The Dark Pictures Anthology: Little Hope Review (Willy Schmiprdel)
This is the first game i tried from the anthology and it definetly left me with Little Hope for the other games in the series
I expected at least a fun schlocky horror experience, but, honestly i should have just watched any 80's slasher or splatter film, because frankly, i would get more enjoyment out of 90 - 120 minute movie than sitting through this 4.5 hour bore. Story revolves around students on a bus trip crashing and ending up in town shrouded in fog called Little Hope. The main character is being played by Will Poulter and he, along with the rest of the cast, does decent job, which is one of few positives. However the characters they portray are unfortunately kind of annoying. Aside the Rod Sterling - esque presenter, everyone was either bland or unlikeable.
Another flaw is that, despite the game being short, it still feels weirdly padded. You could cut it down to a 2 hour horror movie/game and not miss a thing. It's very repetetive. It's almost always scooby doo routine (i.e. running from undead ghouls) followed up by short exploration section, where the goal is to find something that triggers a flashback, which shows Town's witch hunting past. That actually made me stay till the end, because it was interesting enough to keep me playing and i wanted to see what the game will do with it. So what i got for being patient? Middle finger to the face with the ending that gives Mass Effect 3 ending run for it's money. It makes the most interesting part of the game pointless. They did foreshadow it, but it still feels like they had 2 writers in studio, the first wanting cursed town witch hunting extravaganza and the other psychological horror about processing grief and couldn't decide, so they just mashed it into one.
I didn't talk about the gameplay, because there is not much to talk about. It's an interactive movie with QTE's and shoehorned in exploration sequences so it could be barely called an adventure game. And that would be fine, but these games should compensate the lack of gameplay by focusing on story, which has a few bright spots, but it's not enough to save it from being dull, uninteresting and having an ending that erases anything good that plot had to offer. To sumarize, it would be cheaper and better to just buy a horror movie to watch on a friday night.