The Dark Pictures Anthology: Little Hope Review (Orge Lambart)
Do you remember the days when you’d take field trips in school. Loading into the bus with all your fellow miscreants, driving for an hour or two, then touring some historic place where Betty Boop, or Mr. Potatoe Head lived 450 years ago, walking through their boring house or historical sights, and wondering when it would be over. The boredom forcing you to rip out chunks of your hair.. Then after 3 or 4 hours, you scuttle back onto the bus, and drive another hour back home.. Imagine, if you will that trip back home gets detoured, and then your bus crashes….. not the cool fiery crash you see on youtube videos, but the, that sucks I banged my head and scrapped my knee type of crashes.. Upon exiting the bus you find yourself trapped and unable to escape, being forced to travel towards an uncertain fate surrounded by bags from school that you probably hate..
Well if you can imagine that scenario above then you’ll probably know what to expect in Dark Pictures Little Hope, the second entry into the Dark Pictures Anthology (Think they are calling it season 1, and it has four entries thus far, Man of Medan, Little Hope, House of Ashes and Devil Inside me) If you’ve played any of the games you sort of get the idea how the game words,, for those who haven’t here goes.. The Curator, introduces you to himself, and proceeds to pull out a book, which he claims is unfinished and says you will be the one to write it.
The Story – Four students and their teacher are returning from a field trip, their bus is detoured into little hope and eventually winds up crashing after the driver swerves to avoid hitting a little girl. Lost, confused and with the Bus Driver no where to be found the Five lost adventurers start their quest to find the driver, find help or maybe even find themselves.
Gameplay – If you’ve played any of the TellTale style adventure games you’ll get a good idea how these games work. Third person exploration, with loads of cutscenes, some QTE’s, finding collectibles and making lots of choices, choices which unlike most of the later TellTale games actually matter in the grand scheme of things..
Pros
Tremendously interesting and engaging story
Uniquely replay able
Easy achievements
Bite Sized 4 hour adventure
Cons
Poorly Optimized (was getting lag with my 4090)
Minor Graphical and sound issues
Can’t skip cut scenes you’ve already seen
Recommendation –
Little hope set aside the atmospheric approach to horror that Man of Medan took and went with Jump scares, and since we’re in 2023, jump scares are kind of weak sauce.. With that said, Little hope tells a compelling story that blends elements of the past with the present to create a edge of your seat thrill ride up until the end. The game is worth the price of admission for some of the gore, which was clearly ramped up from Man of Medan.. So I’d recommend picking this game up if you’re into Telltale Style action adventure games, the story is out of this world.. or dimension and you’ll be happy you did..