Infliction Review

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Release Date: Oct. 18, 2018
Publisher/Developer: Caustic Reality
Platform: PC
Price: $19.99

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At first glance, Infliction looks like any other game in the stealth/horror-adventure genre. You wander around dark corridors, dodge attacks from a malicious ghost and other monsters, attempt to complete tasks and progress the story all while trying not to get killed, and occasionally solve environmental puzzles with the help of your in-game Polaroid camera. It has all the hallmarks of a good stealth/horror game: It’s tense, the plot is interesting, the story breadcrumbs are easy enough to find but not all laid out in front of the player. It even has an element of exploration, with setting elements changing between areas and levels of the plot and rewarding careful looking through things. It’s all incredibly impressive, especially having been created by a very small team funded through Kickstarter. But at the same time, it marks a possible new route for the spooky corridors genre, one that future game designers would be wise to explore, one where perhaps the main draw is the setting and not the monsters wandering its halls.

Infliction casts you as a man with a loving wife and a dear family, returning back to your house to pick up some plane tickets. Unfortunately, the plane tickets are securely locked in your wife’s office and studio, which means you have to find the code to unlock it. But as you explore the house to find the code, strange things begin to occur, subtly at first (horror titles, odd CD names and track titles that seem to foreshadow things for you) and then with alarming frequency, plunging you directly into a nightmare. As you’re stalked through what used to be your home by a vengeful spirit hellbent on dragging you further into the darkness with her, new dimensions and memories open up, forcing you to uncover what happened to your peaceful family or for your soul to be destroyed forever.

Infliction is a game that gets a lot of things right. The monster designs are suitably grotesque, the house is well-designed and the continual trips through there build a kind of familiarity that makes it all the scarier when things start to break down. The sound design is similarly superb, and the amount of detail put into the house and the further (more spoilery) environs after that, making the player want to explore every surrounding, turn over every rock, and look through every VHS and CD case for clues as to what goes on. Even before things kick off, it’s a suitably eerie place, and that sensation deepens in a really satisfying way, each new location bringing up something even more twisted, from haunted paintings to basements with mysterious passages and holes.

It’s a game that wears its influences very heavily on its sleeve, from references to past environmental narratives like Gone Home, a collection of horror videotapes that contain some interesting references , and a hallway that riffs gently on the infamous Silent Hills trailer P.T. In some ways, it’s almost a love letter to both the stealth-horror/jumpscare games and the more atmospheric environmental horror games, infusing a slow-burning dread and exploration with the nastier surprises of avoiding the vengeful ghost and other, equally upsetting monsters. With the rather simple “hide-a-key” system of exploration (click to pick something up, right-click to zoom in and read, other keys to activate different abilities), it also makes exploration feel really easy and satisfying, allowing you to move through the house and explore what happened, unlocking your memories and new areas as you go.

And here’s where it starts to fall apart a little. Infliction suffers from trying to have its cake and eat it too, to be an exploration game balanced by the urgent threat and tension of being stalked through the house and having to avoid a relentless creature. But that urgency doesn’t allow the setting to seep in as well once the monsters end up on your tail, and the threats kind of get in their own way sometimes. It’s a game with tons of atmosphere and style, and some very tense scripted sequences (the morgue butcher scene and the prison chase stand out), and there are some great mechanics, like keeping the vengeful ghost trapped using the camera, or being able to hide in closets. But having to rush through the various things to read and memories to uncover and phone messages and newspaper articles, as well as not being able to enjoy the scenery as you rush to the next location to stay away from the monsters definitely does not help.

It’s paired with an incredibly annoying checkpointing system, requiring you to sometimes play sequences over and over again if you can’t get them right, something that just grinds down the atmosphere and exploration and fun of the game to a single point as you batter your head against a wall hoping to get through with a combination of luck and skill. While it can be exhilarating to finally get by a rough section, it feels annoying to keep having to replay sections, story and cutscenes intact, so you can make another try at escaping whatever horror’s waiting for you just around the corner. While the horror and possibility of failure helps the tension, the problem is that it wrecks the atmosphere after a while. It’s also a little annoying that some of the scenes rely on trial and error, forcing you to either search everything carefully (time pressure) or watch death after death until you figure out the thing you’re doing wrong. Neither is really all that much fun.

In the end, while Infliction is certainly a well-made game, and one of the better games of its type, the survival/stealth horror genre seems to get in its way more than help. For those who can get through its stickier sections, there’s a lot to enjoy, but it might be worth thinking about how the genre and games of this type could be a little moodier and maybe have a few less checkpoints or more monster attacks or something to kind of take the edge off. But it’s still a fantastic game, and among the better entries of its type, full of great atmosphere and some absolutely nerve-wracking scares.

The Good
- Disturbing visuals and a perfect moody horror atmosphere
- Simple, satisfying control scheme that makes it easy to explore the setting
- Great level design and some tense, genuinely scary sequences
- Large areas to explore and find secrets and memories

The Bad
- Checkpointing means you have some incredibly difficult sequences you will replay over and over again
- Roaming monster attacks sometimes get in the way of exploring the house and wreck the mood

Thanks to Caustic Reality for providing a code for review.

Syndrome: Haven't We Been Here Before? A Review

All my life, I've wanted nothing more than a proper successor to System Shock 2. Bioshock was always way too easy, even on the hardest setting. Dead Space relied on jump scares and didn't create the necessary level of existential dread. Even Amnesia was just Myst on a very bad drug trip. There hasn't been a game that blends claustrophobia, outright horror, desperate combat, and the feeling that something is terribly, terribly wrong in the same way as Looking Glass Games' classic first person horror/RPG/Adventure. When I saw Syndrome, though, I had hope. The claustrophobic corridors, non-working lights, and twisted imagery made me think of my old standby for any list of horror games. I had a lot of hope.

And unfortunately, most of those hopes were dashed. Syndrome isn't a bad game, it just succumbs to it's flaws more than rises to the occasion. 

These...wounds...they...will...not get fun?

Syndrome is one of what is becoming a huge genre of stealth/survival horror games taking place in poorly lit corridors full of unnerving imagery. In this case, the poorly lit corridors are on board a malfunctioning spaceship, with the player taking the role of a crewmember on said spaceship trying to fix the malfunctions and somehow survive the numerous warring factions and creepy creatures that are running rampant all throughout. 

I give it credit for this, at least-- where most games go with a generic haunted house or woods and try to get some transference off of the grandfathers of spooky corridor games (Slender and Amnesia), Syndrome does take its cues from a forgotten ancestor of the survival horror games by setting itself on a spaceship where something has gone horribly, horribly wrong. It's an effective opening, one that goes from having you fix things, to unrest on the ship, to outright horror that shouldn't have been telegraphed in the manner it was by all the game's press. 

But there's an issue at the heart of Syndrome, and it's that none of it is new. From the flickering hallways, to the sudden appearance of mutilated bodies, to the dead crewmembers hanging from sparking pipes, it's all kind of old hat. Even someone as susceptible to jump scares as I am derives no pleasure from something that only seems to go through by-the-numbers spook 'em ups. It's got some interesting ideas, but they were interesting ideas twenty years ago, and then got ground down through repetition. The atmosphere just isn't there any more. It's already clear from the outset who's manipulating you, which things are going to go wrong, and where everything is. The problem, however, expands even beyond that.

The game also makes you backtrack a lot. Backtracking, long known as the scourge of every adventure gamer and gamer in general, is an egregious sin in horror games. Imagine a haunted house where they just made you wander down the same hallway four or five times in a row with different scares each time. Not a lot of fun, is it? Now imagine you had to look around for things while wandering along that same hallway. Any more fun? No. No, it's not. Syndrome is like that. You have to backtrack to find tools, backtrack to figure out what to do next, backtrack to the next scare, etc, etc. Reusing backgrounds is actually kind of admirable next to "we didn't render enough space for you to explore, so go back to this earlier level." It wrecks the atmosphere, and frustrates the player more than disturbs them

Finally, there are serious issues with controller support. As in, the game forces it whenever you have a controller attached. As in, you can't switch it off without unplugging the controller. Which, for someone with a setup like mine, is completely unacceptable, since I have to basically yank all my USB peripherals out so the game doesn't think my camera is a controller and force support. That, in a modern game, is unacceptable. 

While Syndrome does some things that are vaguely admirable, most of it is not. This is a game best left avoided, even before one gets to click "play." I wish it were something better, but it appears we've reached the nadir of the survival horror genre and will probably never learn. 

Final score: 2/5

Full disclosure: The reviewer received a steam key for the purposes of reviewing this game

Pathologic Review

Why should you get this game? Because for the first time in it's long and checkered history, the cult horror game Pathologic is finally in a playable form. The graphics are better, the English translation actually matches up with what's being said in the game, and many of the truly game-breaking bugs are nowhere to be found. For the first time, players are finally able to play a rare gem in the form the authors intended it to be played.

Why should you play Pathologic at all? Well, that's a lot more complicated. The short answer is simple:

Everyone needs their mind messed with a little sometimes. 

But let me explain: Pathologic is the first game by cult favorite developers Ice Pick Lodge, the twisted geniuses behind such games as impenetrable and incredibly difficult afterlife FPS The Void, psychological 2D stealth adventure Knock! Knock!, and a gaming satire known as Cargo!: The Quest for Gravity. They're also nuts, and responsible for manufacturing games that usually aren't seen outside of creepypasta. But I'm getting away from my point a little. Let me try again.

 In Pathologic, you choose from one of two characters (a third is unlockable, but you have to play the game at least once)-- Danil Danofsky, a bachelor of medicine investigating the murder of someone who was supposed to be immortal; or Artemii Burakh, a Haruspex and one of the few people allowed to perform autopsies in the game's world. There's also Klara, the Devotress, an unlockable character who has mysterious healing powers and a higher calling than the other two, but chances are unless you're really determined or edit your save file, you're not gonna see very much of her outside the opening cinematic. I'll get to why in a moment. 

This little playlet is your character selection screen

While these three go about their business, a mysterious plague known as the "sand plague" takes over the small unnamed town they find themselves in. Furthermore, the three families who run the town with the aid of their precognitive "mistresses" are locked in a power struggle that seems to finally be coming to a head. Bizarre customs involving children and their animal companions, the massive hilltop slaughterhouse, the local asylum, two alien buildings at opposite ends of town, burning people suspected of being artificial humans at the stake in the district centers, and the odd play that goes on every night at midnight run rampant. And before the end, things will get a lot, lot worse. 

The game is nominally an FPS/Survival horror/Adventure game. As whatever character you choose, you investigate the town and its inhabitants, running errands and trying to get to the bottom of the numerous mysteries. You can also dumpster-dive, barter with townsfolk, and explore the impossibly weird geography of the small town on the steppe. There's a constantly running game clock, and it's not possible to see everything, so players have to think in terms of what they do want to see. And if you think of it in terms of a game, you will die. A lot. 

BALD. MUTE. LUNATIC. SKINFLINT.

Yes, the game is kind of unforgiving about that. Quest-givers will wind up lying to you more often than not, in fact, most people in the town are exercising some kind of dishonesty. Prices at most of the shops in town are controlled by a bald, mute lunatic who jacks up the price day after day while giving you corrupt pawnshop-style prices on anything you try to sell. Maintaining a good supply of food is absolutely essential, as is getting enough sleep. Most times you get in a fight, it's deadly, and even a common fistfight could take off half your health. Ammo and guns are so scarce that it's actually more useful to barter them for supplies you need, than it is to shoot people. It's a difficult, punishing game, even more so than stuff like Dark Souls. But there's a purpose.

Typical conversation in Pathologic

Pathologic is a game that gets inside your head. It forces you to think not as a player, but as the character you chose. It even reveals much of the artifice other games would normally hide, showing you that yes, this is a play, this is artificial, but if you think that's going to save you, ha ha ha, nope. Further driving this home are the Adherents, plot-critical characters that you have to keep alive and safe through each of the plot's twelve days. They can and will die unless you pay attention to their needs, leaving you high and dry. So can quest-givers and major NPCs, and not all of this is scripted. Of course, some of them have to die over the course of the plot anyway, but figuring out which is which depends on how you yourself feel the character would act. It's a game that dumps all the choices squarely in your lap, and then reminds you that not choosing is still just as much a choice. 

However, once you actually learn to live in the game's world, the game becomes unsettling and engrossing in equal amounts. It's one of the very few games that casts you in the role of a detective, and then actually makes you deduce, detect, and interact with the characters. Every aspect of the mystery is left up to you to solve, every clue waiting for you to discover it, all the conclusions your own within the scope of the game. It's amazing to have that degree of agency when the controls and interface aren't that complex (NOTE: There is no tutorial, get a manual. I know, some of you aren't used to it, but seriously, GET. A. MANUAL). 

These two are all the tutorial you're gonna get.

The game also kind of seeps into your head a little. It's very immersive once you get the basics down, allowing the surreality of the world to seep in. You also get some instruction and direction from the two masked "players," one wearing a raven-like plague doctor mask and cloak, and the other dressed up as a mime in a black bodysuit with a white mask. While this is incredibly vague, it does give some insight in how the world in the game works and what you're supposed to do in the world. Even if a lot of it still remains for you to find, rather than being pointed out to you.

But if you want a challenging, unique, innovative experience that breaks genre barriers and gives you something that everyone says they crave out of their gaming experience, you need look no further. There may be other games that make you feel this way, other games that challenge the way you think and act in games, other games as challenging, but in the end Pathologic stands on its own, a titanic work that neither begs for your attention nor particularly needs it, but instead waits and bides its time until you're ready. And when you are, it'll be waiting with its own peculiar welcome. On an ancient steppe. In the fog.

Children at play on the Steppe. Burying a doll. No big deal. 

Score: 5 out of 5 - with the caveat that you should seriously look into this game and understand further what you're getting into. Some people hear "complex and challenging" and go charging into things headfirst, I will warn you immediately that this is not an experience for many, and you should search around. 

Reviewer received a copy of the game for review