Happy Halloween, Virtua Ghosts! The Ghostly Month of Virtua SPOOOOOOOOOOOOOKIES!!! nears its end, but it's been a fun ride thus far. We're looking at horror in its rawest form today so let's SPOOK OUT!
If there was ever an influence to first person survival horror, it was PT in all of its cancelled glory. The Playable Teaser for Silent Hills, which Konami seems to regret bumping off now, brought us into an actual world of creepy terror and showed us that games did not need to be especially long in order to get under your skin. While we lament its passing, we have been gifted with many in its wake. Layers of Fear took that premise and put it to some good use. Here, you're looking over a mansion that seems to have belonged to a painter, and as you find clues around this very creepy mannor, you begin to uncover just how obsessive one can get in order to create art.
Layers of Fear brings you into those hallways with a sense of dubious caution, but there is a refreshing hesitance to it at first. This starts out as a slow burn horror game, making it to where the truly horrific things don't occur until you unfurl the painting that you will be putting together. Every single item on the list has something to do with creating the painting. There is skin with which to make the canvas and there is blood with which to create the red.
It doesn't just go for jump scares, although there are a good number of instances as such. There are also burning and rotting rooms that you watch decay in front of you, sounds in the many crevices of the house, pictures that suddenly move and puzzles. Yes, this is a puzzler, but they don't get out of control with how to solve them. Usually it just takes walking around the room to find the instructions or it's just a common sense puzzle that brings you one step closer to the next item for the painting.
There are some brilliant instances of scares, like when hallways suddenly disappear behind you and now there's a wall with a tiny painting on it. The room with the record player that you need to play backwards is also a memorable addition to some of the better parts of the game, the earlier levels. It's also a lot better when you don't know what the painting is at first. As you bring colors to the canvas, the artwork begins to paint itself and you're left guessing what it could be. These are the better aspects of the game and the ones that work well with the story and scares.
The DLC, however, only gets worse. You've already done the painting and gotten through the house, and now it wants you to complete a story book. These are some of the most mind numbingly boring segments of the game. By now, Layers of Fear has given you its best in the ways of survival horror, and these on-going scares and cinematic puzzles just stop doing it after a while.
Layers of Fear is worth playing through to completion, but dealing with everything after that is a bit of a chore. It's worth revisiting the earlier levels to get the game's full effect, but after a while, you'll figure out which parts of the game are your favorites. There's still a lot of good horror material here and it successfully can be considered one of the better haunted house survival horror. That is much trickier than it sounds because many have attempted it. Give Layers of Fear a try, especially in the Virtua Month of Ghostly SPOOOOOOOOOOOKIES!!! Hope you all have a safe holiday and are ready for some of the colder temperatures. Remember to visit haunted houses responsibly and bring holy water.











 
 
 
