Game #1326: The Dark Pictures Anthology - House of Ashes

  Dare you enter.... the House of Bugs?

 Look, the Dark Pictures Anthology has always been quite buggy, but usually, pretty enjoyable. But how is it that The Dark Pictures Anthology: House of Ashes is buggier than any game in the series before it? How is it that using the same engine it gets worse?

 First of all, they removed the 'Faster Walk" function, which is already a step backward, but instead we get the "Walk even more slowly with a flashlight" function. If the flashlight is a Lighter it's even worse because it barely illuminates anything.  Oh, and the tedium of climbing a set of stairs? Jesus, why is it SO much slower?

 To add to this, this time around, the cast of characters is made up of five soldiers, and I'm not American, so I find the set-up boring and hard to care for any of the characters. At least the monsters are real in this one, so that's a plus, and I felt they were a very original take on vampires. The story does have a few decent moments, and Salim is the standout character, but otherwise? I didn't much care about these guys.

 It's a shame the game is so buggy. I didn't get through a single chapter in which at least one character wasn't missing at least one texture. There were floating objects everywhere, invisible guns during cutscenes, invisible objects altogether, at least one crash.... Any tension, any horror the game could've built was lost thanks to all these glaring issues. These games have always had their share of bugs, but this one takes the cake. Oh, and the Butterfly Effect menu that tracks decisions and consequences is all messed up, it's never been this poorly recorded before. How did they make the game worse? They've been using the same formula since Until Dawn.

 House of Ashes is a mess, certainly the worst of the bunch so far, and it sucks, 'cause finally the threats are a 100% real. The fact that I personally don't care about the military setup didn't help either.

 4.0