I know what you're thinking, how the hell does he have another game review out so soon? Well, I have been sitting on this was for some time, I had finished episode one and two at the start of the year, but was holding off writing a review because I thought episode three, four and five would be out by now. Unfortunately, the remaining episodes have not yet been released, Hinterland Studios announced yesterday that episode three would be released in December 2018, meaning it could be mid to late 2019 before all five episodes are released. There are a number of reasons for the delay, while there was a lot of praise for the game there was also backlash over the story and the repetitive fetch quests, the studio wanted to address some of these concerns and continue to improve the overall game including adding in new game modes. So I thought before the next episodes were released it might be interesting to review what I had played so far.
Porridge. It can be tough to eat, almost a slog, but it can taste good and you are left with your stomach feeling full and warm. There are ways to spice it up, for example, a little sugar, fruit, jam or maybe some honey, I usually go for a small amount of sugar. There are occasions where I have eaten too much porridge and felt terrible afterward, which is not fun let me tell you. Playing The Long Dark I found myself was this a tough, satisfying bowl of porridge, or had I overindulged and felt like my stomach was filled with warm rocks?
Story
The game has you play as Will MacKenzie (not the guy from the Inbetweeners), who operates a small business flying a plane. One night as your playing a little solitaire a woman, by the name of Astrid Greenwood comes seeking your help. It's quickly apparent that the two were an item at one point and that she would not be there unless it was a real emergency. Astrid is looking for you to fly her to the small town of Milton up in the Canadian Wilderness, but won't give much detail as to why, of course, you being awesome agree to help her out. Unfortunately, this ends up being a bad idea as the plane crashes and the two of you are separated.
The first episode begins as a tutorial, that then progresses into you searching for Astrid. The journey will be long and one of the few people you come across is a blind lady called Grey Mother. She is pretty unhelpful for the most part and she has you act as her goofer, which was highly annoying. Once this is finished it's onto episode two. There is little story content to episode one which was a little disappointing.
Episode two has you meet Jeremiah, who has just been attacked by a big ass bear. Even though he is badly wounded he offers you guidance and provides you with a gun, of course, this is mostly done so you can help him take revenge on the bear who mauled him. The story was still lacking but certainly more engaging than episode one.
Overall the story isn't bad but it isn't great either, and I hope that the story is improved upon with the episodes to follow.
Visuals
The game is set in the beautiful Canadian wilderness, nothing but snow, mountains, woods and glacial waterfalls. There are animals including wolves, bears, rabbits, and deer, the latter being my favorite as they looked so lifelike. The design of Will is unusual and goes for an almost minimalist cartoonish style, this is also shown used the cut sequences, which was I found to be quite a contrast.
Overall it looks beautiful, I have found in a number of survival style games they can look a little bleak and dull, but I never found this to be the case with The Long Dark.
Music
There are times where the music for a game just doesn't work and feels out of place, The Long Dark is not one of those games. It perfectly sums up the constant struggle you face in the game and features somber tones created through heavy use of stringed instruments and piano. The creators of the soundtrack are America composer Cris Velasco and German composer Sascha Dikiciyan. Their work includes scores for games such as; Resident Evil 7: Biohazard, Bloodborne, Mass Effect 3, God Of War 2, Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, Prototype, Borderlands, and Dark Messiah of Might and Magic.
The score runs a little over ninety minutes and features some really great tracks, my favorites include, 'The Long Dark Main Theme', 'There's Something I Have To Say', 'Keep You Alive', 'Passing Of An Age', and 'Memories'.
Overall a great soundtrack, that to me not only suited the game perfectly but also one of the best things about The Long Dark.
Gameplay
The Long Dark is a first-person survival game, it's can be tough sometimes, really tough in fact. There is a quite a lot to keep an eye on and be aware, all of it is important and failing to pay attention will have you dead in no time.
One of the biggest obstacles you will encounter is keeping warm, fire is one of the ways to avoid turning into a popsicle, however depending on the conditions lighting a fire may not always work. Wearing layers of clothing is an option, which is great unless you get them wet if this happens your body temperature can drop quickly and you risk getting hypothermia. The next big challenge is eating enough, you burn through calories doing everything including sleeping. There will be some food scattered around, but hunting will be your best source for it. The best way to get the most out of food is by cooking it on a fire, eating it raw carries certain risks. Carrying raw meat can attract animals to you, in particular wolves which you don't want. I found the key is to have just enough to survive, too much or too little is equally bad.
Sometimes you will kill animals for food other times for survival. Each of them offers their own challenge, deer could be tough as shooting them in the heart was an almost instant kill but involved you getting close, being very quiet, compensating for wind and then hoping your shot would pay off. Wolves are a pain in the ass and they have no qualms about chasing you down. At one point I only had a flare gun for protection, I shot one in the head and killed it outright which made me laugh, not as much though as when it gets stuck in their body and they run away scared.
While there was lots of good stuff to the gameplay there were also bad points. The fetch quests were annoying particularly the ones for Grey Mother. Outside of some safe areas you can store your excess gear, which was really handy, however, in one case it physically disappeared! It came back later but unfortunately, all my stuff was gone. The constant difficulty made the game a slog at times and it almost felt like I was there with MacKenzie.
Overall there was some great and tough gameplay, with a few relatively minor issues. If you like survival games and want a real challenge The Long Dark is for you.
Final Thoughts
So after twenty plus hour playing how did I feel? Not bad. The story was lacking, and I would have preferred a bit more focus on the main two characters. The visuals and music were impressive and really added to the depth of the game. The gameplay was pretty good but occasionally felt a little too tough and fetch quests soured me a little bit. Overall it was an interesting experience and am curious to see what Hinterland do with the remaining episodes. The game almost got a higher score but just missed the mark a little, I give this one 3 out of 5
No comments:
Post a Comment