The Dark Pictures Anthology: Man of Medan - Review

Last year I played Until Dawn by Supermassive Games, and I won't lie, I had a lot of fun with it.  Of course, when I heard that they would be releasing a new game; The Dark Pictures Anthology Man Of Medan, I was excited. This is the first game in the series and I was looking forward to seeing what Supermassive Games would do with it.  This game offers a movie night mode where 2-5 of you can play on the couch together, Nollsy suggested it might be a good idea to play together.


Who doesn't like pizza (if your answer is anything apart from 'I love it' we can't be friends)?  This week Nollsy and I have been bad foodwise and have had pizza three times this week. Each time we ate it, it tasted perfect (shoutout to Oak Fire Pizza).  Of course, our experience has not always been as good.  There is a popular pizzeria in Cork with whom, in our experience, you have a 50/50 chance of getting what you want, not only in taste but also in terms of the correct toppings.  Playing The Dark Pictures Anthology: Man of Medan, we found ourselves asking was this good pizza or an underwhelming one?

Story

Similar to Until Dawn, it is massively (or perhaps supermassively - ba dum tish), the game is story heavy.  It starts just after the end of World War II, you see a number of containers with black skulls on it being put on board a large US Naval vessel.  As we all know black skulls are a good thing and there is no chance of anything bad happening. The game then launches into the future and we get to see Julie, Alex, Brad, Conrad and their no-BS attitude Captain Fliss.  They want to explore a wreck that as of yet has never been touched or even officially discovered.  That's all you get, no spoilers.


Overall the story starts interestingly enough but I always felt like I had only one shoe in, unlike Until Dawn where I was riveted to my seat.  There are fourteen endings and the one we got was okayish. It wasn't like it was the worst story in the world but was definitely a far cry from Until Dawn. With a game like this, you need to feel invested in the characters. We've all seen Pixar's 'Up', right? The first 15 minutes tell a whole story that makes most people cry. 15 minutes, and your heart goes out to those characters. This whole game didn't achieve that. We left it feeling fairly indifferent to most of the characters.

Visuals


The visuals are so good that an times I wasn't sure if I was watching a cut sequence or if I was supposed to be playing.  Being set mostly at sea Supermassive Games put a lot of effort into the water effects and certainly have created a very organic and sometimes scary world.  I particularly liked when it was raining and stormy as it felt like one of the characters could be killed before anything has even really started.

Overall the visuals are one of the strongest, if not the strongest part of the game and drew my attention as to how far we come in video games since the 1950s.


Music


The music used in the game reminds me of so many things, Until Dawn, Lord of the Rings, nineties horror movies and jazz.  The soundtrack is both intimate and epic which works really well in the game and helps in creating a tense atmosphere.  The composer Jason Graves who has worked on a slew of video games including; The Order 1886, Far Cry Primal, and Until Dawn.


The soundtrack is just shy of an hour and features some great tracks, my favorites being; 'Bringer of War', 'You Cannot Hide', and 'Olson's Theme'. Overall the soundtrack helps bring the game to life and depth that might not be present without it.

Gameplay

This is where things started to get a little murky.  The story isn't bad, the visuals are amazing and the soundtrack is good but the gameplay is where it falls down.   When you do take control of a character they feel extremely stiff and like trying to turn an eighteen-wheeler round a sharp corner.  Forward, turn, reverse, turn more, go. Investigating items in the world can be tough, not only because you can't control the camera angles but also you need to be in exactly the right position to interact with things, and you could see something shining (indicating interactivity), but you'd be doing your turn and pivot routine with the character while mashing X in the hope of hitting the jackpot. This did create the occasional moments of frustration and stopped the game from being as immersive as it could have been.


There are items of interest in the game, along with collectibles and paintings which provide premonitions. The premonition paintings were an interesting idea but never felt they had an impact on the story itself. Nollsy and I both noted at the end that we never really noticed where the premonitions would have occurred had we not prevented them, or even what it was we did that DID prevent them.


One of the biggest parts of the gameplay is picking answers to questions posed by the other members of your group.  Will it bring you together more or push you apart?  You can check your relationship status with each character, though it rarely felt purposeful. There are is quick-time events that occur throughout the game which generally work, apart from the heartbeat monitor.  This was cool the first time but became clunky and was easy enough to screw up, it felt unneeded and hopefully, this is something that will not be in the next installment.


The game can be played solo with four other AI, or two of you can share all the characters between you, and finally, you can play with four random people online.


Overall the gameplay has a lot of rough edges that are in desperate need of rounding off, and with any luck, this will not be an issue next time.




Final Thoughts

So, after almost five hours how did we feel?  Meh.  The story was okay but wasn't as engaging as it could have been. The visuals were amazing and the soundtrack really helps create a great atmosphere.  The biggest failing really was the gameplay, I only hope this is something that will not be repeated in the future.  This one gets a 3 out of 5