fan of the concept of going back to previous areas as it’s often tedious and annoying to wrap up the collectibles for the 100 percent, with me in particular dreading replaying Tomb Raider and Arkham Asylum for those particular reasons. Collectibles also range from Challenges (specific things you do in specific areas like burn specific tarps or destroy mobile alarms) to GPS Caches (which when you collect them all reveal secret messages, especially once you collect them all) to the side tombs. If you want to get all the collectibles in the game, it’s imperative you get to the actual tombs as soon as possible because it’ll reward you with a treasure map revealing the location of other collectibles.
So how about the shooting and climbing aspects of the game? Well the climbing aspect of the game is fun, you climb obvious spots covered in yellow or white paints and earlier on in the game you’ll use your pickaxe to climb specific walls by jumping against the wall and pressing X or Square. Most of the time it plays pretty damn well though like other games in its genre, there are times where I feel like I slip and die; sometimes it’s my fault and sometimes it’s kinda picky and choosy though this latter part is rare. However, the gunplay and upgrade system surrounding it is what makes the heart of the core gameplay. In almost every region (at least the ones with collectibles), you’ll find campfires which you can use to save, listen to one of Lara’s monologues, upgrade your weapons with parts and salvage found as well as the ability to upgrade your skill trees. The salvage weapon system for the most part is fine, it’s cool to see how your weapons evolve over time as you upgrade them, particularly the machine gun which turns it from a WW2 submachine gun into a duct taped makeshift AK; this is particularly hilarious as Lara DOES NOT seem like the type who would know gun mechanics like that but for the sake of gameplay I don’t give a shit. I feel like the problem involved with this is the salvage mechanic, the loot system where you can upgrade these weapons with specific parts. Mainly, if you’re not diligent enough to loot EVERY corpse you come across, every little box and just everything in general then by the end it feels painful trying to unlock the last upgrades needed to 100 percent of all weapons. In fact, I doubt you’ll even be able to 100 percent the weapons as in a lot of ways, the upgrades needed are randomized with the loot boxes throughout the map. I had done it all on the Xbox One but on the PC I think I still had a weapon or two on 60-80 percent and by the end of the game I couldn’t be arsed enough to deal with that shit. In short, it feels like a grindy game but it doesn’t give you enough repetitive resources in order to get what you need as enemies barely respawn and if you kill enough animals it’ll say that an area is “hunted out” which is fucking annoying. In a lot of the ways it’s the same thing with the XP Upgrade tree, like once you’ve gone through the campaign it feels like it’s a bit of a stretch to get everything.
So what specific weapons are you using in your adventure on Yamatai Island? The first ones you’ll get are the Bow & Arrow along with the Pickaxe. The Bow and Arrow (which can later get updated twice with much better bows) are pretty solid, and over time you’ll get access to different arrows like fire arrows, piercing arrows and rope arrows which you’ll use to create ziplines. The pickaxe is cool for climbing but is also for melee and stealth, though using it as an actual weapon requires upgrades on the skill tree. I feel like this is kind of dumb because why would I need to use an actual skill tree just to swing a weapon when you can just…swing a weapon? I don’t know, it feels kind of stupid but what can you do? Other weapons include the usual Pistol (which when fully upgraded turns into a Desert Eagle), Shotgun (which can upgrade from a Pump Shotgun into a Combat Shotgun) and Machine Gun (which starts out as a Japanese Type-100 but over time turns into an AK-47 before finishing off with the “Commando Rifle” and is fitted with a grenade launcher attachment during the fortress raid). There aren’t any grenades so you’re mostly off using your wits to destroy lanterns and explosive barrels in your environment to kill nearby foes. Speaking of fire from earlier, you also have access to a torch which you can use during certain puzzles, for light or to burn certain objects but for the most part it’s not the craziest thing mechanically. The last thing I’ll bring up here is quick time events, which in this game is actually pretty used a decent amount of times. Thankfully it’s mostly tapping the X (or Square) button repeatedly or tapping Y (or Triangle) in certain instances. However, whenever the game asks you to slap one of the joysticks back and forth (heh, dad?) it gets kind of frustrating and hurts your hand if you’re not expecting it and/or trying to take copious amounts of screenshots like I usually do on Steam.
What about cut gameplay stuff? According to developers themselves and outside sources, there were a number of ideas for the game that were canned. Developers themselves would discuss how earlier builds of the game used health packs to fix Lara up, which was later on the cutting room floor due to “modernization” and instead was replaced with health regeneration. Another cut sequence was one that involved swimming through The Endurance as it starts to sink in the beginning of the game, before it was cut due “swimming not being solved”, later to be added into the sequel. Another thing to be added into the sequel? Side Quests! In earlier builds of the game, it apparently had a series of quests that made a male hunter whom you would fetch stuff for in exchange for items that could be used in the course of your adventure. I feel that it’s better that this was scrapped, just due to the fact it feels conflicting with the “us versus them” survival mentality the game’s Lord of the Flies-esque nature would build upon. The last thing was apparently a four player cooperative mode which was canceled due to the scope of the story itself, which again made sense to me as it doesn’t feel like the kind of game that needs a cooperative mode where everyone just goes ham shooting people but that’s just me. Speaking of mass murder!
Starting out with the atmosphere of Tomb Raider, it’s a very heavy one with almost barely any levity involved and usually doesn’t give you any time to breathe. Right from the get go in the story it’ll hit you with better times before almost delivering an onslaught of near deaths, “I barely survived” moments, as well as giant onslaughts of angry cultist goons inside of this dark gray and grimy bubble. While I kind of shrugged at the “Nathan Drake bodycount” thing as I’m rather desensitized to death and shooting things in video games, I rather appreciate how the game takes it’s time to at least address that Lara goes through some rather traumatic stuff in regard to the constant killing and the hopelessness that goes on through the island. She doesn’t make funny, carefree quips or banter endlessly while shooting thugs like Nathan would, as they really go with attempting to make this a serious and as dark as possible. Dead bodies litter the world either from your own deeds, from the previous 2000 years or a couple of points of skinned corpses, victims of the undead Stormguard. I think there’s a lot of people that give the game a bit of shit for how it handled the themes: dropping a moment or two where Lara has a moment where she apologizes for killing a deer or near a breakdown point killing her first goon (total piece of s h i t by the way) before just continuing like it’s nothing. I’m sure there could be more realistic ways for the theme to continue, like having multiple moments and cutscenes where she throws up or has a moment where she calms down before sobbing uncontrollably. However, the truth is I feel when you’re in a situation like this it’s really hard to tell how everyone would react, especially considering Lara is just pumped full of adrenaline throughout the entirety of the multiple days that she stays mostly awake. According to TVTropes, the writer addressed the “inconsistency” in an interview where she said that “not every kill can be like the first one”, and that a lot of the game kind of depends on suspension of disbelief with action games. Like with most video games, I basically can concede and agree for the most part as just for the sake of video game logic there isn’t really much of a way you can get around it other than perhaps adding even more scenes and mentions in the equation other than “Killing just seems to get easier with each one”.
Regardless, between the constant grays and the decrepit buildings, the dirt and grime mixed with the rainy fog you find during your travels in Yamatai I feel like it definitely fits the “abandoned island” atmosphere that you’d certainly get out of Lost. I would classify the tone of this game as action adventure with horror elements, even if there aren’t jumpscares or anything too crazy I feel like the themes more than fit for the purpose. So how about the graphics? Originally the game came out on the Xbox 360/Playstation 3 generation of consoles and as such it’s not the craziest level of detail in the graphics. Mud will blend into the skin but look pixelated and sometimes it’ll look like the rips in the clothing are a part of the texture in itself, as if the texture itself is being swapped and not the clothing itself being altered throughout your time on Yamatai. That being said however, it doesn’t look bad graphically in the slightest. Throughout my entire time playing Tomb Raider I’ve never noticed one bad texture or anything out of place. Everything looks perfectly normal as it is and I don’t particularly see anything bad with that in the slightest. The “too long didn’t read” is, the graphics look perfectly fine and while there’s nothing crazy with it, works enough that it shouldn’t matter.
Sound Design, how is it? The environmental designs from the fire to the weapon sounds, climbing and everything else knocks it out of the park. I like how the weapons feel and sound, each iteration of each weapon feels like a joy to use and the sounds only serve in favor of it. My favorite sound is the AK-47, which has this crunchy sort of effect as the bullets tear through nearby enemy cultists though I also am a huge fan of the general sound that fire gives out. There’s another sound that you can get that apparently sounds like the older Tomb Raider games when you collect all the GPS caches, the one sound that plays when you find a secret but I also haven’t played the old Tomb Raider games (yet) so I haven’t caught that. Burning stuff in this game always sounds neat and shoots some sort of endomorphin s h i t into my brain. As for the voice acting in the game, I REALLY enjoy Camilla Luddington’s performance as a younger Lara Croft, as I feel she does a good job at portraying this inexperienced Lara who at this point is only focused on surviving for her life and getting the hell out. Also I’m a bit of a simp for UK Accents, they’re just so cool sounding and I can’t help but love it for what it is. Her father figure/mentor Conrad Roth is voiced by Robin Atkin Downes, who does a good job putting on a Scottish sort of accent even if I could recognize that it was him almost immediately due to her performance as Miller in Metal Gear Solid V. Those are the main two whom I would say have the most recognizable appearances but in truth everyone in the main Endurance crew along with Robert Craighead as Matthias do a fantastic job bringing emotional nuance and all the other good acting stuff to the table. Finally, the musical soundtrack is pretty alright, it’s composed by a guy named Jason Graves (funny for a dude who previously composed the Dead Space soundtracks to be honest) is still very much orchestral with a lot of percussion and it fits perfectly fine for the background feelings the game provides. Nothing too insane on this end but for all intents and purposes, the sounds for Tomb Raider (2013) work pretty damn well!
Now onto the multiplayer segment of the game: how is it? I’ll be honest, I don’t really know. I know people who’ve played it! They said it was fine for the most part as an actual multiplayer game but for the people who sit down try to get the multiplayer achievements/trophies? Honestly, it’s miserable as hell according to a buddy of mine (shoutout to Bad Ghosts). It apparently took him around 40 or so hours to grind it out, mostly due to the fact absolutely NO ONE played this game online. So why is it? It’s mostly just due to the fact that like many single player games, the executives deemed it so that they shoehorn in a multiplayer mode because that’s what was popular at the time, probably with the off chance hope that it’ll be popular enough to perhaps monetize it in the future. It wasn’t, and like other games, the multiplayer for this was mostly dead in the water.
Tomb Raider is one of those games that I honestly enjoyed the second time around. It’s a more short and brief title, though tonally I can understand why a lot of fans of the series find it to be a mixed reception. In a sense, it went from the unique Tomb Raider flavor to one that kind of follows the Uncharted formula, climbing around your environment as you engage with shootouts and kill a lot of people. Lara only kills like one person and feels traumatized before just moving on to shoot more goons. In all honesty though, I don’t really feel like any of that’s bothered me much? It addresses the body count a bit as a factor of survival, something she has to do to save the people that she cares about and get the hell off the island. The gameplay feels solid, nothing really groundbreaking and crazy but I wasn’t looking for that. Graphically for a 2013 game it still looks pretty damn good between the textures, character models and environmental design and the sound design has a solid foundation as well. It’s not the best s h i t since sliced bread, but that’s okay as not every game needs to be like that. Soon I’ll be going on to replay Rise of the Tomb Raider along with its DLCs and I’ll make sure to give all of them a good spin and see how it fares for the second playthrough compared to this one.
The game would release to positive critical acclaim, with over 14.5 million sales under less than ten years according to the Wikipeeds, though with the critique that the game was copying from the Uncharted series at the time along with criticism due to the game’s darker tones. Between this game and its sequel, Rise of the Tomb Raider, would release Lara Croft and the Temple of Osiris. This title, like Guardian of the Light, would be an arcade-like Isometric experience that spun-off from the series and was unrelated to the “Survivor” series that this game would go on to continue. While this game would debut on Xbox 360 and PS3, the sequel would mainly focus on the next-gen consoles (aside from a 360 Port); however Tomb Raider (2013) itself would later get its own definitive edition re-release for the next-gen consoles as well. While doing research for the game, there was a sort of sequel comic series where Lara Croft dealt with her survivor’s guilt while apparently (saying that cause TV Tropes says yes while I can’t find anything on the Wiki) gaining a hetero boyfriend (eww), destroying a lot of fan popular LGBT subtext between her and her best friend Sam. This was all against Rhianna Pratchett’s (the writer for the game) vision along with Gail Simone, the writer of the comic books. Another novel would be released called Tomb Raider: The Ten Thousand Immortals, which has a bit of a mixed conflict between Crystal Dynamics themselves and the fanbase as to whether or not it’s canonical due to several different details conflicting with the comics. That would be it between the first and second title of the “Survivor Trilogy” for the most part, but again I’ll be taking a look into the second title here really soon.
Links:
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Trivia/TombRaider2013
https://tombraider.fandom.com/wiki/Tomb_Raider:_The_Ten_Thousand_Immortals
https://tombraider.fandom.com/wiki/Tomb_Raider:_The_Beginning
https://tombraider.fandom.com/wiki/Tomb_Raider_Ascension_(Game)
https://tombraider.fandom.com/wiki/Tomb_Raider_(Dark_Horse_Comics)
https://www.unseen64.net/2011/11/20/tomb-raider-legend-beta/
https://store.steampowered.com/app/233410/Tomb_Raider__The_Final_Hours_Digital_Book/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-wR1xUHm4rs
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1797530/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KYV29WLphmI
From Steam Reviews: https://steamcommunity.com/id/gamemast15r/recommended/
Tomb Raider (2013) as well as its sequel, Rise of the Tomb Raider, were honestly my only introductions into the Tomb Raider series as a whole. I’ve heard of and I’ve seen the original games but I’ve never sat down and actually played them nor have I experienced much in the way of anything else in the way of Tomb Raider media. I originally played this on the Xbox One back in the latter 2010s, as it was released for free for a limited time due to the Xbox Gold strategy at the time (for those not in the know, free games every month). I sat down, played it and enjoyed my time with it, but I haven’t really sat down and analyzed what I really liked about it other than it felt great as well as the fact that Lara’s accent in game was COOL AS S H I T but I’m also a simp for cool accents. I’d later go on to play Rise on Steam (shoutout to Realmofwolves for the copy) separately and enjoy that too, but I ended up picking this game up for free due to Steam giving it out for some reason. Having recently found some opportunities to stream for a friend of mine, this was the first game that she wanted me to stream for her. So how did I feel about the game for the second time around? Did the entry point into the “Survivor” arc feel better the second time around?
The story begins with a young Lara Croft, who takes her first voyage upon The Endurance having just gotten out of college in order to find the lost kingdom of Yamatai. The crew for the Endurance is composed of Lara herself, her father figure/sailor Conrad Roth, her best friend Sam (whose family is descended from Yamatai and helped fund the expedition), Dr. Whitman (a celebrity archeologist who is about to go through a bad divorce), Reyes (a single mother/mechanic), fisherman Jonah, electronics guy Alex and angry Scotsman Grim. The beginning is paved with decent times, as the crew get along (or in Lara and Whitman’s case, not so much) and talk about the trip, along with filming B-Roll footage on fish before the ship abruptly starts to tank and everything goes awry. The crew manage to make it out alive amongst the heavy storms, however on the beach where the others have set up camp, Lara gets knocked the hell out before she’s able to reach her friends. Waking up in a decrepit cave hung upside down, she manages to break out and escape from the scavenger with the cave crushing everything behind her.
Making her way through forests and creepy shacks, she manages to contact Roth on the radio before picking up the pickaxe in the basement of the creepy shack. Bypassing that, she finally runs into Sam along with a mysterious stranger named Mathias who seems fascinated by stories of Sam’s heritage, having been descended from the enigmatic Queen Himiko herself. Lara proceeds to fall asleep during this story, only for her to wake up and find that her friend and the stranger have disappeared entirely. Trying to follow the trail, she walks straight into a deadly bear trap and has to kill a bunch of wolves before being saved by Reyes and the rest of the group. Telling the group about Sam’s disappearance, the group splits up with Lara and Whitman going to find Roth while the rest of the group follow the trail to Sam. Following a trail, it leads them to a sort of gate that shows signs of worshiping Himiko, confirming that they in fact found Yamatai before they’re surrounded by men aggressive with guns. They’re okay at first until Whitman takes the coward’s way out and tells Lara to do whatever they say, which involves crew members of the Endurance (not the main ones) being executed piece by piece while Whitman is taken elsewhere. Of course, there’s this uncomfortable tension between Lara and her captor, however that ends real quick as Lara makes her escape before murdering him in a struggle. She freaks out a bit before she makes her escape again, shooting through multiple dudes and reuniting with Roth, who is wounded and surrounded by dead wolves after John Woo-ing the hell out of them.
Lara lays Roth down safely and travels to find the medkit needed to bandage Roth up from the wolves who survived the assault. Traveling into the cave and nearly getting almost murdered, she makes it back down the small mountain and heals Roth’s wounds. However, Roth lays something down on her real fast: in his condition, he needs her to bring up some equipment needed to hack into a relay and contact the outside world for a pickup. Shooting and stabbing her way up some cold ass mountains (and not picking up jackets from ANYONE’s corpse), she manages to climb her way up the relay tower and ACTUALLY call for help from the outside world. However, this doesn’t go very far before the giant cargo plane (with absolutely nowhere to land by the way!) gets struck by lightning and crashes into the forest below. Lara slides her way down the mountain and nearly dies, while one of the two survivors of the plane gets mucho deado by nearby cultists. She makes her way back to Roth, who somehow was able to climb up the mountain before insisting on saving the remaining surviving pilot as well. The others tell Roth and Lara that they tracked Sam to some sort of ancient city before Lara finds the pilot, who is nigh dead and is ambushed into a trap. Matthias appears and taunts her before the nearby “Oni” murder all of his goons, conveniently thinking Lara to be dead.
She wakes up in a room filled with dead bodies like it’s a mafia owned pork store in New Jersey and barely manages to evade the Oni herself in the escape. She finds the “tomb” of Himiko, and learns of a fire ritual while narrating to herself in an AHA moment. She finally comes to the conclusion that Himiko’s “fire ritual” is actually transferring power, as in the power of reincarnation. She’s barely able to make it out alive before she’s contacted over the radio by Sam, who tells her about the fire ritual and that she’s “fucking terrified”. Believing her to be about to be sacrificed, she and Roth make their way over to the “palace” as the others have been captured as well. Sam’s caught by guards and Lara tumbles her way down a waterfall using her training from slip and fall school before conveniently parachuting her way down to the shanty town where this fortress holds Sam and the others (though not before getting nigh injured). She heals her own injuries via a fire arrow and heads out into the Shanty Town, killing goons in the process. Here she finds Grim being held hostage, who sacrifices himself and takes some goons down with him into the abyss below. Afterwards she continues to climb up, with Roth providing surprise sniper cover fire while she slowly climbs across the bridge. Of course it’s here where someone sees her and attempts to kill her but that doesn’t work, as she makes a quick getaway across a bunch of collapsing shanties. Making her way through a cave, she spots a ritual between Matthias, Sam and all of the Solarii cult and decides of all things to pull out a bow instead of murdering everyone with the automatic rifle or the shotgun she has. This fails, and Lara is captured to watch her friend die; however it turns out this ritual is supposed to prove if someone truly is a relative of Himiko and when Sam survives, the cult turns to the next plan as Lara is led out of the area.
However, Lara has other plans and gets the jump on her captors before jumping into the river of blood below, peeking her head out like a scene from Apocalypse Now. Fighting her way through the caves, she manages to save her friends before blowing up a gas leak below, letting everyone escape (barely) but in the process wreaking havoc on the entire palace above. Climbing through the wreckage, she finds a room where Matthias has been planning this transfer (between questioning why he’s so interested in it, even if the text in the middle of the screen says VESSEL). A bit later she runs into Dr. Whitman again, who finds these cult guys to be fascinating and tells Lara to “keep a lookout and holler when it’s safe”. Matthias rants at Samantha and giving his motive: he wants to do the ritual so he can leave the godforsaken island. Lara kills Sam’s guard and almost rescues her, finding Dr. Whitman again who is supposedly “held hostage”. The fire ranges as well as a bloodbath that accentuates the carnage as Lara and Sam are split up. Lara goes to war and takes down a whole lot of goons before barely escaping a burning bridge as Roth and the others come around on a helicopter. I forget how they get the helicopter but this isn’t a great idea as the helicopter attempts to escape without the others, before Lara holds a gun to the dude’s head. The helicopter crashes, only survivors being Roth and Lara; however Mathias catches up and just throws an axe into Roth’s spine, killing him permanently. The others make their way back and frustrations are at an all time high with the blame game, however they all agree to find a safe place and make funeral arrangements.
Lara insists that the storms are meant to keep them on the island, though Reyes stubbornly disagrees and thinks she’s crazy. Mourning at Roth’s grave, the others make their way back to the beach in order to salvage a boat to head off the island. Lara instead plans to use it to go back to the monastery filled with Oni from before, planning on stopping the Solarii cult once and for all. An action set piece filled with makeshift elevators later and she’s down at the beach, where Whitman suspiciously comes back unharmed. Jonah also tells Lara about how Alex went to go and find some tools, so Lara proceeds to go back to where it all started: the wreck of the Endurance in order to find Alex and the tools. He stubbornly refuses to help, as he’s so intensely focused on impressing Lara due to a hidden crush that he ends up dying, though he makes a sacrifice for Lara (getting a kiss in the process). Lara makes her way back to the others and after more tense words with Reyes, she and the others chill out and eat at the campfire. Lara (having found intel about the Japanese military trying to control the storms), is led to believe they may have found answers at an old base beneath the cliffside. Infiltrating it, she finds the dead body of a samurai and learns that the guy (who was a general) unalived himself due to his failure in stopping the unaliving of the next in line priestess used for the reincarnation ritual. Himiko has been trapped inside of her body the entire time in her ritual chamber, screaming and waiting for release. Over the radio, gunfire goes off at the base camp and the Solarii get the drop on everyone including Lara, who shoots her way back to base camp.
Whitman has taken Sam and brought her back to Mathias, and with basically everyone dead now except Jonah and Reyes, they all agree to stage a rescue operation at the ritual chamber. Jonah and Reyes stay behind to stop any Oni, and Lara climbs up to the monastery, where she sees Whitman and Mathias carrying Sam. The cult leader tells him to greet the Oni as a savior for bringing back the sacrifice and the dumb fuck actually believes it, getting killed and providing a distraction while thinking in her ego that he’s going to be a hero. From here it’s a mad dash up the mountain monastery, between shooting cult members and ducking a giant army of undead Oni. She finally manages to climb her way up and kills all manners of beings before she finally confronts Mathias in the final ritual. One quicktime battle later and Mathias gets a pickaxe to the back and John-Woo’d off of the ritual chamber entirely before stabbing Himiko’s corpse, saving Sam and clearing up the weather phenomenon plaguing the island. The sun proceeds to shine harder than a Jesus savior complex and she carries Sam out of their bridal style onto the boat, where the four sail their way out to a rescue ship. Over the course of the story, Lara has dismissed her father’s adventures as crazy, and the media publicity had apparently led him to unaliving himself. However, Lara vows to find answers to the world’s mysteries to live up to her father’s legacy, hoping to eventually clear his name. The final frame shows the words: “A Survivor is Born”, before an eventual cut to black.
With the recap done, how do I view this plot? Honestly I enjoyed it, and compared to the Uncharted titles which has a bit more of an upbeat vibe, I appreciate the darker turn that this game gives on Lara’s character. In a lot of ways the development of Lara as a character had a pretty good start here, dealing with the themes of trauma, which I feel like I’ll explain better in the atmosphere section. However, what doesn’t get stated are the undercurrent LGBT tones between Lara and Sam. It’s not like a super huge thing of course, but it’s clear that they deeply care about each other and they’re pretty good foils for each other. Sam is very much supportive of Lara and gets her out of her shell and is more of the extrovert while Lara herself is the introverted and reserved friend who appreciates what Sam brings to her life. How they talk to each other, how Lara carries her to safety towards the end of the game, it’s something that was intended to be built upon according to writer Rhianna Pratchett. It was originally the plan to have them be a couple, and while it was dashed due to the higher ups, it would’ve been interesting to see Lara in a different light then before. Her relationship with Conrad Roth is pretty warm and caring, with Roth being supportive even if he doesn’t agree with her ideas (such as attempting to save the pilot even though that could get her killed). I think for the most part the rest of the crew members are okay: Grim you don’t see much of, Alex is there but the whole crush thing on Lara comes out of nowhere and doesn’t really add up to anything, Reyes is the stereotypical hardass and Jonah is nice though how they decided to keep him and not go with Roth I’m not too sure. The main hate sink is Dr. Whitman, who is played as such an unbelievably narcissistic asshole that it’s not even funny, though sometimes it kind of is with how stupid everyone comes off believing him. Originally there was supposed to be another crew member named Steph who was found in concept art, though this was scrapped due to the amount of characters already on screen. Matthias as an antagonist is pretty okay for the most part, he plays the role well though and through backstory you learn of how he was stranded and eventually turned into the crazed cult leading puppet in Himiko’s Solarii Brotherhood, desperate to escape the island that he was stranded on for thirty years or so. As for the mystery behind Himiko herself, I love the idea of this warrior queen who constantly reincarnates, conquering other lands and rulers and commanding this supernatural reign over the elements only to be trapped in a decayed corpse and driven mad due to the ritual needed to sustain life. One thing that intrigues me a bit is time, like how long does time last on this island? According to TVTropes it’s most likely anywhere between two to three days, and while that’s probably accurate just due to the sheer scope of the paranormal phenomenon it feels like it could take weeks or even longer. I doubt that of course, but the sheer sense of time scale is interesting to me since it was brought up because transition wise it honestly feels pretty smooth even with segments cut between time jumps. Overall however, Tomb Raider was a dark yet enjoyable satisfying time; it’s not perfect in all of it’s choices but for the most part it sticks the landing and created an enjoyable adventure, even if it wasn’t the most memorable the first time around.
Tomb Raider’s gameplay in a lot of ways has been compared to the Uncharted games, and to say that it isn’t would be both blind to the trends though to completely say that it ripped it off would be false. Games inspire each other all the time, and Tomb Raider’s over the shoulder gameplay shooter style mixed in with mythological treasure hunting is pretty much basically two of the only similarities it has to Uncharted (I guess other than collecting artifacts and climbing stuff). Let’s start with the basic gist of the gameplay: Lara will be traveling through different areas, following story events, picking up artifacts and exploring side tombs while shooting members of the Solarii Brotherhood and hunting small animals. So how does that go? Let's go with the open world-esque segments: this game is definitely what you would call a “Metroidvania”. There are a set of different regions, all with their own collectibles and puzzles and some of which you can’t access until much later in the story when you find the tool needed to solve the puzzle which is standard for “Metroidvania”. The whole philosophy for this is the idea that you need to backtrack to explore areas once again, sometimes with enemy respawns and sometimes without. In games like Tomb Raider and Batman: Arkham Asylum (another game I’ve played recently), it’s basically barely any enemies. But that’s the overall concept, and you’ll pick up small artifacts which give a backstory to the goings for Yamatai Island. I’m not a particular fan of the concept of going back to previous areas as it’s often tedious and annoying to wrap up the collectibles for the 100 percent, with me in particular dreading replaying Tomb Raider and Arkham Asylum for those particular reasons. Collectibles also range from Challenges (specific things you do in specific areas like burn specific tarps or destroy mobile alarms) to GPS Caches (which when you collect them all reveal secret messages, especially once you collect them all) to the side tombs. If you want to get all the collectibles in the game, it’s imperative you get to the actual tombs as soon as possible because it’ll reward you with a treasure map revealing the location of other collectibles.
So how about the shooting and climbing aspects of the game? Well the climbing aspect of the game is fun, you climb obvious spots covered in yellow or white paints and earlier on in the game you’ll use your pickaxe to climb specific walls by jumping against the wall and pressing X or Square. Most of the time it plays pretty damn well though like other games in its genre, there are times where I feel like I slip and die; sometimes it’s my fault and sometimes it’s kinda picky and choosy though this latter part is rare. However, the gunplay and upgrade system surrounding it is what makes the heart of the core gameplay. In almost every region (at least the ones with collectibles), you’ll find campfires which you can use to save, listen to one of Lara’s monologues, upgrade your weapons with parts and salvage found as well as the ability to upgrade your skill trees. The salvage weapon system for the most part is fine, it’s cool to see how your weapons evolve over time as you upgrade them, particularly the machine gun which turns it from a WW2 submachine gun into a duct taped makeshift AK; this is particularly hilarious as Lara DOES NOT seem like the type who would know gun mechanics like that but for the sake of gameplay I don’t give a shit. I feel like the problem involved with this is the salvage mechanic, the loot system where you can upgrade these weapons with specific parts. Mainly, if you’re not diligent enough to loot EVERY corpse you come across, every little box and just everything in general then by the end it feels painful trying to unlock the last upgrades needed to 100 percent of all weapons. In fact, I doubt you’ll even be able to 100 percent the weapons as in a lot of ways, the upgrades needed are randomized with the loot boxes throughout the map. I had done it all on the Xbox One but on the PC I think I still had a weapon or two on 60-80 percent and by the end of the game I couldn’t be arsed enough to deal with that shit. In short, it feels like a grindy game but it doesn’t give you enough repetitive resources in order to get what you need as enemies barely respawn and if you kill enough animals it’ll say that an area is “hunted out” which is fucking annoying. In a lot of the ways it’s the same thing with the XP Upgrade tree, like once you’ve gone through the campaign it feels like it’s a bit of a stretch to get everything.
So what specific weapons are you using in your adventure on Yamatai Island? The first ones you’ll get are the Bow & Arrow along with the Pickaxe. The Bow and Arrow (which can later get updated twice with much better bows) are pretty solid, and over time you’ll get access to different arrows like fire arrows, piercing arrows and rope arrows which you’ll use to create ziplines. The pickaxe is cool for climbing but is also for melee and stealth, though using it as an actual weapon requires upgrades on the skill tree. I feel like this is kind of dumb because why would I need to use an actual skill tree just to swing a weapon when you can just…swing a weapon? I don’t know, it feels kind of stupid but what can you do? Other weapons include the usual Pistol (which when fully upgraded turns into a Desert Eagle), Shotgun (which can upgrade from a Pump Shotgun into a Combat Shotgun) and Machine Gun (which starts out as a Japanese Type-100 but over time turns into an AK-47 before finishing off with the “Commando Rifle” and is fitted with a grenade launcher attachment during the fortress raid). There aren’t any grenades so you’re mostly off using your wits to destroy lanterns and explosive barrels in your environment to kill nearby foes. Speaking of fire from earlier, you also have access to a torch which you can use during certain puzzles, for light or to burn certain objects but for the most part it’s not the craziest thing mechanically. The last thing I’ll bring up here is quick time events, which in this game is actually pretty used a decent amount of times. Thankfully it’s mostly tapping the X (or Square) button repeatedly or tapping Y (or Triangle) in certain instances. However, whenever the game asks you to slap one of the joysticks back and forth (heh, dad?) it gets kind of frustrating and hurts your hand if you’re not expecting it and/or trying to take copious amounts of screenshots like I usually do on Steam.
What about cut gameplay stuff? According to developers themselves and outside sources, there were a number of ideas for the game that were canned. Developers themselves would discuss how earlier builds of the game used health packs to fix Lara up, which was later on the cutting room floor due to “modernization” and instead was replaced with health regeneration. Another cut sequence was one that involved swimming through The Endurance as it starts to sink in the beginning of the game, before it was cut due “swimming not being solved”, later to be added into the sequel. Another thing to be added into the sequel? Side Quests! In earlier builds of the game, it apparently had a series of quests that made a male hunter whom you would fetch stuff for in exchange for items that could be used in the course of your adventure. I feel that it’s better that this was scrapped, just due to the fact it feels conflicting with the “us versus them” survival mentality the game’s Lord of the Flies-esque nature would build upon. The last thing was apparently a four player cooperative mode which was canceled due to the scope of the story itself, which again made sense to me as it doesn’t feel like the kind of game that needs a cooperative mode where everyone just goes ham shooting people but that’s just me. Speaking of mass murder!
Starting out with the atmosphere of Tomb Raider, it’s a very heavy one with almost barely any levity involved and usually doesn’t give you any time to breathe. Right from the get go in the story it’ll hit you with better times before almost delivering an onslaught of near deaths, “I barely survived” moments, as well as giant onslaughts of angry cultist goons inside of this dark gray and grimy bubble. While I kind of shrugged at the “Nathan Drake bodycount” thing as I’m rather desensitized to death and shooting things in video games, I rather appreciate how the game takes it’s time to at least address that Lara goes through some rather traumatic stuff in regard to the constant killing and the hopelessness that goes on through the island. She doesn’t make funny, carefree quips or banter endlessly while shooting thugs like Nathan would, as they really go with attempting to make this a serious and as dark as possible. Dead bodies litter the world either from your own deeds, from the previous 2000 years or a couple of points of skinned corpses, victims of the undead Stormguard. I think there’s a lot of people that give the game a bit of shit for how it handled the themes: dropping a moment or two where Lara has a moment where she apologizes for killing a deer or near a breakdown point killing her first goon (total piece of s h i t by the way) before just continuing like it’s nothing. I’m sure there could be more realistic ways for the theme to continue, like having multiple moments and cutscenes where she throws up or has a moment where she calms down before sobbing uncontrollably. However, the truth is I feel when you’re in a situation like this it’s really hard to tell how everyone would react, especially considering Lara is just pumped full of adrenaline throughout the entirety of the multiple days that she stays mostly awake. According to TVTropes, the writer addressed the “inconsistency” in an interview where she said that “not every kill can be like the first one”, and that a lot of the game kind of depends on suspension of disbelief with action games. Like with most video games, I basically can concede and agree for the most part as just for the sake of video game logic there isn’t really much of a way you can get around it other than perhaps adding even more scenes and mentions in the equation other than “Killing just seems to get easier with each one”.
Regardless, between the constant grays and the decrepit buildings, the dirt and grime mixed with the rainy fog you find during your travels in Yamatai I feel like it definitely fits the “abandoned island” atmosphere that you’d certainly get out of Lost. I would classify the tone of this game as action adventure with horror elements, even if there aren’t jumpscares or anything too crazy I feel like the themes more than fit for the purpose. So how about the graphics? Originally the game came out on the Xbox 360/Playstation 3 generation of consoles and as such it’s not the craziest level of detail in the graphics. Mud will blend into the skin but look pixelated and sometimes it’ll look like the rips in the clothing are a part of the texture in itself, as if the texture itself is being swapped and not the clothing itself being altered throughout your time on Yamatai. That being said however, it doesn’t look bad graphically in the slightest. Throughout my entire time playing Tomb Raider I’ve never noticed one bad texture or anything out of place. Everything looks perfectly normal as it is and I don’t particularly see anything bad with that in the slightest. The “too long didn’t read” is, the graphics look perfectly fine and while there’s nothing crazy with it, works enough that it shouldn’t matter.
Sound Design, how is it? The environmental designs from the fire to the weapon sounds, climbing and everything else knocks it out of the park. I like how the weapons feel and sound, each iteration of each weapon feels like a joy to use and the sounds only serve in favor of it. My favorite sound is the AK-47, which has this crunchy sort of effect as the bullets tear through nearby enemy cultists though I also am a huge fan of the general sound that fire gives out. There’s another sound that you can get that apparently sounds like the older Tomb Raider games when you collect all the GPS caches, the one sound that plays when you find a secret but I also haven’t played the old Tomb Raider games (yet) so I haven’t caught that. Burning stuff in this game always sounds neat and shoots some sort of endomorphin s h i t into my brain. As for the voice acting in the game, I REALLY enjoy Camilla Luddington’s performance as a younger Lara Croft, as I feel she does a good job at portraying this inexperienced Lara who at this point is only focused on surviving for her life and getting the hell out. Also I’m a bit of a simp for UK Accents, they’re just so cool sounding and I can’t help but love it for what it is. Her father figure/mentor Conrad Roth is voiced by Robin Atkin Downes, who does a good job putting on a Scottish sort of accent even if I could recognize that it was him almost immediately due to her performance as Miller in Metal Gear Solid V. Those are the main two whom I would say have the most recognizable appearances but in truth everyone in the main Endurance crew along with Robert Craighead as Matthias do a fantastic job bringing emotional nuance and all the other good acting stuff to the table. Finally, the musical soundtrack is pretty alright, it’s composed by a guy named Jason Graves (funny for a dude who previously composed the Dead Space soundtracks to be honest) is still very much orchestral with a lot of percussion and it fits perfectly fine for the background feelings the game provides. Nothing too insane on this end but for all intents and purposes, the sounds for Tomb Raider (2013) work pretty damn well!
Now onto the multiplayer segment of the game: how is it? I’ll be honest, I don’t really know. I know people who’ve played it! They said it was fine for the most part as an actual multiplayer game but for the people who sit down try to get the multiplayer achievements/trophies? Honestly, it’s miserable as hell according to a buddy of mine (shoutout to Bad Ghosts). It apparently took him around 40 or so hours to grind it out, mostly due to the fact absolutely NO ONE played this game online. So why is it? It’s mostly just due to the fact that like many single player games, the executives deemed it so that they shoehorn in a multiplayer mode because that’s what was popular at the time, probably with the off chance hope that it’ll be popular enough to perhaps monetize it in the future. It wasn’t, and like other games, the multiplayer for this was mostly dead in the water.
Tomb Raider is one of those games that I honestly enjoyed the second time around. It’s a more short and brief title, though tonally I can understand why a lot of fans of the series find it to be a mixed reception. In a sense, it went from the unique Tomb Raider flavor to one that kind of follows the Uncharted formula, climbing around your environment as you engage with shootouts and kill a lot of people. Lara only kills like one person and feels traumatized before just moving on to shoot more goons. In all honesty though, I don’t really feel like any of that’s bothered me much? It addresses the body count a bit as a factor of survival, something she has to do to save the people that she cares about and get the hell off the island. The gameplay feels solid, nothing really groundbreaking and crazy but I wasn’t looking for that. Graphically for a 2013 game it still looks pretty damn good between the textures, character models and environmental design and the sound design has a solid foundation as well. It’s not the best s h i t since sliced bread, but that’s okay as not every game needs to be like that. Soon I’ll be going on to replay Rise of the Tomb Raider along with its DLCs and I’ll make sure to give all of them a good spin and see how it fares for the second playthrough compared to this one.
The game would release to positive critical acclaim, with over 14.5 million sales under less than ten years according to the Wikipeeds, though with the critique that the game was copying from the Uncharted series at the time along with criticism due to the game’s darker tones. Between this game and its sequel, Rise of the Tomb Raider, would release Lara Croft and the Temple of Osiris. This title, like Guardian of the Light, would be an arcade-like Isometric experience that spun-off from the series and was unrelated to the “Survivor” series that this game would go on to continue. While this game would debut on Xbox 360 and PS3, the sequel would mainly focus on the next-gen consoles (aside from a 360 Port); however Tomb Raider (2013) itself would later get its own definitive edition re-release for the next-gen consoles as well. While doing research for the game, there was a sort of sequel comic series where Lara Croft dealt with her survivor’s guilt while apparently (saying that cause TV Tropes says yes while I can’t find anything on the Wiki) gaining a hetero boyfriend (eww), destroying a lot of fan popular LGBT subtext between her and her best friend Sam. This was all against Rhianna Pratchett’s (the writer for the game) vision along with Gail Simone, the writer of the comic books. Another novel would be released called Tomb Raider: The Ten Thousand Immortals, which has a bit of a mixed conflict between Crystal Dynamics themselves and the fanbase as to whether or not it’s canonical due to several different details conflicting with the comics. That would be it between the first and second title of the “Survivor Trilogy” for the most part, but again I’ll be taking a look into the second title here really soon.
Links:
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Trivia/TombRaider2013
https://tombraider.fandom.com/wiki/Tomb_Raider:_The_Ten_Thousand_Immortals
https://tombraider.fandom.com/wiki/Tomb_Raider:_The_Beginning
https://tombraider.fandom.com/wiki/Tomb_Raider_Ascension_(Game)
https://tombraider.fandom.com/wiki/Tomb_Raider_(Dark_Horse_Comics)
https://www.unseen64.net/2011/11/20/tomb-raider-legend-beta/
https://store.steampowered.com/app/233410/Tomb_Raider__The_Final_Hours_Digital_Book/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-wR1xUHm4rs
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1797530/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KYV29WLphmI
From Steam Reviews: https://steamcommunity.com/id/gamemast15r/recommended/
2006
This review contains spoilers
My personal history with Dead Rising starts as a youngster, someone who was stuck on the Playstation 2 Era of gaming consoles in a time where the Xbox 360 and PS3 were considered the next generation of hot, new consoles for years. Around this age I was imaginative, super excited about the state of gaming and where it would go, and obsessed with zombies. I was REALLY into zombie media as a kid from games to movies to books and would actively seek out new stuff to play, and eventually wish as growing up after my parents divorced there wasn’t exactly a lot of funds in the house under a single mother and my father thought of video games as a waste of time when I could be “learning something useful” like physical work. Around this time I was obsessed with ScrewAttack and their top ten lists (mainly due to the sound design and 2000s gamer aesthetic); and these lists, while archaic today, felt like a way for me as a young person to interact with a gaming world I had yet to attain. One of these was a “Top Ten Zombie Games” list, and this list is where I would come to learn of at least two games that I love dearly: Stubbs the Zombie and Dead Rising. The idea that I could pick up ANY weapon to kill zombies in an open world wearing ANY outfit that I please felt amazing, and as such I would actively keep track of this game. I also remember watching a bit of Youtube Machinima Creator Jackspicer2311 as a kid who would have a couple of Dead Rising references though my memory is foggy as to whether this was where I got interested in the game too (though that’s how I got into Twisted Metal I believe so shoutout).
I don’t remember much of my first games on the Xbox 360 (except The Godfather 2 being my very first one) but I remember the games that really made me want to go into the next gen series were specifically Dead Rising and Grand Theft Auto 4. I don’t remember when I got Dead Rising but when I did get it I would play for hours and hours, looking up Youtube guides on how to master button combinations, weapon locations, psychopath tips, basically anything and everything I could get knowledge on I would do it. In the process, Dead Rising would become one of my most prized games of all time as well as probably my favorite game of all time despite the frustrations that come with playing a title with some interesting design choices. I’d later go to try Dead Rising 2 and on but the games wouldn’t ring as well as this one did, Capcom Japan really made something special with this one that resonated a lot with my younger self. Having played it repeatedly as a kid, I’d later pick it up on Steam and have since in the past five or so years only really played it twice, including the recent playthrough. However, in my quest to get through most of my backlog and having played and reviewed the other Dead Rising games with my buddy BFD Survivor, before playing the Wii Port to DR1 as well as the later black sheep Dead Rising 4, I wanted to talk about what really makes this game special to me.
According to a 1UP interview with Keiji Infaune, Dead Rising originally started off as a sequel to PS2 exclusive Shadow of Rome, specifically Agrippa’s action parts. Poor sales however pushed it into the game it was today, spinning off to instead take a western influence that it came with today. During the development according to a forum board I found, a lot of assets were used from Shadow of Rome and originally only had Dead Rising as a sort of working title while the word Snatcher was used as the placeholder title for the entire development cycle. Influences of course are obvious, with the movie Dawn of the Dead being one of the first things that come to mind as a zombie movie in the form of a game. It was so similar enough that a warning was placed on the cover art dismissing any sort of copyright infringement with the George Romero classic only to get sued by the company who held the rights to the movie. Keiji Inafune also apparently wanted Dead Rising to include co-op play but due to the lack of time and resources needed to make it a functioning feature, it was instead saved for Dead Rising 2 and beyond. Over the years, different alpha and beta copies would also be produced, with cut content like removed weapons and such falling into the hands of like minded Dead Rising enthusiasts like STiPO to be explored. One of these concepts apparently included a sequence of Isabela Keyes using a sniper rifle to shoot some zombies only for that to be cut. It would then make its first appearance in E3 2005, along with the Microsoft Convention that same year using the same build. Over the next many years the builds would change as assets were re-done (most notably Frank West, who originally had a black jacket and black turtleneck I believe?). Eventually however, it would make its release date of August 2006, after dealing with a crunch period in March. So what was the critical reception like for this game? It was pretty much positive across the board minus a few hiccups here and there and as someone who loves the game to death, I think most people love this game (except for the ones who don’t like the timer which is understandable).
Dead Rising cold opens with a pair of legs shambling towards an open road in the middle of the night, whether they’re just shambling or trying to go towards the light is unknown. That motherfucker straight up gets run over in the next five seconds by a mother and her youngest daughter in their car, where the mom is trying to keep her daughter from looking out to see the carnage. Along the dirt road the background is filled with burning buildings and the sounds of blackhawk helicopters before the two get smacked by an out of control semi-truck. Mom is unconscious as the little girl tries to get her awake, all the while a shambling person roams nearby. This messed up looking man attempts to break into the vehicle with half of his jaw ripped off and attempts to make a quick snack of the mother and daughter duo before the mother manages to kick him away from the door. However, that victory doesn’t last for long due to the fact that the car won’t start and more zombies proceed to surround them before it abruptly cuts to black.
Cut to later on, September 19th of 2006. Photojournalist Frank West is investigating the small town of Willamette, Colorado to figure out why the National Guard has seized the town off. Hiring helicopter pilot Ed DeLuca, the two fly off into the distance as they witness the military blocking off all bridges. Pulling out the camera, Frank snaps shots of multiple survivors getting mauled on, ripped apart and eaten alive by the undead in a series of horrific events (though skippable) introducing the camera mechanic. Taking his photos, they fly their way to the Willamette Parkview Mall, Frank loses his equipment due to military blackhawk helicopters swarming Frank and Ed, forcing Frank to jump out of the helicopter and onto the top of the mall with one dictation from Ed: be back in 72 hours or else Frank will be left behind. Taking one foot forward, he suddenly runs into a mysterious hispanic man in a flashy looking shirt with the collar up, asking weird questions like if Frank “came alone” and making painfully obvious small talk. Heading down into the security room he witnesses a lady getting eaten on the TV monitor and after that heads down into the Entrance Plaza. Down here he witnesses numerous things, of which include cranky old men, beautiful latina ladies and an older woman obsessed with yelling out for her dog. One of the cranky old men identifies the people as “zombies” which Frank surprisingly doesn’t believe even when he witnessed numerous people getting chewed alive. Regardless everything goes from bad to worse as the old lady screaming “Madonna” witnesses her dog trapped with all the zombies and barges through to save her dog despite the fact they seem to be ignoring the little pup. The zombies barge through and everyone starts to die except an African American man in a yellow shirt, who yells at the survivors to run up the stairs to the security room. Getting to the security room, they weld the entrance shut, and the African-American man heads back into a nearby air duct to go into the mall. Frank introduces himself to a nearby blonde woman, and she asks to see some photos. She fixates on one for a bit, one of the cranky older men with the cane in the introduction. Shrouded in mystery, the blonde woman introduces herself as Jessie and the African American man from before as Brad. After the older african american man, Otis, warns him about the dangers outside and gives him a walkie talkie to head out into the open.
Here is where you’ll get introduced to the first two survivors, an older couple named Natalie and Jeff though it’s not mandatory to do so. Frank heads down an elevator into a nearby storage room and nearly clocks Jessie with a fire extinguisher, thinking that she was a zombie. Falling down and spraining her leg due to Frank’s ambush. It’s learned that Jessie followed behind because she witnessed Brad being ambushed on the monitor. This is where “I’ve Covered Wars Ya Know” debuts to become a legend, and Jessie gives him her gun and Frank makes his way over to the food court. While there, Frank nearly gets shot by a familiar hispanic gentleman armed with a P90 along with Brad. Whittling this man down with bullets, he escapes via a rope to the ceiling. Frank demands an explanation only to be rebuffed by Brad, only to concede to Frank’s demands for information a bit when he shows him the earlier old man picture. They begrudgingly agree to work together and Brad reveals himself as DHS, as in the Department of Homeland Security. They travel through the Al Fresca Plaza and into the Entrance Plaza where they unlock the shutters and find the old man. He refuses to leave the closed store until he’s promised safe passage. Frank heads back to the security room only to swat a giant bee, which when killed has every zombie’s head explode nearby. Heading into the security room, Brad and Jessie reveal the older man’s name, Dr. Barnaby. Trying to establish contact with HQ, Jessie learns that the signal is blocked. Frank reveals that his helicopter will be arriving in 3 days, and promising info in return, Brad goes to find supplies to last for a couple of days. Before the next case, you can go about other cases and find survivors, with one of the first optional psychopaths encountered being Adam the Clown along with the convicts in the park which brings up a question: how the hell did they get their attack jeep in there and where did they break out of prison, along with why do they respawn every day? Regardless, eventually Brad finds the supplies before talking to Frank about how not everything is allowed to be printed or even revealed. Eventually after waiting around, the monitor above shows the mysterious hispanic gentleman from earlier dragging the old man through the Entrance Plaza and Brad reveals that the professor was called to this mall mysteriously. Heading to the Entrance Plaza, Brad saves Frank from getting plugged by the hispanic gentleman and his high powered sniper rifle. He reveals arc words “Pachamama” (meaning Mother Earth) while holding his locket and continues to fire while Barnaby is held by rope over top of a crowd of zombies. Defeating this man again, he escapes again while Brad gets shot in the leg. However, Barnaby is saved and brought back to the security room while Brad is patched up a bit by Jessie. Jessie's tasks Frank with finding medicine and he beelines for a grocery store in the Northern Section. Going inside, he finds a grocery store manager going fucking nuts with the hispanic woman from earlier unconscious inside of his grocery cart. Frank defeats him and wakes the lady up, who freaks out and accuses Frank’s “people” of causing “Santa Cabeza”. Picking up the medicine, he brings it back to Brad before Jessie notices blood on his clothes. He tells Jesse about the girl and Santa Cabeza after getting roasted by Jessie, and the mention of Santa Cabeza startles Barnaby enough for him to wake up from his tranquilizer.
With his access to Barnaby restricted after intending to snoop, Frank tries to find the hispanic woman and notices her on the monitors heading back towards the supermarket and goes to meet her for information. She doesn’t take kindly and tries to kill him on her motorbike in return. A nut shot later, she finally decides to ask if he’s a reporter. Further questions towards the woman to learn that the mysterious hispanic man from earlier? His name is Carlito and he wants everyone to know that America created the zombies and not him. They proceed to make a deal: she will talk to Carlito about an interview with Frank in exchange for publishing U.S. war crimes. She then reveals that she’s Carlito’s little sister, who reveals that the zombies were a message from Carlito as revenge against the U.S. She gives a rendezvous date: midnight near the camera shop. Frank heads back to the security room (before or after defeating Jo the lesbian cop psychopath and the Hall family sniper psychopaths), Barnaby has apparently revealed that Santa Cabeza was the center of the CENTRAL AMERICAN drug trade and that “zombie drugs” are the cause. Frank starts to question why that would make sense, and Barnaby lies that there’s no logic because they’re terrorists. Before I continue, I capitalized Central America because later games would constantly say MEXICO instead and it drives me fucking nuts because it’s COMPLETELY different. Meeting up at the spot later, he witnesses Carlito’s sister get attacked by zombies and with a bloody patch on her arm. Rescuing her, she says that Carlito went crazy and shot at her while extremely upset. Frank escorts the woman (named Isabela) back to the security room while Carlito begs for forgiveness over the speakers.
Bringing her back, Frank explains to Brad the situation and says that the same person who shot him also shot her. It’s also revealed that Carlito has a backup plan, and when asking Isabela later what these plans are she reveals that there wasn’t a drug trade in Santa Cabeza, but an American research facility doing research into a wasp (NOT A BEE SORRY) that was supposed to fatten up cattle for American consumption. Barnaby confirms this after almost turning and biting Jesse: the wasp process was supposed to reduce costs to produce cattle before creating zombie livestock. Frank takes a picture of Barnaby’s corpse as Isabela recounts the Santa Cabeza Incident, with the queen wasps escaping from the lab. Barnaby rises from the grave and attempts to kill once again before getting a dome shot to the head. Brad brilliantly summarizes the Willamette Incident as “terrorism as retaliation for a cruel government cover-up”. Brad begrudgingly agrees to let Isabela “atone for her and her brother’s sins” and lets her check up Jesse. Psychopaths in the meantime include the cult leader of the True Eye Cult, a group of mysterious green masked raincoat clad men along with mentally disturbed goth man Paul, who threatens to burn some civilians with a molotov. Carlito apologizes again over the loudspeaker and begs for Isabela to come back, revealing the existence of a “last resort”. This last resort involves blowing up the mall, with several trucks planted with bombs in the underground car park mixed in with a flammable gas that Carlito plans to flood.
Frank races to the underground tunnel and collects the bombs one by one, which Carlito tries to stop. This part is important, because if you’re able to defeat Carlito while he’s in his truck and attempting to kill you, a cutscene plays where Carlito gets out of the van and runs while Brad gives chase as they exchange gunfire. Brad tells Frank to collect the bombs now while he chases down the suspect, and Frank does so, pushing them all in a shopping cart to the outside of the car park. Another cutscene reveals the battle between Carlito and Brad, which ends in Brad being kicked out into a horde of zombies. You’re able to go back to the spot after where you see his fate, and Brad encourages you to put him down and not to tell Jesse. He puts him down before heading back to the security room, where Isabela reveals that more of Carlito’s plans could be revealed if they head back to their secret hideout. Going there with Isabela, she finds the computer but learns that it’s password protected and nearly not hackable. While she hacks it, later on Frank gets called back to the security room again, where he watches footage of Carlito getting captured by a giant man into a butcher’s shop in the basement of the North Plaza. Heading there to get Carlito, he witnesses Larry the butcher attempting to chop him up while laughing maniacally. Refusing to let Carlito go, Frank attacks Larry before beating him and cornering Carlito. Frank gloats about how Isabela is on their side, before Carlito goes on a rant about American meat consumption, ironically while he’s dying in a butcher’s shop. However, Frank promises to tell the world about Santa Cabeza and Carlito gives Frank his locket, telling him to give the locket to his sister. He reports back to Isabela about Carlito’s death and some condolences before giving her the locket. Inside, she learns of the code word: Panchamama, “Mother Earth”. Hacking the computer, the signal finally frees up for Jesse to call up HQ. This call goes bad though as apparently DHS decides to ignore everything, cover up the incident and that Special Forces will arrive at midnight. Jessie goes into a near breakdown state and goes into the fetal position, while the special forces later arrive to rescue her. However, this doesn’t go well as she then turns into a zombie herself and kills the special forces representatives.
Frank arrives at the security room to find the aftermath and kills zombie Jessie, and many hours later the special forces teams officially arrive and proceed to wipe out most of the zombies in the entire mall. I assume they wanted the military there instead of just bombing everything so it doesn’t get out too much into the rest of American society. Regardless, it’s learned in a note that the special forces have been abducting all the survivors that you saved and that Otis escaped in one of the helicopters and tells Frank in a note that he “owes him a drink”. In the daytime, Brock Mason (or Ed Harris lol) pops up as the commander of the special forces.
Frank hangs out on the helicopter pad while Ed is scoping out to see if he’s made it, excited when he finally sees him because payday. How he didn’t get spotted by special forces I don’t know, but he attempts a pickup only for a zombie to have stowed away on the helicopter and feast on him violently, the helicopter crashing into the mall inside the park. Frank slumps down, having lost all hopes and with almost everyone dead except Isabela as zombies surround him. Cut to credits right? WRONG. If you’ve beaten every case in 72 Hour Mode there’s one more mode to beat for the story and that’s:
OVERTIME MODE.
Overtime shows Frank previously having given up and waiting for death, only to be saved by Isabela. Frank goes unconscious only to wake up back in Isabela’s lair, with my genuine surprise considering he’s a pretty big dude and to lug him across the mall must’ve been tough. It’s revealed here that Frank has been infected and that he’ll turn in a limited amount of time if he doesn’t find the tools and ingredients to survive even with his high level of resistance. Frank roams around the mall dodging special forces to collect all kinds of shit like blenders and it’s revealed that this drug was created specifically on orders from Carlito as a backup plan. Frank’s moaning about being a “time bomb” triggers something in Isabela, and she reveals that Carlito created an NPO to help war orphans, but had secretly experimented on them all as zombie time bombs to be unleashed in the future. It’s here I want to bring up something else so spoilers for Dead Rising 3: Nick and Diego have the Numbers 12 and I forget the other number. The list has Number 12 as Lisa Jackson, and while this could’ve been a sort of secret code thing, I’m 100 percent sure the developers just missed the research or decided to retcon. Besides the point, yes, Carlito infected orphans with a special zombie virus and spread them all over the country as a future revenge plot. Isabela sends him to the clock tower in the park to turn on the generator, only for Frank to see a giant hole that Ed’s helicopter made, revealing a tunnel into an unknown location. Afterwards, she asks for adult queen wasps, and a whole lot of them to be exact. She’s able to create a sort of temporary vaccine to help stop the infection spread and jabs him, before going on about how she’s able to isolate a pheromone to repel zombies away from them. Frank tells her about the tunnel, and she creates the pheromone.
They make their way out to the clock tower and hesitantly head down into the cave with the temporary vaccine and the “smelly perfume” and slash their way through the tunnels. On the other end, it starts to wear down a bit as they notice that special forces are guarding the end of the cave. Holding Isabela on his back, they fight their way through and steal a special forces jeep, driving out into the open of a big ass construction site. Similar to The Thing: The Video Game, a rail shooter segment where you play as Isabela while you shoot out certain weak points on the tank, along with shooting down drones that attack you. This doesn’t stop the tank’s commander Brock however, who switches from automated controls to manual and proceeds to shoot the jeep and flips it over. Isabela is alive but unconscious while Brock holds Frank hostage, where it’s revealed that Brock led the cleanup operation on Santa Cabeza. The two argue about the governments fuckups, while Brock goes on about how humanity excels at being a fuck up. Brock decides to flip the tank around to look at a horde of zombies, while Frank gives him a punch in the mouth and knocks out his cigar. Frank and Brock engage in a violent hand to hand duel, which knocks him out cold off the tank and onto an audience of zombies. Isabela is trapped on top of the jeep kicking away zombies and Frank once again gets on his hands and knees, but this time screams into the clouds as a slideshow of black text appears over the screen. The results: Frank apparently escapes Willamette (shown in the Road to Fortune comic), the news is released and the U.S. government takes partial blame, however the Willamette Mall Incident was forgotten in the future.
So, with that beast of a synopsis gone, how do I feel about the story? I love it. Compared to the other games, it feels like there’s more of an atmosphere, more of a vibe to it. The plot to me makes sense, has build up, engages in thematic build up that you could only expect from the earlier George Romero movies. The plot with american cattle, government cover ups, the terrorist retribution, the plot twists just kind of all feel perfectly in sync with each other; moreso here than compared to the other games. The stories behind the psychopaths aren’t just “crazy people”, but people who snapped and freaked out. The one psycho I don’t think I mentioned is a perfect encapsulation of this: Cliff Hudson. A Vietnam veteran who runs the hardware store in the North Plaza, the death of his daughter and grandchild (whom I believe were the mother/daughter from the introduction), the flashbacks to Vietnam. Yes, it’s a vietnam flashback but in this one side quest, it feels like it has a lot more depth than most of the other characters in the next couple of games. There’s a tinge of sadness in it, and this sadness spreads around to the other characters in the series. The lore is interesting as hell as well. I want to know more about Santa Cabeza and what has happened there. The True Eye Cult, how did they come about? Were they a cult before, spurred on by the apocalypse or perhaps were they created in such a short time frame? These are only a few examples, and honestly while I’m sure it’s not a perfect story, it feels appropriately perfect to me. The characters that inhabit this game, while feeling kind of detached, are all unique and memorable to me. I remember Brad Garrison, Jessie McCarney, Russell Barnaby, Carlito & Isabela Keyes and I DEFINITELY remember Frank West. There’s something about all of these characters that while they feel kind of detached due to their speech patterns, they feel human. Frank as a character is iconic as fuck between his outfit, his quotables, like he feels like a sort of perfect legacy character that’s unique in it’s own way. The problem with this is that because I’m not a Youtube Essayist who can go into super in-depth detail, I can’t tell you why everything feels so perfect other than it just does. When I was a kid, this game captured my imagination and held onto it in a warm embrace of a bear hug, and while I don’t play this game all the time anymore, each time I do play it? It keeps the magic and not a lot of things can do that for me. And truthfully, none of the previous games (aside from Off the Record MAYBE-ish) really feels like it can match in line with the series. This game is the high point, and while other games are good it just doesn’t reach the heights.
What’s the gameplay of Dead Rising like? Well there’s multiple different facets of the game: the actual gameplay, the combat and miscellaneous stuff. The actual gameplay is as follows: you are dropped off in the mall to sort of free roam around, killing the undead in unique ways while wearing different types of clothes, engaging in side quests (after getting calls on your transponder from Otis) and finding secrets while under a 72 hour time limit. What I will say about this is that you start off with a low level, you’ll barely have any health and you have to earn your way to level 50 by obtaining PP Points (or Prestige Point…points?). As you level up, unlike other games you won’t be able to choose what skill points you get, what’s invested in what; it’s all pre-chosen for you. In one way I’m cool with not managing ANOTHER skill tree, however it does kind of feel like it’s choosing how you should play instead of investing in yourself in a way that matters. Regardless, the game is REALLY difficult and time is NOT on your side. In fact, the timer is part of the reason why others don’t really care enough to play it. You will barely get any time to follow the cases, save all the survivors, fight all the psychopaths AND have a free roaming fun time. Even though this is my favorite game, the amount of times that I’ve died due to being swarmed or failed due to juggling too much at one time would infuriate me to no end. However, it had that Dark Souls effect where I would just want to keep going, try to give it another run. It’s one of those titles where you kind of have to memorize runs, learn where special weapons like the Katana and Uzi are kept, food combinations and the routes you need to plan. Of course though, you’re not forced into this; you could very well just screw off and ignore everything and be fine, at the cost of getting a bad ending due to not following the main plot. You could also just ignore the survivors and that would be just as valid, it’s not really a rogue-like in all honesty but it does have interesting elements that make it fit. If I could say anything bad about it is that honestly, I understand and respect the challenge that the game puts forward but I prefer the leniency that the later titles in the series would provide. Another annoying thing? The survivor A.I. fucking blows fat dick, like they’re annoying as hell even if it is immersive as hell with people who go panic mode around zombies. They’ll run into each other all the time, get stuck on objects, sometimes you have to hold their hand or carry them on your back which doesn’t allow you to use your weapons to defend yourself. It can honestly be a chore to deal with despite the semi-immersive factor to it all, and honestly zombies can and WILL make quick work of their ass if you’re not helicopter parenting their ass at all times.
How about combat? How does that work? Well, I’ll start with Psychopaths, which are their own separate side quests where you can rescue survivors, but also have their own cutscenes and personality. They’re all unique in their own way and usually you’ll get rewarded with a unique weapon, survivors and a lot of prestige points. Oftentimes the best thing you can do is get a high damage weapon, like the Katana or the dual chainsaws from Adam after you beat him. These guys are bullet sponges and the truth is with how free form and structureless the combat is other than aiming down the sights, oftentimes you might take a decent bit of damage while trying to deliver damage yourself. While difficult at first, these can be decently easy to overcome (other than the final boss Brock, fuck that guy) and besides your enviornment around you, you can also unlock combat skills the more you level up. However, another thing is that in Dead Rising 1 it’s very context based and needs a lot of practicing: for example if you want to ground slam you need to jump then hold aim and attack buttons at the same time in order to slam down (ex. Xbox Controller = A, RT + X at same time). You can jump in the air and do a backwards kick flip by pressing jump and attack very quickly as an example; other skills are useful but require certain situations like jumping right up against a zombie to hop on top of their shoulders. It’s a strange system, yes, but one that honestly I’ve kind of gotten used to dealing with over time even if I feel that the controls in Dead Rising 2 and beyond are better. Speaking of Dead Rising 2, there are absolutely no combo weapons in the slightest so you can’t go into battles with a paddlesaw or anything totally unrealistic.
How about miscellaneous stuff? Well, other than the aside stuff you can take pictures with your camera, which helps gain Prestige Points, with a certain amount of points in certain categories needed in order to progress in certain quests. This is mostly side quest stuff however, so if you’re not worried it’s perfectly fine but can help with later runs if need be. You can also collect secret PP stickers in order to get a lump sum bonus of PP but that’s about it? You can also drive certain vehicles, but this is rare (mostly involving the Convict Jeep, a red convertible, and a motorcycle but honestly the driving controls are kinda iffy. The only other thing I can really point out is that in certain locations there will be sorta hidden weapons to help out, like the Katana on the awning outside the juice bar, or the Uzi in the fountain of Al Fresca Plaza or the Shotgun in the Entrance Plaza. These are what I consider to be essential places to pick up extra weapons if you’re trying to arm survivors or whittle down psychopaths faster. In order to gain certain perks like weapon durability you have to pick up books in set locations and KEEP it in your inventory at all times otherwise you lose the perks, and the more of these books you have the more they stack stats. If you get captured by certain enemies (mainly by being killed by special forces or the cult), then you’ll show up either in a closet or in a helicopter, and these mini “human enemies” are can vary from easy-ish to kill to difficult if you don’t have the right equipment like the special forces. If you’re able to achieve certain thresholds (like killing 53,000 something zombies and getting the Zombie Genocider achievement), then you’ll unlock the Mega Buster. Beat the Infinity Mode in 7 days and you’ll unlock Mega Man clothing. Other outfits that can be unlocked include Special Forces outfits, Boxers, Otis’s outfit, etc.
The last thing to bring up gameplay wise is a whole ‘nother mode: Infinity Mode. This isn’t a free roam thing with infinite time exactly as much as it is a “how long can you last” mode. Your health will constantly go down, so it’s only recommended to try this at Level 50, and you will need to constantly eat food in order to survive. Sounds easy right? Wrong. You don’t get infinite food items, they only spawn once and so if you waste it all then you’re fucked. You’ll be able to kill hostile survivors and psychopaths who spawn in, who give you a random assortment of goods from their corpse like food or weapons but sometimes it’s useless. Balancing all of this with health constantly decreasing and it can be a depressing and miserable experience, and getting to the 7 Day mark without dying and restarting all over takes around 16 hours give or take, maybe more? I’ve only done it once and I will NEVER do it again, but if you want to try then be my guest.
How do the graphics and the atmosphere for Dead Rising hold up in the present day? Honestly, compared to the other games in the series I feel like everything holds up the best, though Dead Rising 2 is very much second up for how close it comes to bringing Fortune City to life. Dead Rising’s Willamette Mall on the other hand feels like an american paradise of sorts with a sort of mall that honestly would do pretty damn well in a city. Everything about it is unique, wholesome, as well as unextraordinary, which is why when contrasted with the zombie invasion it brings this unique sense of isolationism into it, the feeling that anyone could be targeted at any moment. Even the opening sequence where you travel on helicopter over the small town while you witness people being chewed to bits felt unique, like a place I wished I could explore outside of the mall. However the mall is the centerpiece for the town of Willamette, and if the mall is in the center then to sound like a pretentious fuck, american capitalism is the centerpiece to every facet of american society. In fact, to be honest, the entire game’s atmosphere is a result of American capitalism and the greed caused by it. It would be too painfully obvious of course to go deeply into this aspect as everyone who does youtube essays could explain this fact better than I ever could but it’s still a prominent fixture in the game.
Of course compared to other zombie games this title, while it takes its story seriously, is a lot less serious otherwise. This is the game where you can literally use a lawnmower to run over all the zombies you find, or throw plates to knock zombies down, or even wear granny clothing and smack them with a bench. There isn’t much about this game you can totally take super seriously. HOWEVER, that doesn’t mean that when shit hits the fan that it can’t deliver a gut punch. Take survivor deaths for instance, a lot of times when survivors die due to zombies there will be this little cutscene where they get tackled to the ground, chewed up and gnawed on throughout the entire process as they scream for dear life and bloody murder. It’s demoralizing as hell, and other than trying to save everyone for the rewards, led me multiple times to reload my save file to help these goofy AI bastards. The threat only gets more ominous when you learn that engine wise you can have around 800 zombies on screen at once, which you would never realize due to just how many there are in comparison to the smaller sized spaces. As for the graphical fidelity itself, while it still looks like an Xbox 360 game and while it doesn’t have the super in-depth facial muscle textures that half of these games use in the modern day, it still looks pretty slick brought up to 1920 on Steam. The zombies still look threatening, covered in a bluish tint and red slopped on their body while they shamble around what looks like could be a mall in Florida.
The voice acting for this game is strangely paced, offbeat and detached, yet infectious (no pun intended) at the same time between how they say things, when they say things that it’s become a bit of a meme status in the Dead Rising community. Stuff like “I’ve covered wars you know” sank its teeth (proverbially) into the gaming pop culture sphere, or the older lady screaming her dog Madonna’s name repeatedly before doing something stupid, or even Otis chiding you for hanging up while you’re in the middle of getting chewed on by zombies as if he’s not self aware enough to realize that. It adds to this strange charm, a game that both takes itself a bit seriously as well as not taking itself too seriously. I wouldn’t even doubt it if it had something to do with Japanese localization, but it adds to this whole mysterious vibe that it gives off. Terence J. Rotolo here is a perfect exemplification of that as the game’s lead Frank West. Looking back on my previous Dead Rising reviews, I felt that Chuck’s character was kind of a rip off of Frank’s vibe, as if he does all the catchy one liners. I was blatantly incorrect with this, as Frank might have his quips but he doesn’t drop cheesy one liners like Chuck did so my apologies for that. Alex Fernandez is solid as the ominous threatening yet mysterious Carlito Keyes, the main antagonist along with Kim Mai Guest as his sister Isabela Keyes, who is regretful yet angry at their shared trauma with Santa Cabeza. Other notables are Phil Proctor as the angry and shady Dr. Barnaby, T.J. Storm and Laura Napoli as Brad Garrison and Jessie McCarney. You’ll hear some other ones as well, like Steven Blum as Cliff the Vietnam Vet and once I learned that Jason Spisak voiced one of the Hall psychopaths I instantly made the connection there as well. Everyone does a good job at keeping up this tone, sometimes being serious yet tonally kinda hilarious to straight up serious. It’s unnerving to say the least and helps keep the horror atmosphere that I don’t feel any other game could match.
So how is the music? The music in Dead Rising is unique to say the least. Frank West’s theme (what I consider to be the “oh shit” theme) has this strange combination of string instruments and this shaking rattling sound that I guess could be electronic? Another favorite of mine is Gone Guru by Lifeseeker, which plays during the Convict psychopath battle in the park and has become notoriously catchy for being involved in such a bastard of a fight. Justified by Drea (the end credits song) is this power metal ballad of sorts that just feels right, like it’s got this emotionally uplifting vibe and as someone who doesn’t listen to metal in the slightest it just feels perfect for the tone of the overall game. A lot of the incidental mall music that plays over speakers sounds like straight up elevator music, sometimes straight up but sometimes having this funky groove to it with a woman singing over it. Sometimes you hear it over the actual loudspeakers but oftentimes you’ll mostly hear it just entering stores of specific kinds. The Kent Swanson theme sounds like it could be straight out of a Yakuza game with how much it kicks ass and the “Adam the Clown” theme just sounds straight out of a Matrix/Jet Set Radio styled soundtrack. It’s certainly eclectic but everything just connects itself together as a soundtrack should, but in a way that makes your stay at the Willamette Parkview Mall iconic.
Finally, how are the environmental sounds? Amazing, simply couldn’t be more perfect in the sound design department. Whenever you slash something with a katana it just oozes this slick feeling of a samurai clash mixed with blood. Shooting the basic pistol, while one of the weaker firearms, feels punchy on its own regardless. The UZI feels like a lower powered yet effective gun, the sniper rifle sounds like it could take someone’s head clean off (and often does) while the actual assault rifle late-game feels like a powerful version of the uzi. HOWEVER, by far the best one is the shotgun, which sounds like one of the punchiest shotguns I’ve ever had the pleasure of holding. This shotgun is like a literal gun nut’s orgasm in the form of a loaded firearm, like it sounds like it could put a hole in five separate people and just has this crunch to it that I can’t get from any other shotgun in any other game. Slamming a zombie with a park bench produces this breaking wood effect that sounds perfect and runs over the undead with a lawnmower? Forget about it, don’t even remind me of how awesome it is. I don’t even just mean with weapons, footsteps sound great as well along with breaking glass. The humming sounds and chants of the True Eye Cult are ominous and creepy, and give off an actual threat. The zombie groans, with how many there are also give off this authentic threat in numbers, eerily quiet almost when you’ve killed most of them. There isn’t one damn sound effect in this game that I can find an actual fault with, something that I have to suck Capcom Japan’s dick on because it’s amazing.
What can I say about Dead Rising that others haven’t? I love this game. I love Frank West, the plot and it’s twists, the american cattle thematic angle, the threat of the undead, the survivor system, the psychopath system, the fact that you can wear and use ANYTHING as a weapon is just fucking amazing. I have a near reverence for the game even though I don’t really go out of my way to play it much anymore. To me, this game is such a high pedestal that I’m not really sure how you could truly follow up on with a sequel in a perfect way. That’s by no means saying that this game is the best game ever or even that it’s perfect, because it’s not. But to me, this game oozes charm from the small town surrounding environments and the friendliness of Willamette and its color scheme to the threatening clash of the undead. Granted I will say after years of playing without mods I decided to play this game with mods (stopping the timer a couple of times and throwing on infinite health and such for a more chilled and relaxed experience) so I could get more of a sandbox feel and just as always there’s always this certain magic that brings me into the atmosphere of the game that no other game in the series OR game in general could really accomplish. While I can’t sit here and say I totally played it legitimately on PC, I’ve played it so many times on the Xbox 360 that honestly? Who cares, truth be told, maybe one day I’ll get one of those Frame-A-Game frames so I can hang it up on a wall so much that I love this game. If you decide you want to play this game, I feel you’ll be in for a fun time, with three caveats: the survivor AI sucks balls, the timer will fuck you for messing around for too long, and there’s a good chance you might die a bit so save as often as you can. However, the game is one hundred percent worth a legitimate playthrough the first time around and it’s something that I truly encourage if you want to try out something unique, just know what you’re getting into first before jumping in head on. It’s unique enough that the community itself is heavy into researching the origins of each of the games, with Youtuber STIPO being the main figurehead behind the search into Dead Rising’s beta.
The future of the franchise is something I already went over multiple times before, mostly considering this was the first game in the series. A Wii port would be created right after and released in 2009 in the midst of the “Wii craze”, with a lot of its assets being ripped straight from the popular Resident Evil 4 Wii port with a bunch of different changes. Capcom would later outsource the sequel to Vancouver based Blue Castle Games (having developed baseball titles before then) along with its free prologue Case Zero and its epilogue Case West (along with a tie-in comic book Road to Fortune) and would go on to reach relative success and acclaim. Straight after this, Capcom decided they wanted to release a Dead Rising game for IPhones in 2010 (along with a Java 2008 port) which I don’t think I ever played but would be an interesting experiment where you could play as other characters like Brad, Carlito and Jessie while slaying the undead. They’d go on to later be bought out and assimilated into Capcom larger itself as Capcom Vancouver and from Dead Rising 2 the series would go on to have a troubled franchise. Pitches included rivaling The Last of Us with a series tone which got nixed, attempts to create different games based on other IP as well as attempting to develop their own IP would either fail or get nixxed by Capcom themselves. Dead Rising 3 would have development trouble with their last gen ports and got turned into an Xbox One exclusive which saw a moderate amount of success. The troubles would only continue onto Dead Rising 4 as creative visions clashed with Capcom themselves and attempting something different lead to the disaster that Dead Rising 4 would become but that’s a different tale for the future. Nothing has been able to capture the magic that was the first game, with the fourth one “attempting” to but coming up shorter than my dick size. For me, this represents a bit of a personal journey this year which I would try to get to as soon as possible except one thing: moving issues. However, I plan to finish off all of the Dead Rising games, with the next one being the Wii port as my Wii game of the year and the finale being the black sheep of the franchise: Dead Rising 4. Those will come, but for now I appreciate the memories and the love this game fills me with. I guess to sound like a cringey fuck: Dead Rising is love, Dead Rising is life.
Links:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQCbFb_m5no&list=PLRoKwfu_qjekpXozraCHHoWIkkuyK7_-C&index=7&ab_channel=Deadforge
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Rising_(video_game)
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/DeadRising
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=6-GwG556gLM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Csil5mX3sBY&ab_channel=ScrewAttack%27sVideoGameVault
https://www.supercheats.com/guides/dead-rising/unlockables
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Trivia/DeadRising
https://deadrising.fandom.com/wiki/Dead_Rising_Mobile
https://web.archive.org/web/20160305000556/http://www.1up.com/news/1up-interviews-keiji-inafune
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9Ki3br3Qec&list=PL0672E00A6DC5AD80&index=3&ab_channel=Tomzumir3
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Rm9LC9n7zY&list=PLRoKwfu_qjekpXozraCHHoWIkkuyK7_-C&index=183&ab_channel=JackMadrox
From Steam Reviews: https://steamcommunity.com/id/gamemast15r/recommended/
I don’t remember much of my first games on the Xbox 360 (except The Godfather 2 being my very first one) but I remember the games that really made me want to go into the next gen series were specifically Dead Rising and Grand Theft Auto 4. I don’t remember when I got Dead Rising but when I did get it I would play for hours and hours, looking up Youtube guides on how to master button combinations, weapon locations, psychopath tips, basically anything and everything I could get knowledge on I would do it. In the process, Dead Rising would become one of my most prized games of all time as well as probably my favorite game of all time despite the frustrations that come with playing a title with some interesting design choices. I’d later go to try Dead Rising 2 and on but the games wouldn’t ring as well as this one did, Capcom Japan really made something special with this one that resonated a lot with my younger self. Having played it repeatedly as a kid, I’d later pick it up on Steam and have since in the past five or so years only really played it twice, including the recent playthrough. However, in my quest to get through most of my backlog and having played and reviewed the other Dead Rising games with my buddy BFD Survivor, before playing the Wii Port to DR1 as well as the later black sheep Dead Rising 4, I wanted to talk about what really makes this game special to me.
According to a 1UP interview with Keiji Infaune, Dead Rising originally started off as a sequel to PS2 exclusive Shadow of Rome, specifically Agrippa’s action parts. Poor sales however pushed it into the game it was today, spinning off to instead take a western influence that it came with today. During the development according to a forum board I found, a lot of assets were used from Shadow of Rome and originally only had Dead Rising as a sort of working title while the word Snatcher was used as the placeholder title for the entire development cycle. Influences of course are obvious, with the movie Dawn of the Dead being one of the first things that come to mind as a zombie movie in the form of a game. It was so similar enough that a warning was placed on the cover art dismissing any sort of copyright infringement with the George Romero classic only to get sued by the company who held the rights to the movie. Keiji Inafune also apparently wanted Dead Rising to include co-op play but due to the lack of time and resources needed to make it a functioning feature, it was instead saved for Dead Rising 2 and beyond. Over the years, different alpha and beta copies would also be produced, with cut content like removed weapons and such falling into the hands of like minded Dead Rising enthusiasts like STiPO to be explored. One of these concepts apparently included a sequence of Isabela Keyes using a sniper rifle to shoot some zombies only for that to be cut. It would then make its first appearance in E3 2005, along with the Microsoft Convention that same year using the same build. Over the next many years the builds would change as assets were re-done (most notably Frank West, who originally had a black jacket and black turtleneck I believe?). Eventually however, it would make its release date of August 2006, after dealing with a crunch period in March. So what was the critical reception like for this game? It was pretty much positive across the board minus a few hiccups here and there and as someone who loves the game to death, I think most people love this game (except for the ones who don’t like the timer which is understandable).
Dead Rising cold opens with a pair of legs shambling towards an open road in the middle of the night, whether they’re just shambling or trying to go towards the light is unknown. That motherfucker straight up gets run over in the next five seconds by a mother and her youngest daughter in their car, where the mom is trying to keep her daughter from looking out to see the carnage. Along the dirt road the background is filled with burning buildings and the sounds of blackhawk helicopters before the two get smacked by an out of control semi-truck. Mom is unconscious as the little girl tries to get her awake, all the while a shambling person roams nearby. This messed up looking man attempts to break into the vehicle with half of his jaw ripped off and attempts to make a quick snack of the mother and daughter duo before the mother manages to kick him away from the door. However, that victory doesn’t last for long due to the fact that the car won’t start and more zombies proceed to surround them before it abruptly cuts to black.
Cut to later on, September 19th of 2006. Photojournalist Frank West is investigating the small town of Willamette, Colorado to figure out why the National Guard has seized the town off. Hiring helicopter pilot Ed DeLuca, the two fly off into the distance as they witness the military blocking off all bridges. Pulling out the camera, Frank snaps shots of multiple survivors getting mauled on, ripped apart and eaten alive by the undead in a series of horrific events (though skippable) introducing the camera mechanic. Taking his photos, they fly their way to the Willamette Parkview Mall, Frank loses his equipment due to military blackhawk helicopters swarming Frank and Ed, forcing Frank to jump out of the helicopter and onto the top of the mall with one dictation from Ed: be back in 72 hours or else Frank will be left behind. Taking one foot forward, he suddenly runs into a mysterious hispanic man in a flashy looking shirt with the collar up, asking weird questions like if Frank “came alone” and making painfully obvious small talk. Heading down into the security room he witnesses a lady getting eaten on the TV monitor and after that heads down into the Entrance Plaza. Down here he witnesses numerous things, of which include cranky old men, beautiful latina ladies and an older woman obsessed with yelling out for her dog. One of the cranky old men identifies the people as “zombies” which Frank surprisingly doesn’t believe even when he witnessed numerous people getting chewed alive. Regardless everything goes from bad to worse as the old lady screaming “Madonna” witnesses her dog trapped with all the zombies and barges through to save her dog despite the fact they seem to be ignoring the little pup. The zombies barge through and everyone starts to die except an African American man in a yellow shirt, who yells at the survivors to run up the stairs to the security room. Getting to the security room, they weld the entrance shut, and the African-American man heads back into a nearby air duct to go into the mall. Frank introduces himself to a nearby blonde woman, and she asks to see some photos. She fixates on one for a bit, one of the cranky older men with the cane in the introduction. Shrouded in mystery, the blonde woman introduces herself as Jessie and the African American man from before as Brad. After the older african american man, Otis, warns him about the dangers outside and gives him a walkie talkie to head out into the open.
Here is where you’ll get introduced to the first two survivors, an older couple named Natalie and Jeff though it’s not mandatory to do so. Frank heads down an elevator into a nearby storage room and nearly clocks Jessie with a fire extinguisher, thinking that she was a zombie. Falling down and spraining her leg due to Frank’s ambush. It’s learned that Jessie followed behind because she witnessed Brad being ambushed on the monitor. This is where “I’ve Covered Wars Ya Know” debuts to become a legend, and Jessie gives him her gun and Frank makes his way over to the food court. While there, Frank nearly gets shot by a familiar hispanic gentleman armed with a P90 along with Brad. Whittling this man down with bullets, he escapes via a rope to the ceiling. Frank demands an explanation only to be rebuffed by Brad, only to concede to Frank’s demands for information a bit when he shows him the earlier old man picture. They begrudgingly agree to work together and Brad reveals himself as DHS, as in the Department of Homeland Security. They travel through the Al Fresca Plaza and into the Entrance Plaza where they unlock the shutters and find the old man. He refuses to leave the closed store until he’s promised safe passage. Frank heads back to the security room only to swat a giant bee, which when killed has every zombie’s head explode nearby. Heading into the security room, Brad and Jessie reveal the older man’s name, Dr. Barnaby. Trying to establish contact with HQ, Jessie learns that the signal is blocked. Frank reveals that his helicopter will be arriving in 3 days, and promising info in return, Brad goes to find supplies to last for a couple of days. Before the next case, you can go about other cases and find survivors, with one of the first optional psychopaths encountered being Adam the Clown along with the convicts in the park which brings up a question: how the hell did they get their attack jeep in there and where did they break out of prison, along with why do they respawn every day? Regardless, eventually Brad finds the supplies before talking to Frank about how not everything is allowed to be printed or even revealed. Eventually after waiting around, the monitor above shows the mysterious hispanic gentleman from earlier dragging the old man through the Entrance Plaza and Brad reveals that the professor was called to this mall mysteriously. Heading to the Entrance Plaza, Brad saves Frank from getting plugged by the hispanic gentleman and his high powered sniper rifle. He reveals arc words “Pachamama” (meaning Mother Earth) while holding his locket and continues to fire while Barnaby is held by rope over top of a crowd of zombies. Defeating this man again, he escapes again while Brad gets shot in the leg. However, Barnaby is saved and brought back to the security room while Brad is patched up a bit by Jessie. Jessie's tasks Frank with finding medicine and he beelines for a grocery store in the Northern Section. Going inside, he finds a grocery store manager going fucking nuts with the hispanic woman from earlier unconscious inside of his grocery cart. Frank defeats him and wakes the lady up, who freaks out and accuses Frank’s “people” of causing “Santa Cabeza”. Picking up the medicine, he brings it back to Brad before Jessie notices blood on his clothes. He tells Jesse about the girl and Santa Cabeza after getting roasted by Jessie, and the mention of Santa Cabeza startles Barnaby enough for him to wake up from his tranquilizer.
With his access to Barnaby restricted after intending to snoop, Frank tries to find the hispanic woman and notices her on the monitors heading back towards the supermarket and goes to meet her for information. She doesn’t take kindly and tries to kill him on her motorbike in return. A nut shot later, she finally decides to ask if he’s a reporter. Further questions towards the woman to learn that the mysterious hispanic man from earlier? His name is Carlito and he wants everyone to know that America created the zombies and not him. They proceed to make a deal: she will talk to Carlito about an interview with Frank in exchange for publishing U.S. war crimes. She then reveals that she’s Carlito’s little sister, who reveals that the zombies were a message from Carlito as revenge against the U.S. She gives a rendezvous date: midnight near the camera shop. Frank heads back to the security room (before or after defeating Jo the lesbian cop psychopath and the Hall family sniper psychopaths), Barnaby has apparently revealed that Santa Cabeza was the center of the CENTRAL AMERICAN drug trade and that “zombie drugs” are the cause. Frank starts to question why that would make sense, and Barnaby lies that there’s no logic because they’re terrorists. Before I continue, I capitalized Central America because later games would constantly say MEXICO instead and it drives me fucking nuts because it’s COMPLETELY different. Meeting up at the spot later, he witnesses Carlito’s sister get attacked by zombies and with a bloody patch on her arm. Rescuing her, she says that Carlito went crazy and shot at her while extremely upset. Frank escorts the woman (named Isabela) back to the security room while Carlito begs for forgiveness over the speakers.
Bringing her back, Frank explains to Brad the situation and says that the same person who shot him also shot her. It’s also revealed that Carlito has a backup plan, and when asking Isabela later what these plans are she reveals that there wasn’t a drug trade in Santa Cabeza, but an American research facility doing research into a wasp (NOT A BEE SORRY) that was supposed to fatten up cattle for American consumption. Barnaby confirms this after almost turning and biting Jesse: the wasp process was supposed to reduce costs to produce cattle before creating zombie livestock. Frank takes a picture of Barnaby’s corpse as Isabela recounts the Santa Cabeza Incident, with the queen wasps escaping from the lab. Barnaby rises from the grave and attempts to kill once again before getting a dome shot to the head. Brad brilliantly summarizes the Willamette Incident as “terrorism as retaliation for a cruel government cover-up”. Brad begrudgingly agrees to let Isabela “atone for her and her brother’s sins” and lets her check up Jesse. Psychopaths in the meantime include the cult leader of the True Eye Cult, a group of mysterious green masked raincoat clad men along with mentally disturbed goth man Paul, who threatens to burn some civilians with a molotov. Carlito apologizes again over the loudspeaker and begs for Isabela to come back, revealing the existence of a “last resort”. This last resort involves blowing up the mall, with several trucks planted with bombs in the underground car park mixed in with a flammable gas that Carlito plans to flood.
Frank races to the underground tunnel and collects the bombs one by one, which Carlito tries to stop. This part is important, because if you’re able to defeat Carlito while he’s in his truck and attempting to kill you, a cutscene plays where Carlito gets out of the van and runs while Brad gives chase as they exchange gunfire. Brad tells Frank to collect the bombs now while he chases down the suspect, and Frank does so, pushing them all in a shopping cart to the outside of the car park. Another cutscene reveals the battle between Carlito and Brad, which ends in Brad being kicked out into a horde of zombies. You’re able to go back to the spot after where you see his fate, and Brad encourages you to put him down and not to tell Jesse. He puts him down before heading back to the security room, where Isabela reveals that more of Carlito’s plans could be revealed if they head back to their secret hideout. Going there with Isabela, she finds the computer but learns that it’s password protected and nearly not hackable. While she hacks it, later on Frank gets called back to the security room again, where he watches footage of Carlito getting captured by a giant man into a butcher’s shop in the basement of the North Plaza. Heading there to get Carlito, he witnesses Larry the butcher attempting to chop him up while laughing maniacally. Refusing to let Carlito go, Frank attacks Larry before beating him and cornering Carlito. Frank gloats about how Isabela is on their side, before Carlito goes on a rant about American meat consumption, ironically while he’s dying in a butcher’s shop. However, Frank promises to tell the world about Santa Cabeza and Carlito gives Frank his locket, telling him to give the locket to his sister. He reports back to Isabela about Carlito’s death and some condolences before giving her the locket. Inside, she learns of the code word: Panchamama, “Mother Earth”. Hacking the computer, the signal finally frees up for Jesse to call up HQ. This call goes bad though as apparently DHS decides to ignore everything, cover up the incident and that Special Forces will arrive at midnight. Jessie goes into a near breakdown state and goes into the fetal position, while the special forces later arrive to rescue her. However, this doesn’t go well as she then turns into a zombie herself and kills the special forces representatives.
Frank arrives at the security room to find the aftermath and kills zombie Jessie, and many hours later the special forces teams officially arrive and proceed to wipe out most of the zombies in the entire mall. I assume they wanted the military there instead of just bombing everything so it doesn’t get out too much into the rest of American society. Regardless, it’s learned in a note that the special forces have been abducting all the survivors that you saved and that Otis escaped in one of the helicopters and tells Frank in a note that he “owes him a drink”. In the daytime, Brock Mason (or Ed Harris lol) pops up as the commander of the special forces.
Frank hangs out on the helicopter pad while Ed is scoping out to see if he’s made it, excited when he finally sees him because payday. How he didn’t get spotted by special forces I don’t know, but he attempts a pickup only for a zombie to have stowed away on the helicopter and feast on him violently, the helicopter crashing into the mall inside the park. Frank slumps down, having lost all hopes and with almost everyone dead except Isabela as zombies surround him. Cut to credits right? WRONG. If you’ve beaten every case in 72 Hour Mode there’s one more mode to beat for the story and that’s:
OVERTIME MODE.
Overtime shows Frank previously having given up and waiting for death, only to be saved by Isabela. Frank goes unconscious only to wake up back in Isabela’s lair, with my genuine surprise considering he’s a pretty big dude and to lug him across the mall must’ve been tough. It’s revealed here that Frank has been infected and that he’ll turn in a limited amount of time if he doesn’t find the tools and ingredients to survive even with his high level of resistance. Frank roams around the mall dodging special forces to collect all kinds of shit like blenders and it’s revealed that this drug was created specifically on orders from Carlito as a backup plan. Frank’s moaning about being a “time bomb” triggers something in Isabela, and she reveals that Carlito created an NPO to help war orphans, but had secretly experimented on them all as zombie time bombs to be unleashed in the future. It’s here I want to bring up something else so spoilers for Dead Rising 3: Nick and Diego have the Numbers 12 and I forget the other number. The list has Number 12 as Lisa Jackson, and while this could’ve been a sort of secret code thing, I’m 100 percent sure the developers just missed the research or decided to retcon. Besides the point, yes, Carlito infected orphans with a special zombie virus and spread them all over the country as a future revenge plot. Isabela sends him to the clock tower in the park to turn on the generator, only for Frank to see a giant hole that Ed’s helicopter made, revealing a tunnel into an unknown location. Afterwards, she asks for adult queen wasps, and a whole lot of them to be exact. She’s able to create a sort of temporary vaccine to help stop the infection spread and jabs him, before going on about how she’s able to isolate a pheromone to repel zombies away from them. Frank tells her about the tunnel, and she creates the pheromone.
They make their way out to the clock tower and hesitantly head down into the cave with the temporary vaccine and the “smelly perfume” and slash their way through the tunnels. On the other end, it starts to wear down a bit as they notice that special forces are guarding the end of the cave. Holding Isabela on his back, they fight their way through and steal a special forces jeep, driving out into the open of a big ass construction site. Similar to The Thing: The Video Game, a rail shooter segment where you play as Isabela while you shoot out certain weak points on the tank, along with shooting down drones that attack you. This doesn’t stop the tank’s commander Brock however, who switches from automated controls to manual and proceeds to shoot the jeep and flips it over. Isabela is alive but unconscious while Brock holds Frank hostage, where it’s revealed that Brock led the cleanup operation on Santa Cabeza. The two argue about the governments fuckups, while Brock goes on about how humanity excels at being a fuck up. Brock decides to flip the tank around to look at a horde of zombies, while Frank gives him a punch in the mouth and knocks out his cigar. Frank and Brock engage in a violent hand to hand duel, which knocks him out cold off the tank and onto an audience of zombies. Isabela is trapped on top of the jeep kicking away zombies and Frank once again gets on his hands and knees, but this time screams into the clouds as a slideshow of black text appears over the screen. The results: Frank apparently escapes Willamette (shown in the Road to Fortune comic), the news is released and the U.S. government takes partial blame, however the Willamette Mall Incident was forgotten in the future.
So, with that beast of a synopsis gone, how do I feel about the story? I love it. Compared to the other games, it feels like there’s more of an atmosphere, more of a vibe to it. The plot to me makes sense, has build up, engages in thematic build up that you could only expect from the earlier George Romero movies. The plot with american cattle, government cover ups, the terrorist retribution, the plot twists just kind of all feel perfectly in sync with each other; moreso here than compared to the other games. The stories behind the psychopaths aren’t just “crazy people”, but people who snapped and freaked out. The one psycho I don’t think I mentioned is a perfect encapsulation of this: Cliff Hudson. A Vietnam veteran who runs the hardware store in the North Plaza, the death of his daughter and grandchild (whom I believe were the mother/daughter from the introduction), the flashbacks to Vietnam. Yes, it’s a vietnam flashback but in this one side quest, it feels like it has a lot more depth than most of the other characters in the next couple of games. There’s a tinge of sadness in it, and this sadness spreads around to the other characters in the series. The lore is interesting as hell as well. I want to know more about Santa Cabeza and what has happened there. The True Eye Cult, how did they come about? Were they a cult before, spurred on by the apocalypse or perhaps were they created in such a short time frame? These are only a few examples, and honestly while I’m sure it’s not a perfect story, it feels appropriately perfect to me. The characters that inhabit this game, while feeling kind of detached, are all unique and memorable to me. I remember Brad Garrison, Jessie McCarney, Russell Barnaby, Carlito & Isabela Keyes and I DEFINITELY remember Frank West. There’s something about all of these characters that while they feel kind of detached due to their speech patterns, they feel human. Frank as a character is iconic as fuck between his outfit, his quotables, like he feels like a sort of perfect legacy character that’s unique in it’s own way. The problem with this is that because I’m not a Youtube Essayist who can go into super in-depth detail, I can’t tell you why everything feels so perfect other than it just does. When I was a kid, this game captured my imagination and held onto it in a warm embrace of a bear hug, and while I don’t play this game all the time anymore, each time I do play it? It keeps the magic and not a lot of things can do that for me. And truthfully, none of the previous games (aside from Off the Record MAYBE-ish) really feels like it can match in line with the series. This game is the high point, and while other games are good it just doesn’t reach the heights.
What’s the gameplay of Dead Rising like? Well there’s multiple different facets of the game: the actual gameplay, the combat and miscellaneous stuff. The actual gameplay is as follows: you are dropped off in the mall to sort of free roam around, killing the undead in unique ways while wearing different types of clothes, engaging in side quests (after getting calls on your transponder from Otis) and finding secrets while under a 72 hour time limit. What I will say about this is that you start off with a low level, you’ll barely have any health and you have to earn your way to level 50 by obtaining PP Points (or Prestige Point…points?). As you level up, unlike other games you won’t be able to choose what skill points you get, what’s invested in what; it’s all pre-chosen for you. In one way I’m cool with not managing ANOTHER skill tree, however it does kind of feel like it’s choosing how you should play instead of investing in yourself in a way that matters. Regardless, the game is REALLY difficult and time is NOT on your side. In fact, the timer is part of the reason why others don’t really care enough to play it. You will barely get any time to follow the cases, save all the survivors, fight all the psychopaths AND have a free roaming fun time. Even though this is my favorite game, the amount of times that I’ve died due to being swarmed or failed due to juggling too much at one time would infuriate me to no end. However, it had that Dark Souls effect where I would just want to keep going, try to give it another run. It’s one of those titles where you kind of have to memorize runs, learn where special weapons like the Katana and Uzi are kept, food combinations and the routes you need to plan. Of course though, you’re not forced into this; you could very well just screw off and ignore everything and be fine, at the cost of getting a bad ending due to not following the main plot. You could also just ignore the survivors and that would be just as valid, it’s not really a rogue-like in all honesty but it does have interesting elements that make it fit. If I could say anything bad about it is that honestly, I understand and respect the challenge that the game puts forward but I prefer the leniency that the later titles in the series would provide. Another annoying thing? The survivor A.I. fucking blows fat dick, like they’re annoying as hell even if it is immersive as hell with people who go panic mode around zombies. They’ll run into each other all the time, get stuck on objects, sometimes you have to hold their hand or carry them on your back which doesn’t allow you to use your weapons to defend yourself. It can honestly be a chore to deal with despite the semi-immersive factor to it all, and honestly zombies can and WILL make quick work of their ass if you’re not helicopter parenting their ass at all times.
How about combat? How does that work? Well, I’ll start with Psychopaths, which are their own separate side quests where you can rescue survivors, but also have their own cutscenes and personality. They’re all unique in their own way and usually you’ll get rewarded with a unique weapon, survivors and a lot of prestige points. Oftentimes the best thing you can do is get a high damage weapon, like the Katana or the dual chainsaws from Adam after you beat him. These guys are bullet sponges and the truth is with how free form and structureless the combat is other than aiming down the sights, oftentimes you might take a decent bit of damage while trying to deliver damage yourself. While difficult at first, these can be decently easy to overcome (other than the final boss Brock, fuck that guy) and besides your enviornment around you, you can also unlock combat skills the more you level up. However, another thing is that in Dead Rising 1 it’s very context based and needs a lot of practicing: for example if you want to ground slam you need to jump then hold aim and attack buttons at the same time in order to slam down (ex. Xbox Controller = A, RT + X at same time). You can jump in the air and do a backwards kick flip by pressing jump and attack very quickly as an example; other skills are useful but require certain situations like jumping right up against a zombie to hop on top of their shoulders. It’s a strange system, yes, but one that honestly I’ve kind of gotten used to dealing with over time even if I feel that the controls in Dead Rising 2 and beyond are better. Speaking of Dead Rising 2, there are absolutely no combo weapons in the slightest so you can’t go into battles with a paddlesaw or anything totally unrealistic.
How about miscellaneous stuff? Well, other than the aside stuff you can take pictures with your camera, which helps gain Prestige Points, with a certain amount of points in certain categories needed in order to progress in certain quests. This is mostly side quest stuff however, so if you’re not worried it’s perfectly fine but can help with later runs if need be. You can also collect secret PP stickers in order to get a lump sum bonus of PP but that’s about it? You can also drive certain vehicles, but this is rare (mostly involving the Convict Jeep, a red convertible, and a motorcycle but honestly the driving controls are kinda iffy. The only other thing I can really point out is that in certain locations there will be sorta hidden weapons to help out, like the Katana on the awning outside the juice bar, or the Uzi in the fountain of Al Fresca Plaza or the Shotgun in the Entrance Plaza. These are what I consider to be essential places to pick up extra weapons if you’re trying to arm survivors or whittle down psychopaths faster. In order to gain certain perks like weapon durability you have to pick up books in set locations and KEEP it in your inventory at all times otherwise you lose the perks, and the more of these books you have the more they stack stats. If you get captured by certain enemies (mainly by being killed by special forces or the cult), then you’ll show up either in a closet or in a helicopter, and these mini “human enemies” are can vary from easy-ish to kill to difficult if you don’t have the right equipment like the special forces. If you’re able to achieve certain thresholds (like killing 53,000 something zombies and getting the Zombie Genocider achievement), then you’ll unlock the Mega Buster. Beat the Infinity Mode in 7 days and you’ll unlock Mega Man clothing. Other outfits that can be unlocked include Special Forces outfits, Boxers, Otis’s outfit, etc.
The last thing to bring up gameplay wise is a whole ‘nother mode: Infinity Mode. This isn’t a free roam thing with infinite time exactly as much as it is a “how long can you last” mode. Your health will constantly go down, so it’s only recommended to try this at Level 50, and you will need to constantly eat food in order to survive. Sounds easy right? Wrong. You don’t get infinite food items, they only spawn once and so if you waste it all then you’re fucked. You’ll be able to kill hostile survivors and psychopaths who spawn in, who give you a random assortment of goods from their corpse like food or weapons but sometimes it’s useless. Balancing all of this with health constantly decreasing and it can be a depressing and miserable experience, and getting to the 7 Day mark without dying and restarting all over takes around 16 hours give or take, maybe more? I’ve only done it once and I will NEVER do it again, but if you want to try then be my guest.
How do the graphics and the atmosphere for Dead Rising hold up in the present day? Honestly, compared to the other games in the series I feel like everything holds up the best, though Dead Rising 2 is very much second up for how close it comes to bringing Fortune City to life. Dead Rising’s Willamette Mall on the other hand feels like an american paradise of sorts with a sort of mall that honestly would do pretty damn well in a city. Everything about it is unique, wholesome, as well as unextraordinary, which is why when contrasted with the zombie invasion it brings this unique sense of isolationism into it, the feeling that anyone could be targeted at any moment. Even the opening sequence where you travel on helicopter over the small town while you witness people being chewed to bits felt unique, like a place I wished I could explore outside of the mall. However the mall is the centerpiece for the town of Willamette, and if the mall is in the center then to sound like a pretentious fuck, american capitalism is the centerpiece to every facet of american society. In fact, to be honest, the entire game’s atmosphere is a result of American capitalism and the greed caused by it. It would be too painfully obvious of course to go deeply into this aspect as everyone who does youtube essays could explain this fact better than I ever could but it’s still a prominent fixture in the game.
Of course compared to other zombie games this title, while it takes its story seriously, is a lot less serious otherwise. This is the game where you can literally use a lawnmower to run over all the zombies you find, or throw plates to knock zombies down, or even wear granny clothing and smack them with a bench. There isn’t much about this game you can totally take super seriously. HOWEVER, that doesn’t mean that when shit hits the fan that it can’t deliver a gut punch. Take survivor deaths for instance, a lot of times when survivors die due to zombies there will be this little cutscene where they get tackled to the ground, chewed up and gnawed on throughout the entire process as they scream for dear life and bloody murder. It’s demoralizing as hell, and other than trying to save everyone for the rewards, led me multiple times to reload my save file to help these goofy AI bastards. The threat only gets more ominous when you learn that engine wise you can have around 800 zombies on screen at once, which you would never realize due to just how many there are in comparison to the smaller sized spaces. As for the graphical fidelity itself, while it still looks like an Xbox 360 game and while it doesn’t have the super in-depth facial muscle textures that half of these games use in the modern day, it still looks pretty slick brought up to 1920 on Steam. The zombies still look threatening, covered in a bluish tint and red slopped on their body while they shamble around what looks like could be a mall in Florida.
The voice acting for this game is strangely paced, offbeat and detached, yet infectious (no pun intended) at the same time between how they say things, when they say things that it’s become a bit of a meme status in the Dead Rising community. Stuff like “I’ve covered wars you know” sank its teeth (proverbially) into the gaming pop culture sphere, or the older lady screaming her dog Madonna’s name repeatedly before doing something stupid, or even Otis chiding you for hanging up while you’re in the middle of getting chewed on by zombies as if he’s not self aware enough to realize that. It adds to this strange charm, a game that both takes itself a bit seriously as well as not taking itself too seriously. I wouldn’t even doubt it if it had something to do with Japanese localization, but it adds to this whole mysterious vibe that it gives off. Terence J. Rotolo here is a perfect exemplification of that as the game’s lead Frank West. Looking back on my previous Dead Rising reviews, I felt that Chuck’s character was kind of a rip off of Frank’s vibe, as if he does all the catchy one liners. I was blatantly incorrect with this, as Frank might have his quips but he doesn’t drop cheesy one liners like Chuck did so my apologies for that. Alex Fernandez is solid as the ominous threatening yet mysterious Carlito Keyes, the main antagonist along with Kim Mai Guest as his sister Isabela Keyes, who is regretful yet angry at their shared trauma with Santa Cabeza. Other notables are Phil Proctor as the angry and shady Dr. Barnaby, T.J. Storm and Laura Napoli as Brad Garrison and Jessie McCarney. You’ll hear some other ones as well, like Steven Blum as Cliff the Vietnam Vet and once I learned that Jason Spisak voiced one of the Hall psychopaths I instantly made the connection there as well. Everyone does a good job at keeping up this tone, sometimes being serious yet tonally kinda hilarious to straight up serious. It’s unnerving to say the least and helps keep the horror atmosphere that I don’t feel any other game could match.
So how is the music? The music in Dead Rising is unique to say the least. Frank West’s theme (what I consider to be the “oh shit” theme) has this strange combination of string instruments and this shaking rattling sound that I guess could be electronic? Another favorite of mine is Gone Guru by Lifeseeker, which plays during the Convict psychopath battle in the park and has become notoriously catchy for being involved in such a bastard of a fight. Justified by Drea (the end credits song) is this power metal ballad of sorts that just feels right, like it’s got this emotionally uplifting vibe and as someone who doesn’t listen to metal in the slightest it just feels perfect for the tone of the overall game. A lot of the incidental mall music that plays over speakers sounds like straight up elevator music, sometimes straight up but sometimes having this funky groove to it with a woman singing over it. Sometimes you hear it over the actual loudspeakers but oftentimes you’ll mostly hear it just entering stores of specific kinds. The Kent Swanson theme sounds like it could be straight out of a Yakuza game with how much it kicks ass and the “Adam the Clown” theme just sounds straight out of a Matrix/Jet Set Radio styled soundtrack. It’s certainly eclectic but everything just connects itself together as a soundtrack should, but in a way that makes your stay at the Willamette Parkview Mall iconic.
Finally, how are the environmental sounds? Amazing, simply couldn’t be more perfect in the sound design department. Whenever you slash something with a katana it just oozes this slick feeling of a samurai clash mixed with blood. Shooting the basic pistol, while one of the weaker firearms, feels punchy on its own regardless. The UZI feels like a lower powered yet effective gun, the sniper rifle sounds like it could take someone’s head clean off (and often does) while the actual assault rifle late-game feels like a powerful version of the uzi. HOWEVER, by far the best one is the shotgun, which sounds like one of the punchiest shotguns I’ve ever had the pleasure of holding. This shotgun is like a literal gun nut’s orgasm in the form of a loaded firearm, like it sounds like it could put a hole in five separate people and just has this crunch to it that I can’t get from any other shotgun in any other game. Slamming a zombie with a park bench produces this breaking wood effect that sounds perfect and runs over the undead with a lawnmower? Forget about it, don’t even remind me of how awesome it is. I don’t even just mean with weapons, footsteps sound great as well along with breaking glass. The humming sounds and chants of the True Eye Cult are ominous and creepy, and give off an actual threat. The zombie groans, with how many there are also give off this authentic threat in numbers, eerily quiet almost when you’ve killed most of them. There isn’t one damn sound effect in this game that I can find an actual fault with, something that I have to suck Capcom Japan’s dick on because it’s amazing.
What can I say about Dead Rising that others haven’t? I love this game. I love Frank West, the plot and it’s twists, the american cattle thematic angle, the threat of the undead, the survivor system, the psychopath system, the fact that you can wear and use ANYTHING as a weapon is just fucking amazing. I have a near reverence for the game even though I don’t really go out of my way to play it much anymore. To me, this game is such a high pedestal that I’m not really sure how you could truly follow up on with a sequel in a perfect way. That’s by no means saying that this game is the best game ever or even that it’s perfect, because it’s not. But to me, this game oozes charm from the small town surrounding environments and the friendliness of Willamette and its color scheme to the threatening clash of the undead. Granted I will say after years of playing without mods I decided to play this game with mods (stopping the timer a couple of times and throwing on infinite health and such for a more chilled and relaxed experience) so I could get more of a sandbox feel and just as always there’s always this certain magic that brings me into the atmosphere of the game that no other game in the series OR game in general could really accomplish. While I can’t sit here and say I totally played it legitimately on PC, I’ve played it so many times on the Xbox 360 that honestly? Who cares, truth be told, maybe one day I’ll get one of those Frame-A-Game frames so I can hang it up on a wall so much that I love this game. If you decide you want to play this game, I feel you’ll be in for a fun time, with three caveats: the survivor AI sucks balls, the timer will fuck you for messing around for too long, and there’s a good chance you might die a bit so save as often as you can. However, the game is one hundred percent worth a legitimate playthrough the first time around and it’s something that I truly encourage if you want to try out something unique, just know what you’re getting into first before jumping in head on. It’s unique enough that the community itself is heavy into researching the origins of each of the games, with Youtuber STIPO being the main figurehead behind the search into Dead Rising’s beta.
The future of the franchise is something I already went over multiple times before, mostly considering this was the first game in the series. A Wii port would be created right after and released in 2009 in the midst of the “Wii craze”, with a lot of its assets being ripped straight from the popular Resident Evil 4 Wii port with a bunch of different changes. Capcom would later outsource the sequel to Vancouver based Blue Castle Games (having developed baseball titles before then) along with its free prologue Case Zero and its epilogue Case West (along with a tie-in comic book Road to Fortune) and would go on to reach relative success and acclaim. Straight after this, Capcom decided they wanted to release a Dead Rising game for IPhones in 2010 (along with a Java 2008 port) which I don’t think I ever played but would be an interesting experiment where you could play as other characters like Brad, Carlito and Jessie while slaying the undead. They’d go on to later be bought out and assimilated into Capcom larger itself as Capcom Vancouver and from Dead Rising 2 the series would go on to have a troubled franchise. Pitches included rivaling The Last of Us with a series tone which got nixed, attempts to create different games based on other IP as well as attempting to develop their own IP would either fail or get nixxed by Capcom themselves. Dead Rising 3 would have development trouble with their last gen ports and got turned into an Xbox One exclusive which saw a moderate amount of success. The troubles would only continue onto Dead Rising 4 as creative visions clashed with Capcom themselves and attempting something different lead to the disaster that Dead Rising 4 would become but that’s a different tale for the future. Nothing has been able to capture the magic that was the first game, with the fourth one “attempting” to but coming up shorter than my dick size. For me, this represents a bit of a personal journey this year which I would try to get to as soon as possible except one thing: moving issues. However, I plan to finish off all of the Dead Rising games, with the next one being the Wii port as my Wii game of the year and the finale being the black sheep of the franchise: Dead Rising 4. Those will come, but for now I appreciate the memories and the love this game fills me with. I guess to sound like a cringey fuck: Dead Rising is love, Dead Rising is life.
Links:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQCbFb_m5no&list=PLRoKwfu_qjekpXozraCHHoWIkkuyK7_-C&index=7&ab_channel=Deadforge
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Rising_(video_game)
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/DeadRising
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=6-GwG556gLM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Csil5mX3sBY&ab_channel=ScrewAttack%27sVideoGameVault
https://www.supercheats.com/guides/dead-rising/unlockables
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Trivia/DeadRising
https://deadrising.fandom.com/wiki/Dead_Rising_Mobile
https://web.archive.org/web/20160305000556/http://www.1up.com/news/1up-interviews-keiji-inafune
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9Ki3br3Qec&list=PL0672E00A6DC5AD80&index=3&ab_channel=Tomzumir3
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Rm9LC9n7zY&list=PLRoKwfu_qjekpXozraCHHoWIkkuyK7_-C&index=183&ab_channel=JackMadrox
From Steam Reviews: https://steamcommunity.com/id/gamemast15r/recommended/