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Review by Jonathan Stark
October 27, 2009
The game starts in what I think is supposed to be a typical college dorm. It is dirty and filled with alternative rock. Girls want to screw every guy that talks to them and get giggly about water beds and Barry White. Best of all, when people get together to party hard they sniff tea. Yes, that’s right. Sniffing tea is the latest campus craze. Didn’t you hear?
Then, of course, all hell breaks loose. One second students are rampantly sniffing tea, the next they are in the middle of a graveyard watching some hideous creature murder the dorm girls. One might think this a fairly effective manner of warning gamers of the dangers of drugs, but we find out later that these monsters have been spawned due to something much worse...
... sexual promiscuity.
Corey is just such a promiscuous student. He’s your typical tea sniffer who recovers instantly from hangovers by drinking energy drinks and who likes to scale buildings in his free time. His girlfriend is an Asian hottie who is “sweet as sour candy” and “a hardcore gaming fanatic.” Those are quotes from her bio, by the way. Here’s another one: “Life is the most thrilling game of all to Mei, and her favorite playing partner is Corey.”
These are only two of the fabulous characters who will be under your control in Obscure: The Aftermath. There’s also a suave blonde named Sven, a dumb blonde named Amy, and a ton of characters made up of varying degrees of cheese from the first game. Believe it or not, the stupid characters enhance the experience. Watching Corey or another one of these prunes get their faces eaten is always a pleasurable experience. Good thing, too, because it will happen a lot. Dying is pretty common in Obscure. Also common is the feeling that dying wasn’t your fault.
Don’t get me wrong, combat is not complicated in Obscure. You hold down the trigger button and jam on the x button, hoping (a) that the game has selected the right target and (b) that it is close enough for you to hit. The main problem with this? Enemies are extremely maneuverable while your character has the dodging power of the Titanic. If you equip a gun, things are a little more destined to go in your favour, but ammo is scarce and you’ll probably want to save it for the really tough enemies and bosses. Saving ammo isn’t anything new to the genre, nor are stiff combat controls. But forcing players to fight nearly every creature they come across is an unwelcome newcomer.
I remember one instance in particular when I was climbing across a narrow ledge, unable to use a weapon, and was attacked by flying ghosts. The game forced me to drop down and fight them before I could continue on. On a positive note, you should know that this was frightening as hell. Obscure does not fail to deliver in the scare department. The sound is extremely well designed with random scrapings, moanings, and bumpings keeping you jumpy even in the emptiest of rooms. In this particular instance the game was playing some of the creepiest music I’ve ever heard, something along the lines of Celtic children’s choir music backed by an insane violinist. When the ghosts started screaming at me from off screen I commenced shitting my drawers.
That's the thing with Obscure. Despite the poor story and combat annoyances, there are a lot of shockingly tense scenarios that save the experience. My favorite was when you have to control a character from the perspective of a grainy security camera. Not only did it capture the terrifying pre-set angles of yesteryear in an agreeable fashion, but you continually have to adjust the camera’s dials to keep the screen from snowing over with static. Another scene that comes to mind is one where you are trying to get an elevator moving while a monster charges at the open doors. These scenes kept me on my toes for the whole experience and make me feel obliged to recommend Obscure: The Aftermath to Survival Horror fans. But it’s a recommendation that comes with baggage.
For instance, you might want to consider getting the PS2 version instead. Graphically it can a little difficult to spot some of the items on the PSP's small screen. Also, PSP owners will have less of a chance to try out the co-op functionality that the game is so clearly designed around. In Obscure, you rarely travel alone and will quickly learn that the computer AI is a poor companion. If you give them a gun, they’ll go through your sparse ammo in a matter of seconds. If you don’t give them a gun, they’ll rush the enemy with whatever melee weapon they have and cost you all of your health kits instead. The PS2 gives you an easy out of this uneasy partnership if you have a second controller and a friend. The PSP version requires that friend to also own a copy of the game and, while I can definitely recommend picking up Obscure once, I can’t really recommend picking it up twice.
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Most recent video game reviews written by Jonathan Stark
Mega Jump (iPhone/iPod) [February 09, 2012]
Metroid: Other M (Wii) [November 02, 2011]
Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep (PSP) [November 02, 2011]
Fallout 3 (PlayStation 3) [November 02, 2011]
Portal 2 (PlayStation 3) [April 26, 2011]
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