Operation Backlog Completion 2026

Celebrating All Things Spooky: DreadOut

 Celebrating All Things Spooky, Reviews, Video games  2 Responses »  Tagged with:
Oct 262020
 

There are a lot of Resident Evil clones and some Silent Hill clones, but today we’re going to talk about one of the few Fatal Frame clones out there: DreadOut.

DreadOut follows a teenage girl named Linda, whose school trip goes horribly wrong after she and her classmates become separated from one another in an abandoned, haunted school.

Fortunately Linda’s phone camera (and later a regular camera as well) lets her fight back against these restless and malevolent spirits, as well as take photos of key areas to solve puzzles. As you explore, there are notes to find that provide some story context for the ghosts and the town.

The game is split into three acts. Act 0 is a short prologue, Act 1 takes place in the school, and Act 2 takes place in the surrounding areas.

The camera in Act 1 is terrible. Not the camera you use to fight the ghosts with, but the actual game camera. When you aren’t looking through your phone in first-person, the over-the-shoulder camera is unusually far to the right of Linda, and it goes crazy when you try to go through a doorway. Since the other parts are set in wider areas, it’s not as big of an issue there.

There isn’t a lot of story, although Act 2 adds a bit more, as well as more character interactions. Mainly it’s all about exploring haunted locations and fighting ghosts.

If you die, you travel through “limbo” instead of simply getting a game over, which basically means you need to waste time running toward a blue light while the game inexplicably displays messages like “Thank you for buying a legit copy of DreadOut” and “Winners don’t do drugs” along with an occasional message that’s actually relevant to the story. Then you return to the spot right before you died, so it’s functionally the same as restarting from a checkpoint.

Overall, DreadOut is… fine. It has some frustrating parts and a few illogical puzzles, but there are some genuinely spooky moments and tense boss fights.

I don’t feel compelled to play more from the series, especially since I still have several Fatal Frame games to play, but I do have Keepers of the Dark in my backlog already. Anyway, if you’re looking for a new ghost-fighting horror game, DreadOut can give you a decently spooky few hours if you don’t mind its frustrations.

Celebrating All Things Spooky: The Manse on Soracca

 Video games  No Responses »  Tagged with:
Oct 162020
 

Today I’d like to talk about a survival horror game I played earlier this year and reviewed at Lovecraft Video Games called The Manse on Soracca.

At the time I played it, it had gotten so little attention online I felt as though I was the only one who knew about it, and while it has a few more reviews and discussions on Steam now, it’s still been overlooked.

The Manse on Soracca begins as a retro survival horror game about a private investigator searching for a missing woman in the mysterious mansion at Soracca, but once you find an eldritch artifact, it becomes much more of a unique experience. Like in my main review, I don’t want to spoil what happens, but I will say it has some fun meta elements that left me surprised the game didn’t get more attention.

It does some pretty cool and clever things with its premise, and although there are some tedious sections, it’s a really interesting game.

If you like cosmic horror and Lovecraftian themes, play The Manse on Soracca. If you like games that try something unusual, play The Manse on Soracca.

I picked this one to discuss today specifically because I want to draw more attention to it. The Manse on Soracca is a neat survival horror game, and it deserves more attention than it’s gotten so far.

Celebrating All Things Spooky: Dino Crisis

 Celebrating All Things Spooky, Reviews, Video games  4 Responses »  Tagged with: ,
Oct 092020
 

Sometimes I wonder if the name of this celebration should be changed, since we often talk about horror games where “spooky” isn’t exactly the right word… such as today, with Dino Crisis.

Although I got into the Resident Evil series quite a while ago, I never actually tried Capcom’s other classic survival horror game until this year. Dino Crisis always struck me as being Resident Evil with dinosaurs instead of zombies, and that’s the general impression it left me with.

There are gameplay differences between the two (and I liked how you have separate inventories for key items vs. consumables, although I prefer Resident Evil’s item boxes), but the general format of solving puzzles and unlocking doors has a flavor very similar to that of the classic Resident Evil games.

So of course I loved it, because that’s one of my favorite parts of survival horror. Some of the puzzles are pretty fun, too.

Dino Crisis might not be exactly scary in the same way as a zombie game, but it definitely had tense moments. I tried to avoid combat whenever possible, so I always felt dread whenever I entered a room and heard the telltale signs of a dinosaur nearby.

Story-wise, it’s basic but entertaining enough, and I liked the characters.

Click for Dino Crisis spoiler
Although I kept expecting Gail to be a traitor, so I felt a little bad by the end for mistrusting him for the entire game.

Overall, Dino Crisis left me with a single question: why did Capcom leave this series to die? There has to be a market out there for Resident Evil With Dinosaurs.

I know the later games shifted more toward action, which is disappointing, but as I played through the original, I couldn’t help but imagine it remade RE2make-style or with a new Dino Crisis entry that returns to the classic survival horror gameplay.

Dino Crisis is one of the major classics I missed, so I’m happy I finally had a chance to play it. How do you feel about this seemingly-forgotten (by Capcom) survival horror game?

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