HorrorTober 5 - Obscure (Xbox)
We're over halfway into HorrorTober and only a few reviews left to do. This week we visit Obscure on Xbox. So far we've found some decent off the grid horror games, will this one join the club, or fall short? Let's find out.
While it's not the greatest control scheme, it's a very simple and easily learned layout. But how does it handle during the game?
The game is mostly open, the whole school is "accessible" to you almost right off the bat, but the story itself has to be played linearly (I don't know if that's actually a word but I'm going with it). You only have access to a few select areas, and further access has to be gained by progressing in the story and opening other buildings and rooms.
Your main objective is initially driven by discovering exactly what happened to Kenny, but once all the experiment creatures start coming after you, you also gain the objective of escaping the school. Along the way, each chapter gives you the goal of locating a specific person that will help you with what you're trying to do.
All of your enemies that you come across are the results of the twisted experiments going on at the school. While they're never really given any specific names, some come in the form of zombified students, and others appear to share some DNA with a plant hybrid. There's also some larger enemies, one in particular looks like a massively over-sized worm, and a few bosses through the game. Regardless of which one you come across, they're always surrounded by an aura of darkness that can be weakened by either shooting out a nearby window to let in sunlight, or by aiming a flashlight at them and using the light from that to eliminate the darkness (hmmm...that seems familiar...like it happens in another game that I just happened to review on here...). Once the aura is gone, just deal some damage with any one of your weapons until the scary thing goes away, and continue on your quest.
Weapons are scattered all through the game. You'll find them just laying around and as soon as you pick them up, they're locked into that character's item wheel until you give it to another party member. Items are the same way, but instead are shared universally through all the party members. The weapons you find are either bats, guns (handgun, shotgun, rifle) you can fine some grenades, very simple selection. Items have more variety, with health aids (first aid kits and energy drinks), discs for saving your progress, and tools to help you reach further places (a reel of wire for picking locks, screwdrivers for opening air vents to crawl through, etc).
You'll also find some puzzles throughout the game too. There's not a great number of these, but they're all key to unlocking something specific to gain a key item you'll need on your way.
In the end, Obscure is a pretty fun game. The play style feels very familiar, sort of a mix between Silent Hill and Resident Evil (the original PS1 Resident Evil's). So is it a challenging game? Let's find out.
I decided to lump the normal enemies and combat together, at a moderate challenge. The reason I lumped them is because you really can't have one without the other. There's no other way to dispatch them than with combat, and you can't use your weapons for a whole lot outside of combat. In fact the only use outside of combat is if you get to a locked door that has a glass window, you can swing your bat at it and open it that way. But anyways, I put these at moderate challenge because while you have the option for using melee combat to kill your enemies, most of them can't be dealt this way without taking some damage yourself, so the best way is with any of your firearms, but ammo for these can be pretty scarce.
Bosses are on the same level, if not slightly easier, and that's only because it's the same method to deal with them, just on a larger scale and longer fights. You have to weaken the darkness and go in for the kill. Some have specific areas you must deal the damage to, but for the most part they're just the same style of enemy in brute-like form.
What do I mean by survival? One of the fun elements in this game is the option to combine your party members as you choose. The catch? They don't all have to survive to the end of the game. The students can die (obviously at least one must survive) and it does have some minor effects on the ending of the game, but the difficulty of this all depends on one thing. Do you really care? If the survival of every single person is crucial to you, this detail might be pretty difficult. If all you care about is just making it to the end, then this will be easy as all your efforts will go into keeping just one person alive through it all.
Lastly, the exploration and story progression. Again, I'm sticking these two together because they work together in the game, you can't move forward in the story unless you explore a little bit. I put this combination at an easy level. You're mostly overcoming little hurdles like locating a certain person or overcoming some sort of hurdle like solving one of the puzzles. These situations have a decent presence in the game, but not a predominant one, and in the specific situations they aren't real brain wrackers.
When it's all said and done, Obscure can be a bit challenging, but nothing that'll invoke any nerd-rage. Before I put the final stamp on this one, let's see what was good and bad about it.
- Survival / Action balanced. In some of these HorrorTober reviews, you've heard (or read really) me mention horror games being "actionized". I'm referring to the big difference between games that are actually survival horror rather than being branded as survival horror but feature a lot more action. I don't want to take up too much time discussing the difference here, but I will say that Obscure finds the perfect little niche between the two.
- Familiarity. I also mentioned this earlier in this blog, that the gameplay for this one feels like a blend between Silent Hill and the earlier Resident Evil's. In the Silent Hill games you get a lot of melee-type weapons, with a splash of firearms, and you come across many puzzles that require some in depth thinking. In Resident Evil, you get only firearms, and a decent amount of puzzles, but most of the RE puzzles just require you to fetch a string of objects and placing them in the right space. Obscure gives you an even amount of melee and firearms, and the puzzles require some very minimal fetching, and a little bit of thinking to be done (think along the lines of a 10 Picarat puzzle in the Layton games).
The horror level? It's definitely present, but it's more in the nature and theme of the story, as there aren't a whole lot of jump-scare moments. So you'll definitely get the twisted/messed up vibe from what's going on in the game, but you won't experience all that many heart-racing moments.
The Story
Obscure begins with four high school friends hanging out in their school's gymnasium one day after school. They start to leave when Kenny decides to stay behind to shoot some hoops. When he finally finishes, he gets a call on his cellphone from his girlfriend, but while he's on the phone someone sneaks up and steals his backpack. Kenny goes after them, eventually making his way down to the school's basement to find a person locked up in a cell in the back. Together they try to escape but are attacked by some odd creatures. The next day in school, Kenny's girlfriend and his friends are all worried about the fact that he never showed up anywhere and decide to stay after school is done to try and find him. During their search, the group uncovers evidence of some strange experiments going on at the school, and are attacked by more of the same creatures that had gone after Kenny the night before, unknown to them. Will they be able to uncover the truth of what's going on in their own school and what happened to their friend, all while fighting for their lives?The Controls
These controls actually end up feeling like a slightly-expanded Resident Evil control scheme. The left joystick moves your character, while the right one let's you tweak the aim of your weapon when it is drawn. Left trigger will lock you on to a target, and R brings your weapon up for attacks. A is your action button and also fires or attacks with your weapon, Y uses the active character's special move/ability, B opens your weapon wheel and X opens your item wheel. The D-Pad lets you scroll through either of the two wheels when they're active, Back brings up the map of the entire school grounds or the specific building you are inside (if you've collected the map for said building), and lastly the Black button switches between your characters.While it's not the greatest control scheme, it's a very simple and easily learned layout. But how does it handle during the game?
The Gameplay
Obscure is a survival horror game, and one of a few that takes the approach of a teen horror movie, and it's part fixed-angle, part over the shoulder perspective. During the game, you control any combination of two characters out of the almost half dozen of a selection that is available to you. Each character comes with a unique ability that lends some level of assistance to you throughout the game : one characters ability will tell you if there are any more items to be discovered/picked up in the room/area you are in, one will offer a hint if there's something to do in the room you're in, one is fast at picking locks, and the last one has a second, stronger special attack they can do with weapons. At any point in the game, you're allowed to have two of these students with you, you control one and the other is controlled by either A.I. or a second player if you have a buddy to play with.The game is mostly open, the whole school is "accessible" to you almost right off the bat, but the story itself has to be played linearly (I don't know if that's actually a word but I'm going with it). You only have access to a few select areas, and further access has to be gained by progressing in the story and opening other buildings and rooms.
Your main objective is initially driven by discovering exactly what happened to Kenny, but once all the experiment creatures start coming after you, you also gain the objective of escaping the school. Along the way, each chapter gives you the goal of locating a specific person that will help you with what you're trying to do.
All of your enemies that you come across are the results of the twisted experiments going on at the school. While they're never really given any specific names, some come in the form of zombified students, and others appear to share some DNA with a plant hybrid. There's also some larger enemies, one in particular looks like a massively over-sized worm, and a few bosses through the game. Regardless of which one you come across, they're always surrounded by an aura of darkness that can be weakened by either shooting out a nearby window to let in sunlight, or by aiming a flashlight at them and using the light from that to eliminate the darkness (hmmm...that seems familiar...like it happens in another game that I just happened to review on here...). Once the aura is gone, just deal some damage with any one of your weapons until the scary thing goes away, and continue on your quest.
Weapons are scattered all through the game. You'll find them just laying around and as soon as you pick them up, they're locked into that character's item wheel until you give it to another party member. Items are the same way, but instead are shared universally through all the party members. The weapons you find are either bats, guns (handgun, shotgun, rifle) you can fine some grenades, very simple selection. Items have more variety, with health aids (first aid kits and energy drinks), discs for saving your progress, and tools to help you reach further places (a reel of wire for picking locks, screwdrivers for opening air vents to crawl through, etc).
You'll also find some puzzles throughout the game too. There's not a great number of these, but they're all key to unlocking something specific to gain a key item you'll need on your way.
In the end, Obscure is a pretty fun game. The play style feels very familiar, sort of a mix between Silent Hill and Resident Evil (the original PS1 Resident Evil's). So is it a challenging game? Let's find out.
The Challenge (or lack thereof?)
Obscure has a few areas that'll put your playing to the test. You'll be dealing with the enemies and combat, as well as the bosses, survival, and the exploration and story progression.I decided to lump the normal enemies and combat together, at a moderate challenge. The reason I lumped them is because you really can't have one without the other. There's no other way to dispatch them than with combat, and you can't use your weapons for a whole lot outside of combat. In fact the only use outside of combat is if you get to a locked door that has a glass window, you can swing your bat at it and open it that way. But anyways, I put these at moderate challenge because while you have the option for using melee combat to kill your enemies, most of them can't be dealt this way without taking some damage yourself, so the best way is with any of your firearms, but ammo for these can be pretty scarce.
Bosses are on the same level, if not slightly easier, and that's only because it's the same method to deal with them, just on a larger scale and longer fights. You have to weaken the darkness and go in for the kill. Some have specific areas you must deal the damage to, but for the most part they're just the same style of enemy in brute-like form.
What do I mean by survival? One of the fun elements in this game is the option to combine your party members as you choose. The catch? They don't all have to survive to the end of the game. The students can die (obviously at least one must survive) and it does have some minor effects on the ending of the game, but the difficulty of this all depends on one thing. Do you really care? If the survival of every single person is crucial to you, this detail might be pretty difficult. If all you care about is just making it to the end, then this will be easy as all your efforts will go into keeping just one person alive through it all.
Lastly, the exploration and story progression. Again, I'm sticking these two together because they work together in the game, you can't move forward in the story unless you explore a little bit. I put this combination at an easy level. You're mostly overcoming little hurdles like locating a certain person or overcoming some sort of hurdle like solving one of the puzzles. These situations have a decent presence in the game, but not a predominant one, and in the specific situations they aren't real brain wrackers.
When it's all said and done, Obscure can be a bit challenging, but nothing that'll invoke any nerd-rage. Before I put the final stamp on this one, let's see what was good and bad about it.
PROS
- Teen Horror. As I mentioned earlier at the beginning of The Gameplay section, Obscure centers it's story around teen horror. All the characters are in high school, and it's an area you don't see all that often in video games. Even nowadays, while there's more of these type of horror games (Until Dawn is one that jumps right out), it's still a hardly touched area in gaming, and one that Obscure nailed perfectly.- Survival / Action balanced. In some of these HorrorTober reviews, you've heard (or read really) me mention horror games being "actionized". I'm referring to the big difference between games that are actually survival horror rather than being branded as survival horror but feature a lot more action. I don't want to take up too much time discussing the difference here, but I will say that Obscure finds the perfect little niche between the two.
- Familiarity. I also mentioned this earlier in this blog, that the gameplay for this one feels like a blend between Silent Hill and the earlier Resident Evil's. In the Silent Hill games you get a lot of melee-type weapons, with a splash of firearms, and you come across many puzzles that require some in depth thinking. In Resident Evil, you get only firearms, and a decent amount of puzzles, but most of the RE puzzles just require you to fetch a string of objects and placing them in the right space. Obscure gives you an even amount of melee and firearms, and the puzzles require some very minimal fetching, and a little bit of thinking to be done (think along the lines of a 10 Picarat puzzle in the Layton games).
CONS
- My only real complaint about this game is the save method, and it's honestly not even a full complaint. So to save the game, you must acquire discs that can be found all over the place. You can use these at any time, and as often as you want as long as you have one in your inventory to use. So, again to draw on the Silent Hill and Resident Evil comparison, in those games you can only save in fixed locations, and in the latter you must use an ink ribbon of which there are a finite amount. In Obscure you don't have to be in a specific location, but you must have a disc to use. So while I like the idea of getting to save wherever, I wasn't a fan of having to use a disc to do so. I realize I am probably part of only a select number of people who don't like this as a save mechanic, but it is worth mentioning so someone who's in the same boat as I am is aware of it.Final Verdict / Horror Level
This game is most definitely worth it, in and of itself. Now, this one is a bit of a rare game to find (you might even say it's....obscure *pause for laughter*). So the one detail that might deter some gamers from this one is the pricetag. To find this one as a loose disc will cost you around $20 (Xbox) or $45 (PS2), while a complete in box copy will be more like $30 (Xbox) and $60 (PS2). As you can see, I went for the Xbox copy on this one, and unless you have a deep grudge against anything Microsoft, I'd recommend this one. If you're specifically going to go after a PS2 copy, you'll be wrestling yourself over the price tag. Either way, this game is pretty great and most definitely enjoyable.The horror level? It's definitely present, but it's more in the nature and theme of the story, as there aren't a whole lot of jump-scare moments. So you'll definitely get the twisted/messed up vibe from what's going on in the game, but you won't experience all that many heart-racing moments.
