Daylight: Panic Room

Daylight – survival horror with procedurally generated world and at the same time the first game on the Unreal Engine 4, and turned out really scary, but also very vague. As it turned out, some ghosts popping up around the corner, is not enough for a full game.

Most Daylight reminds hike in panic room – in order to scare you into the game uses the same methods as this popular attraction. Disorient you, immersed in darkness, set the mood appropriate music and sound effects, controlled by invisible strings objects fly around the doors are closed or open by themselves, and then around the corner from the harrowing screams at you naprygivaet some scatty in the sheet. That’s only if an amusement park it looks ridiculous, in Daylight somehow not up to the fun. It’s scary. At least the first half of the game.

The main character, Sarah wakes up in an abandoned prison, converted at a psychiatric hospital. Nearby lies the phone with built-in flashlight, able to draw a map of visited facilities and an unknown voice tells Sarah that she must learn the truth and find the “remnants of the past.” What truth? Why? Unclear. And the game is not trying to tell you what to do. The levels are scattered diaries unknown people who left unclear messages and old faded photographs. Illuminated blue items of no special interest, they talk about the past and help hospitals create the right atmosphere, but highlighted in red notes – key objects, those “remnants of the past.”

However, you yourself have to guess that Sarah need to collect six such notes, and then go into the room with strange characters, where she can pick up the “key” that allows you to open a passage to the next location. So the key may be a variety of subjects – huge scissors, creepy-looking toy, the Bible, voodoo doll, in other words everything that we used to see in traditional horror movies. Each matched note increases “the level of threat.” Simply put – the more notes you find, the more you will have to attack the ghost witch, the only enemy in the game. The appearance of a terrible wailing figures portend static noise on the phone (hello, Silent Hill) and specific sounds.

I must say that in Zombie Studios are experts in horror movies. Narrow dark corridors filled with otherworldly sounds themselves damn unpleasant place, and the sudden appearance of a ghost necessarily cause a small panic attack, especially if you run signal checkers, drives away evil spirits. Yes, no weapons in the game, the same saber, which, though burning a long time, can only scare witch. But the most embarrassing moment comes after getting the key – until Sarah carries him no opportunity to use bombs, so you have to run headlong, hoping not to get lost in the winding corridors. If escape from the ghost fails, the level restarts. And then it becomes clear how the game with bad gameplay. The algorithm is the same – get the notes, running away from the ghost, take the key, open the door. And last searches missing notes can be tightened, which will necessarily lead to the fact that Sarah end checkers, ghost kills her … and start again.

In the second half of the game significantly decreases the passions – to replace the narrow corridors and underground tunnels come open spaces in which to search and notes easier and easier to get away from the ghost. Generally, in good circumstances, go Daylight is about an hour. However, in order to understand a little bit who Sarah and all that happened on the island on which the hospital said, the game will take place repeatedly, and the levels will be different each time, the same will be only some of the areas that are linked to certain scripted events. That’s just whether you want to take it again – an open question. Besides the rather terrible first game levels almost nothing to offer you. Riddles and puzzles in Daylight cat laugh and get away from the creepy ghost on dark claustrophobic corridors – fun for everybody.

But at least one innovation Zombie Studios should be commended – you can scare other players, the game through broadcasting service Twitch. All you need to do – to enter a command in the chat window. A list of commands is not voiced, so that users have to figure them empirically. The game has a certain limitation on the use of this function, so that the audience can not “spam” playing incessant tramping or otherworldly screams.

Used in the game Unreal Engine 4 revelation somehow did not. Yes, looks Daylight bad, but nothing more. However, it can be said not only about the picture, but also about the entire game. Besides monotonous algorithm on the game serious problems with the narrative – I’m here, actually, from the creepy ghosts running around, and you want me to stay and read some papers and diaries, how to call it? And the right to these texts evolved into some coherent story, as it was in Alan Wake, so no. In Daylight each time randomly generated not only levels, but the number of these same notes, and I’m not sure what you want to expend energy on a few passages that deal with this melange of texts and images.

Daylight knows how to scare you and does it masterfully, is without exaggeration one of the worst games in recent years, that’s just, unfortunately, a good game of it becomes. However, the concept is quite interesting and I’d love to see a sequel, but, gentlemen, finally hire a game designer and the script writes not let Jessica Chobot.

Daylight: Panic Room