I've had a note on my calendar for
most of the year reminding me to play Lone Survivor during October
for Halloween. Fortunately I've had the opportunity to play a lot of
scary-ish games during the Halloween season, as you may have noticed
if you look at what I've reviewed in October. Lone Survivor is
certainly the most horror-ish of them all.
You play as a young man who appears to
be the only person left who hasn't turned into a monster in his
apartment building and possibly the whole city. Information about how
we got into this situation is sketchy, as there is no one to ask and
the main character's mind is starting to slip, both in memory and his
perception of reality. The game constantly has you questioning if you
are hallucinating certain experiences. The disease that turned people
into monsters almost sounds like the more sci-fi elements of many
zombie movies, but you have to call either that theory or your mind
into question when you start seeing more and more bizarre things
happening.
In the game, you walk around rooms and
hallways in 2d using the direction buttons or the left stick. If you
go through doors (by pressing X), you are now in another hallway or
room you can walk around. The view may not stay consistent, but your
character's left and right do, so you have to orient yourself by your
character's new position on the screen. This allows you to follow the
maps that you pick up and can view by pressing circle. For example,
if you know you want to go left once you enter a door, you need to go
to the character's left, not your actual real-life left, as the two
may or may not sync up depending on the new 2d vantage point. This
sounds counter-intuitive but works fine once you understand it.
You typically are given a location you
need to get to on a map, and you explore your way through rooms and
hallways in an effort to get there. You can search through rooms by
pressing X in front of things of interest. There are many items you
can pick up, such as food and tools that help you out, plus lots of
other stuff. Many areas are dark, so you'll need your flashlight,
which you can turn on and off with square. Triangle pulls up your
inventory, where you can select tools to use, eat food, and look at
stuff you've collected. The main character will often comment on what
he is feeling or needs. For example, he might say he's hungry, so you
might want to eat some food. Or he might say he's growing tired, and
you might want to make your way back your apartment to sleep. There
are no meters or stats governing hunger or fatigue, but when the
character's running comments start to become more desperate and the
screen starts to distort, you are going to feel some motivation to
take care of him for fear he might be approaching a bad fate. These
elements of the game almost become a bit of a life simulator, as you
spend a lot of time making sure you get a good night's sleep, a nice
cup of coffee made up in the morning, and making sure to scrounge up
some half-way decent food so that you don't have to resort to...
unpleasant... alternatives.
The monster's roaming the halls can
sometimes be avoided. You can lure them to a section of the screen by
placing rotten meat down and then hiding in the shadows by pressing X
near certain background areas that allow you to hide in them. Rotten
meat can be placed by holding L1 and pressing triangle. A few other
items are hot-keyed into this L1 menu as well for your use. Holding
R1 pulls out your pistol. When it is out, X fires it and O reloads
it. If a monster sees you, it will attack you, and you will die if
you take too many hits. A lot of these fights are intense as multiple
monsters might spot you if you turn on your flashlight at the wrong
time. You'll struggle to fire at them and reload as they charge you
and attack.
Lone Survivor is a 2d pixel-art game.
The characters and backgrounds are made out of big, chunky pixels.
It's drop-dead gorgeous and pretty unique looking, like a living cross-stitch pattern. There are a lot of
environments, items, and characters, and they all look great in this
art style. Particularly great are the grotesque monsters roaming the
halls of your apartment building. They are really horrific, and fit
perfectly into the pixel art style. You can't see details in the
pixel art, and that is kind of the point with these monsters. There
is something terrible going on with them that you can't quite figure
out. Something you can't quite perceive.
The sound design is also amazing for
these creatures. The sound of them walking around, and especially the
sound of them eating, is terrible to hear and really establishes the
mood. The music contributes to the atmosphere too, switching from
hopelessly low-key sounds to disturbingly optimistic sounding
depending on the situation.
The writing is also very solid. The
main character almost constantly narrates his mood and needs and
comments on everything. This gives you a great feel for his state of
mind and body, and what he thinks about all the stuff he witnesses.
Between the art, the sound design, and the writing, the game is a
near perfect depicter of its intended mood – desperation, fear, and
mental breakdown.
That's not to say the story is that
great. The one big flaw with the game is that the endings are pretty
weak in my opinion. I didn't get too much out of them despite the big
potential to do interesting things with the settings and characters
that are so well presented along the way. That said, there is one
element of the endings that is really special. It's shocking the
first time you see it, actually. Obviously, I can't say what it is. I
was thinking about alluding to what it is, but I won't even do that,
please check it out for yourself.
The journey is very important in
stories like this, so it's not the end of the world that the endings
didn't live up to the potential that was there. This is a game where
I had some true empathy with the character, where he would sometimes
say things that I was thinking in my head as we both witness some new
horror or experience. Very few games have done that too me. There is
a lot to discover and see, and you are right there along for the ride
with this poor guy. The general loop of exploring, discovering,
trying to take care of your mind and body, and desperately avoiding
and fighting monsters is also very fun. That's why Lone Survivor is a
great game, tier 3. It would have been tier 2 or higher if it could
have pulled together something special in the endings too. Still
great stuff though.
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