Until Dawn [PS4]

Visually impressive, but the gameplay mechanics remind me of that "Heavy Rain" crap Sony released a few years ago.
 
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Maybe no one else was interested in this one, but as it seemed to be a teenage slasher horror movie - Heavy Rain style, I bought it without hesitation. And it's exactly that, with absolutely gorgeous graphics (amongst the best I've ever seen), some decent storylines and some weak jokes, but as a horror movie, it works wonders and by now I'm very interested and enjoying the game.

I know interactivity is minimal sometimes, but I really enjoy very diverse games, from Witcher to NBA 2K to this, and the work put on this game and art values are top notch. For some, it would be a waste of money, but to me it's just what I expected and what I wanted, as I have not much time to game right now and I can sit with this for 45 minutes and get carried away instantly.

Did I say graphics are amazing, specially the faces of the teens?
 
The graphics are the best I've seen, I think. Mindblowing, but then it's because of the way the faces are captured. It should be standard now that we're well and truly into the HD generation (I'm sure e.g. Ronaldo wouldn't mind a make-up artist plopping 30 markers onto his face and making him say a list of words that captures all the motions).

The game is really good too, but it is essentially just a load of questions with two answers - like one of those adventure books from when I was a kid, "if yes, turn to page 57, if no, turn to page 70".

For £25 it'd be a 10/10, for £50 it's more like a 7½/10 for me.
 
Chris Davies said:
The graphics are the best I've seen, I think. Mindblowing, but then it's because of the way the faces are captured. It should be standard now that we're well and truly into the HD generation (I'm sure e.g. Ronaldo wouldn't mind a make-up artist plopping 30 markers onto his face and making him say a list of words that captures all the motions).

The game is really good too, but it is essentially just a load of questions with two answers - like one of those adventure books from when I was a kid, "if yes, turn to page 57, if no, turn to page 70".

For £25 it'd be a 10/10, for £50 it's more like a 7½/10 for me.
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Yes, spot on, I'm very happy with it because it costed me only 30€ (thanks to a promotion I had in a shop), so to me it's more a 8.5-9/10 even with its obvious limitations in terms of gameplay, but I expected that. For anyone who loved Heavy rain, you can't go wrong with this one.
 
drekkard said:
Yes, spot on, I'm very happy with it because it costed me only 30€ (thanks to a promotion I had in a shop), so to me it's more a 8.5-9/10 even with its obvious limitations in terms of gameplay, but I expected that. For anyone who loved Heavy rain, you can't go wrong with this one.
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I liked Heavy Rain but this seems like a far better vision of the same concept, to me. More engrossing and better designed - as long as the story continues to make sense (unlike Heavy Rain where the ending was really crappy).
 
I'm very interested in these sorts of games in principle, and am looking to pick this game up at some point. But I also recognise that we're yet to have a genuinely well-written interactive story game like this. Heavy Rain was fantastic in so many ways yet some of the writing was diabolical. Beyond: Two Souls doesn't appeal because it seems to have no faith in its story, opting to chuck huge dollops of ZOMG psychic superhero shit over anything subtle or well-measured. LA Noire, again, was at times brilliant, but the interrogation gameplay was screwed up by rewrites.

The genre of this particular story doesn't interest me at all, but I want to play it just to ponder over what it does well, what it fails to achieve, and to better understand how close we are to the inevitable tipping point when this type of game becomes as commercially and critically well-received as the better HBO shows.
 
romagnoli said:
I'm very interested in these sorts of games in principle, and am looking to pick this game up at some point. But I also recognise that we're yet to have a genuinely well-written interactive story game like this. Heavy Rain was fantastic in so many ways yet some of the writing was diabolical. Beyond: Two Souls doesn't appeal because it seems to have no faith in its story, opting to chuck huge dollops of ZOMG psychic superhero shit over anything subtle or well-measured. LA Noire, again, was at times brilliant, but the interrogation gameplay was screwed up by rewrites.

The genre of this particular story doesn't interest me at all, but I want to play it just to ponder over what it does well, what it fails to achieve, and to better understand how close we are to the inevitable tipping point when this type of game becomes as commercially and critically well-received as the better HBO shows.
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The story is really well-written, in my experience. Cheesy, yes, and I agree that it'd be great to play a game that was a bit more Sopranos and a bit less Blair Witch Project. But, it's film-quality writing, in my opinion (for the genre - i.e. it's not a psychological thriller that will leave you looking over your shoulder for a week, BUT it's genuinely scary, brilliantly acted for the most part and it's a pretty great experience - a genuine interactive film as opposed to something trying to be an interactive film).

I found Heavy Rain's writing to be pretty poor, and worst of all, when you got to the end...

There was no evidence that the murderer was the guy who it turned out to be, there was nothing whatsoever that you could put together to link him to the crime - up until the very last scene, it could have been any one of the characters, and so when it was revealed, there was no feeling of "I should have seen that coming", or "the evidence pointed towards this", or even of justice... It was really flat and frustrating, and genuinely felt like they'd decided on the killer a week before the game went gold. "Well nobody can prove it WASN'T him, so it was him." I felt robbed of a decent ending.

The whole "butterfly effect" thing works really well too, it isn't a handful of different endings - there's a lot of different stuff that can happen to you, judging on conversations I've had with other people who are playing it. You feel a genuine risk when making decisions, and there's even situations where it pays you to NOT make a decision, which can really fuck with your head.

I do highly recommend it, but... Stupidly, I suppose, I feel like choosing between A & B all the time renders the gameplay a bit one-dimensional. If they'd mixed some stealth gameplay in there and given you FPS-style freedom when you need it (properly done), it'd be up there with Witcher and MGS for me, despite the linearity, because of the overall experience.
 
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Chris is defining the game much better than I do, I second everything he writes.

Let me add that the kind of characters they put there and the way they treat them reminds me a lot of films like "Cabin in the woods", that use stereotypes of the genre in a good way and sometimes they laugh off them.

For example, there's a character in the game that is the typical "university blonde". Yes, it's a stereotype, but I'm finding it very funny to play her like in a RPG, not deciding things for the outcome I want, but rather choose what that character would do in that movie. And played like this, the game is brilliant.
 
Finally decided to purchase this the other day and must admit it is pretty well written and feels really fresh for a game these days, and allow the users to actually decided events throughout the game.

It really does feel that every decision you make either big or small has an effect throughout the whole game, and it is one of the few games I feel a couple of weeks down the line I will actually play again.

The writing and acting is superb and this really should of been bigged up a bit more by Sony rather than having no marketing campaign at all.

My only problem with the game was the Resident Evil static cameras which occasionally made the game annoying, but that is probably the only major flaw in the game, I would also of liked the game to have mulitple decisions rather than 2, as this would of spiced it up even more.

I would recommend this game to anyone as it is really good, but I am sure it will also be in the Sales at some point so would be best to pick it up then.

Also should mention the GFX are the best I have seen on console, really good work to get GFX that good out of a PS4.. Although the frame rate stutters are very noticeable.

P.S.
On my first play through I only managed to save 1 of the 8 characters.
 
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I learnt a great deal throughout the 1st play through and 3 of the characters died due to me missing QTE's, the others were obviously decisions I could of changed.

But overall it is an interactive game, but I enjoyed it and recommend anyone to give it a go it is currently £35 on PSN.

Which characters did you manage to save?
I only saved Mike, but also should of saved Sam.

I think if I played it again I would probably be able to save 6-7 of them, as first play through is always going to end with the highest body count.
 
Completed the game twice.

1st Play through Saved 3 Ashley, Emily & Mike
2nd Play through Saved 7 the only person who didn't survive was mike.
 
Getting this for Xmas. Not a huge horror fan in games, but will see how it goes. And Hayden is in it, lol.


FD
 
Completed this yesterday.

At the lodge I did do a little re-run a few times as I was feeling cheated with the motion sensor, lol.

In the end I saved: Sam, Mike, AShley, Chris and Jessica.

Quite a lot of stuff that can be missed and bits of the story can be lost due to it, but all in all a really good game, due to the slow nature of the gameplay they can bulk up the graphics which are excellent.

Won't do a re-run, will just Youtube a lot of the outcomes.


FD
 
Played through tonight with my brother sharing the characters. Its a great game in every aspect(i like this style tho) however the twist was mostly negative for me. I was like "oh okay wow!....but really is that it then?"

This story came too late in this age of horror movies imo.
 
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