If you are a fan of horror or thriller games, then Until Dawn is definitely a must-try in your gaming experience. When you are familiar with and like the feeling of the cinematic interactive means intertwined with the layers of fear in horror games, you will naturally hope that Supermassive Games can launch more games of the same type, so that your tense nerves will accompany the experiences of the protagonists and endure alternative and bizarre experiences again and again.
So, when Supermassive announced a new horror game in the Dark Pictures Anthology series a year ago, players who like this type of game have been looking forward to the new game with great enthusiasm. This time, the developers who are full of horror stories focused the first work in the series on a real event: the unsolved mystery of the “Medan” in 1974. The combination of truth and falsehood, reality and fiction adds an attractive luster to the game.
Do what it does best: put on a good movie
As the opening game of the entire series, The Dark Pictures Anthology: Man of Medan focuses on a mysterious ship. A group of young people who love exploration and diving accidentally boarded this ghost ship by chance, and thus a thrilling and terrifying journey unfolded in front of the players.
Interestingly, the game does not directly present the experiences of the five young people to the players at the beginning, nor does it let the players choose who to play. Instead, it cleverly uses the flashback method commonly seen in movies. It first draws the players’ attention back to the World War II period, and shows the “previous life” of the Medan through the perspectives of two American soldiers, and then uses the camera to pull the players back to reality to start the official game journey.
Throughout the entire “The Dark Pictures Anthology: Man of Medan”, rather than saying that players are playing different roles to explore the entire freighter, it is better to say that players are more like observers or recorders, constantly switching from long shots to medium shots to understand the story. There are even some shots that directly switch from long shots to close-ups, which on the one hand strengthens the players’ sense of participation, and on the other hand highlights the deeper attempts of “The Dark Pictures Anthology: Man of Medan” in filmization, and there are not too many complicated operation designs in the game. With just a simple operation of the joystick or buttons, the setting of the advancement process can be completed, and the players are more like watching a movie that they can deeply participate in and interact with during the game.
The game character modeling is very detailed, making you feel like you are watching a movie
The reason why “The Dark Anthology: Man of Medan” is called a “movie game” that allows high participation and interaction is that, in addition to the relatively simplified operating system, the exquisite picture quality, rich dialogue scripts, and the QTE system at the core of “horror expression” are the key points that support the appeal of the entire game.
From the Until Dawn series, Supermassive has shown players its ability to control the details of the game. On the one hand, this is reflected in the fineness of the game modeling, and on the other hand, it emphasizes the depiction of details. For example, when the character’s face bleeds or is scratched in a certain position, the character’s clothing changes, and the use of light and shadow effects to achieve the purpose of scaring, etc. Especially when players pay more attention to the dialogue choices and the thrilling effects brought by the QTE system, these details have become the heroes who raise the overall texture of the game, and it is easy for players to indulge in it.
It is highly recommended to choose the “Don’t play alone” mode
In addition, the “Never Play Alone” multiplayer mode created by “The Dark Pictures Anthology: Man of Medan” is also worth trying. In this mode, players can choose between shared mode and multiplayer night, that is, online two-player and 2-5-player local multiplayer modes. In shared mode, each player will play a character in the game. The interesting thing is that two people will play the game at the same time, but they don’t know each other’s choices. This asymmetrical interactive experience has appeared in “A Way Out” in which a grumpy brother participated at the previous TGA, and it was very useful. It is also quite suitable for this game. The experience of exploring with another player deepens the player’s fear and tension in the game.
The game’s “Multiplayer Night” mode, as the name suggests, is that players play different roles and constantly pass the handles to complete the entire game process, allowing the virtual characters to be mapped to real players, so that they can better immerse themselves in the game.
The actors perform hard under the exquisite skin
Death is an eternal topic
Since this is an interactive movie game that focuses on interaction, the QTE system almost replaces the traditional gameplay mode and becomes the only expression of interaction, exploration, and horror in The Dark Pictures Anthology: Man of Medan. If the dialogue system brings a design that has a subtle influence on the plot and the fate of the characters, then the QTE system in the game more directly shows the players the results of every decision made during the game.
The heartbeat QTE that calms you down will make your adrenaline soar
In the game, QTE is divided into several different interaction methods. One type is the quick key pressing requirement that requires players to react extremely quickly, one type is the continuous quick pressing of a certain key, another type is the feedback mode of moving the crosshairs to the exact position and then pressing the key, and there is also a very innovative heartbeat mode that presses the key according to the character’s heartbeat frequency and rhythm.
These four QTE systems basically constitute the interactive gameplay with all emergencies in “The Dark Anthology: Man of Medan”, and have also become the most direct source of fear and horror in the game.
Your every choice will subtly affect everything
Well, with the rich scripts and the dynamic changes in the relationship between the characters generated by the dialogue choices, and the QTE system that can most directly affect the direction of the game, all of this is a foreshadowing of the “sudden death” in “The Dark Pictures Anthology: Man of Medan”, especially in the middle and late chapters of the game, every dialogue choice made by the players or the decision made when the QTE system is fed back will directly affect the life and death of teammates. This is also the most critical reason why the official emphasizes that the five characters may die or survive in the game, and players need to go through the game about 8-9 times to experience 69 different ways of character death. In terms of quantity, the numerous side quests and death experiences are definitely worth the price of the ticket, but it is unknown how long the monotonous QTE can keep players going.
I have to work harder to make it more terrifying.
So, can we say that The Dark Pictures Anthology: Man of Medan is a groundbreaking horror game? Actually, not really. In addition to continuing some of the brilliant designs in Until Dawn and inheriting the studio’s interactive film-like interactive language, The Dark Pictures Anthology: Man of Medan, as a horror game, still leaves regrets in some other important experiences.
You know what’s going to happen in almost a second.
The first and foremost thing is that the horror elements in the game are too old-fashioned, both in terms of method and visual presentation. After a series of foreshadowing in the early stages, “The Dark Pictures Anthology: Man of Medan” gives people a feeling of “wanting to scare me just like that”, and as time goes by and the game content deepens, this “sense of powerlessness” runs through the entire game.
Secondly, in terms of the control of plot rhythm and character relationships, “The Dark Pictures Anthology: Man of Medan” also appears to be very trivial. Since the sorting and maintenance of dialogues and character relationships have become the main gameplay content of the game, the players’ attention is diverted from the horror story carried by Man of Medan itself. Coupled with the old-fashioned scary methods, a game that was originally worthy of in-depth experience has become a somewhat crappy second-rate thriller horror movie.
The survival of all characters is a very rare experience and worth the challenge.
In general, if you like thriller or horror games, and are willing to spend a lot of time to study all aspects of a horror story, then “The Dark Pictures Anthology: Man of Medan” with a lot of side quests and realistic experience is highly recommended for you to experience. But the game still has flaws that cannot be ignored, and I believe that the next work in the “The Dark Pictures Anthology” series will do better.