Останні рецензії користувача ripvanwinklex

Event Horizon (1997) combined with Alien (1979) made into a game.

Started excellent, maintained its level up until very late game, then things went downhill. I was fascinated by Ishimura atmosphere, excellent sound design, great lightning and what seemed like the best possible plot I could hope for in game with such setting. What went wrong?

I didn't play the original, I don't have any comparison, that means my review isn't fueled by nostalgia and isn't biased.

Before I proceed to the cons, let me start with what I've liked.

1. Lightning. Made me quite scared sometimes, not knowing what might be on the other side of the room or what's behind those doors in pitch-black corridor? That's pretty common occurence when playing DS, shouldn't sound like nothing special, however, done with that lightning and sound design, it ALWAYS does the job.

2. Sound. Unfortunately not bug-free, about that later. Isaac's heartbeat, random "spooky" sounds, necromorph shrieks, Isaac's stomps/punches, audio-logs or nothing at all accompanied only with heartbeat in tiny dark room? Everything works just fine and makes the game feel ever so eerie.

3. Claustrophobic feeling. Felt through chapters 1-11, with exception to 12. (significant change to where gameplay takes place) Majority of rooms is extremely small, dark and grim, same applies to corridors. Only time when game didn't feel claustrophobic was in zero-gravity zones and in chapter 12.

4. Stasis and kinesis. Great additions, made the game more fun and allowed the player to get more creative with how to fight enemies.

5. Plot. I wasn't disappointed. If you are a fan of horrors like me, give it a try. Especially if you like Alien or Event Horizon.

Now as for cons.

1. Sound. Bugged sounds, mostly necromorph related. Let's say I was in a elevator, going from F3 to F1 and suddenly I hear something like a shriek, immediately turn around only to see nothing, everything as it was 1-2 seconds ago, then my HP bar on my suit gets chopped off a bit. And only then I finally see necromorph standing RIGHT BEFORE my eyes. It happened quite a few times, not very often, but it did. Ruined some very important moments for me. That includes Mercer scene with Hunter.

2. Guns. Everything else besides Plasma Cutter and Ripper for close quarters is utter garbage and barely usable. I don't want to write about guns for too long, I just simply found everything to be terribly weak even after upgrading it a bit. I stuck with Plasma Cutter all the way from the start to the end. Isaac's "bestest" friend in this game.

3. Eerie survival horror turned to CoD Zombies somewhere around chapter 9-10? It just got boring. Instead of this perfectly executed dread I've felt almost always up to that point, it felt like some cheap B-class horror shootout formula. It remained like that all the way to the end. I lost this "feeling", only waited for Ishimura AI to lock me in the room I was in and say "Quarantine initiated". Then the room got flooded with heaps of monsters and after defeating them all I was permitted to go further.

4. "Puzzles". Completely uncalled for. Too often and too annoying to be considered good. Why put it in such a game? I wasn't expecting Resident Evil/Tomb Raider puzzles here with horrible execution. I came to play on forsaken ship that got ravaged by alien life-form and to slowly unravel that mystery whilst trying to stay alive.

5. Enemies. Too little of them. Got repetitive after a while. Wouldn't hurt to add 1 or 2 more despite staying faithful to original.

6. Price. Thankfully I got to play it using EAPlay sub, can't imagine paying retail for this, even sale price is a bit too much.


Despite all of my negative remarks, it was a GREAT game, just not great enough as I've expected after first hour or two. Pros greatly outweigh cons, even if I have listed more cons than pros.

Very, very good experience considering the price. Final verdict would probably differ if I'd paid full price for this.