Game #872: Until Dawn

 No celebrities were harmed in the making of this video game. But I'm sure they tried!

 It's no secret that I hated it when videogames started to turn into movies, when they started sacrificing gameplay for cinematics. Until Dawn is a QTE paradise that tries to be a Hollywood slasher flick and even got a few famous actors(Hayden Panettiere, Rami Malek), and their likenesses, to play some characters. It's one of those games that goes against everything I like in a game, yet managed keep me invested.

 Throughout the game you'll play as 8 different teenagers, 4 boys and 4 girls, who find themselves harrassed by a mysterious psycho while trying to party on a secluded mansion on top of a mountain... during a snowstorm. It has some slasher elements, some supernatural elements, jumpscares and all the cheesy dialogue you could hope for. The story itself is alright and the dialogue is pretty bad, usually in a good way, although a few of the quips and one liners felt TOO out of place, even if they were going for pure cheese.

 The fun part about the game is how many decisions you can make. Some will affect how characters treat each other, and some choices will have a bigger impact on the story than others. Most characters have quite a few scenarios that could lead to their deaths if you're not careful. It is entirely possible to have all 8 characters die, although, on the flip side, all 8 characters could survive if you make the right choices and don't mess up the QTEs. While they claimed that the game has about 100 endings, that's not entirely true, what they mean is that there are a ton of variations to the ending depending on some of your choices and which characters survived, factors that change what the survivors, if any, have to say at the end.

 My biggest issue with the story itself is how not every character gets equal screen time. Mike, who seems like a side character, gets the longest segments, and in my opinion, some of the most important ones. Sam, played by Hayden, seemed like the protagonist, but she is behind Mike and shares as much screen time and importance to the plot as Chris. I can't even remember the name of the fourth guy, the one that isn't played by Rami Malek, because he gets so little screen time. And sure, some characters' limelight could get turned off early if they died, but still, there's no reason as to why it's so uneven even in the best case scenario in which everyone survived.

 So, here is how the game works:

5% of the time you'll have to stay still in order to 'hide'.

10% of the time you'll be picking between two choices(Although, sometimes, doing nothing is a choice).

10% of the time you'll be pressing QTEs to survive.

75% percent of the time you'll be slowly walking from A to B

 That's the game in a nutshell, a lot of very sloppy walking around. You can hold L1 to walk faster, but it's still pretty slow. To be fair, you can explore around, if you wish, in order to find hints as to what is going on, and, in some cases, discovering some evidence may alter the way the story proceeds. You can also find Guidance Totems that will 'hint' of events to come. They are too vague to be of any help, and some of them might even work against you(Turns out not keeping the flare gun was a mistake), so just collect them for completion's sake, but don't worry about them.

 The game was made with Playstation's Move(Remember that Wii-mote knock-off?) in mind, so there are quite a few motion inputs. Thankfully, you can turn most motion controls off, pretty much anything that isn't 'keep joystick still to survive'. Using button prompts means you'll be using the R2 trigger a whole lot in order to grab objects you may come around, and then using the right analog stick to turn it around.

 Truth: The gameplay is an absolute bore. But, on the flip side, I think the game offers an interesting premise. There's this whole Butterfly-Effect motif going on, and so the game will warn you every time you made a choice(Or sometimes the consequence of failing a QTE) that will make a significant change in the future. This also makes it easier in future playthroughs to know a few variables you can play with. Mind you, the brunt of the story never changes, how characters get divided never changes(except if someone is missing because they died) but there are some fun variations in how things play out, heck, some characters could even end up as a couple if you play things right, to make your choices interesting. Oh, and the auto-save is pretty nasty, so if you mess up there's no going back.

 Until Dawn is like a decent slasher movie, not very memorable, not something to write home about, but a fun time nonetheless, and it can be fun even on repeat watches, or in this case, playthroughs. And in this case, you've got the incentive to, since things might not even play exactly like they did before!

 7.0