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Until Dawn is an interactive story game by Supermassive, and is an exclusive to the PS4. It's a horror game in which your choices determine which of eight characters survive the next seven hours. A badly-planned prank by her friends got Hannah Washington so upset that she ran out of her parents' isolated cabin into the middle of a snowstorm, and her twin sister Beth chased after her. Neither of them were ever seen again. A year later, on the anniversary of their disappearance, their brother Josh invites those same friends up to the same cabin for a party, and as a bonus, gets at least one ominous figure watching them from the tree line. Things start to go wrong shortly thereafter. The idea behind Until Dawn, like Heavy Rain or several recent Telltale games, is that your choices determine the path the story takes. Specifically, you can decide who lives and dies; out of the eight primary characters at the start of the game, all eight can live or die based upon your actions, many of which have to do with their relationships with the other characters. Pick a side in an argument now, for example, and that may come back to haunt that character later when the person they were arguing with is their only hope for rescue. There are a lot of decisions that have far-ranging effects, some of which are surprisingly minor but can mean the difference between a character's death and survival. The game reflects this through a system called the Butterfly Effect, which also features heavily in the game's themes. Whenever you make a particularly important choice, it's reflected onscreen by an explosion of butterflies, which indicates you've got a new Butterfly Effect entry on the status screen. These decisions are tracked throughout the entirety of a game, which allows you to see at a glance what your decisions led to and how you might be able to change them on a second run. You can also scour the landscape for collectibles called Totems, which provide a short glimpse of the future. These often do not pertain to your current character at all and like all the best prophecies, usually make the most sense in hindsight. Is this game any fun? If you like interactive story games, then yeah, you'll probably like this one. It's genuinely creepy, there are three connected mysteries on the mountain that you can gradually unravel, and there's a big twist about two-thirds of the way through that's bizarre but well-executed. That said, if you don't like quick-time events or "walking simulators," this isn't your game. The best way I've heard of recommending this game is to say it's like Heavy Rain done right, in that it doesn't take every possible opportunity to disappear up its own rear end. It's crucial that you go into an initial run with as little information as possible; half the fun of your first game will be in the surprises, and even if you're an extremely jaded horror fan like I am, there will be surprises. Please do not spoil the game for other players. Is this game worth $60? An initial playthrough will take you between six and eight hours, assuming you take every opportunity to explore for clues and collectibles. If you go back and try to experiment with other outcomes, which is encouraged by the game's trophy system (a lot of the big decisions have a trophy reward either way), that could easily mean another twenty hours or so. Reportedly, the game's manipulable enough that you can keep going for a surprisingly long time; the Gamespot reviewer says she's still seeing new things on her fourth playthrough. What kind of horror is it? Depends on how you play. It can get very "gore porn" very quickly if you opt to go that route, although it never quite degenerates to the torturous lengths of a Saw or an Eli Roth film. In fact, the "better" you do, which is to say the closer to survival the characters are, the less gore you'll actually see. There's a lot of exploring intensely creepy locations while armed only with a flashlight, and the sound design is top-notch. Expect jump scares and random events that serve no purpose but to unnerve you. Is that Agent Ward? Yeah, the most recognizable members of the cast are Hayden Panettiere ("Nashville," Scream 4), Brett Dalton ("Agents of SHIELD"), and Peter Stormare (mostly just being Peter loving Stormare). You might also know Josh's actor, Rami Malek, from the recent USA series "Mr. Robot." The whole cast consists of film and television actors, who are extensively motion-captured and who voice all their own characters. This is, as usual, a double-edged sword; the acting is pretty good but the facial models often go straight into the uncanny valley. Wanderer fucked around with this message at 22:15 on Aug 25, 2015 |
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Aug 25, 2015 22:10
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| # ? May 15, 2024 17:43 |
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FAQ Corner A spoiler-laden section to be added to as frequently-asked questions pop up. Don't look at this post at all until you've beaten the game for yourself at least once. Character Deaths Q) How can I save Jessica? A) It's entirely determined by how quickly you, as Mike, react to her being taken. Take all the options that would get you to her faster, and don't miss any of the quick-time events along the way; there's some wiggle room here, as I fell into the river at one point and still got to her in time to save her, but there isn't a lot. If you get to the mine elevator and she asks for help, she'll be alive in a brief section near the endgame.
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Aug 25, 2015 22:13
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ahem. http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3728551&pagenumber=1&perpage=40
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Aug 25, 2015 22:22
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Didn't see it, my bad.
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Aug 25, 2015 22:25
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