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First impression

Until Dawn is a game every gamer knows for sure. It was a hit right away with the new style of gameplay of choice-making, sometimes even giving merely seconds player to make a critical choice. That what was the magic of the gameplay and story with twists and reveals that I didn’t see coming. Supermassive Games comes back with Man of Medan, which is first game of The Dark Pictures Anthology. Can Man of Medan reach as high as Until Dawn?

Story

Four friends goes to search untouched wrecks in South Pacific. They rent a boat with a captain, but everything doesn’t go as planned and they end up in a huge adrift ship from WWII. They soon find out the ship is haunted and they are in danger.

The whole story from start to finish in Man of Medan was great with twists and outcomes that I wasn’t aiming. I played the game two times, first picking the choices I would naturally do and that ended up killing two of my characters. The second time around I knew the plot and did choices I would not normally do and I almost ended up saving them all, but a little thing towards the end made me do a bad choice and one character died.

The story can be ruthless and it changes a lot depending of the choices. I have no idea how many endings and outcomes there are, but I believe the variation is big. For story part I love the way everything was presented, but playing this many times in a row to get all possible outcomes might get boring quickly.

Gameplay & Controls

Man of Medan’s gameplay follows footsteps of Until Dawn, and why wouldn’t it, because the way the previous game was played worked fine. Everything is like an interactive movie where player have ability to make choices and move characters around. The time to make a choice isn’t limitless and I think players should learn that sometimes not saying or doing anything is key to success.

Control-wise everything was little clunky side. It has feeling of a little delay and it was rather awkward to move the characters around. Because everything is on fixed camera angle and jumping suddenly from angle to angle takes me back to 90’s Resident Evil -games. Still, this is the best way to show the story and the gameplay. The camera angles were placed very neatly and sometimes it felt like the player is a secret onlooker hiding in the background.

Graphics

The character models are beautiful and very life-like. The way they move and speak was very realistic, but sometimes they looked kinda stiff. Some characters’ facial expressions looked half-dead at times, which was funny. Perfect Man of Medan was not, but for the PS4 console/hardware, this is the top notch.

Sound

Voice acting in Man of Medan is very Hollywood -movie quality and it’s one of the strongest aspects in the game. The sound effects and music was nicely done, but the jump scares was something that got me in the beginning, but started to feel overly used after certain point. With the all audio together I cannot say anything negative, but rather super positive.

Difficulty

Yeah, this is a part that I was thinking how am I gonna put it. It’s not difficult to play this game, I promise that anyone can play this, because the controls and gameplay is very simple. The difficulty comes at the quick moments, where player has very little time to make the choice, and of course the QTEs. I somehow got used to that I always have to make a choice and when I learned that I don’t, it was already too late and someone died. The main goal is to get everyone out of there safe and sound and all player’s choices have consequences. There’s the difficulty; making choices between emotions and logic.

Last impression

Man of Medan sai kyllä minulta erikoispaikan, aivan kuten Until Dawn. Olen varma, että The Dark Pictures Anthology tulee olemaan menestyksekäs tulevaisuudessa. Yliluonnollisen kauhun ystäville tämä peli on pakko-ostos, tai oikeastaan kenelle tahansa, kunhan osaa pitää ohjainta kädessä ja uskaltaa sukeltaa pelin kauhuiseen kummituslaivaan :)

Man of Medan will get the same special place in my heart, just like Until Dawn. I can see The Dark Pictures Anthology being very successful in the future. For supernatural-horror lovers this is a must and for anyone who can handle the controller and dare to enter into the horrifying ghost ship :)

I highly recommend The Dark Pictures Anthology – Man Of Medan.

Review copy provided by the publisher

 

   

RELEASE DATE: Aug 30, 2019
GENRE: Horror / Adventure
DEVELOPER: Supermassive Games
PUBLISHER: Bandai Namco
PLATFORMS: PlayStation 4
Xbox One
Microsoft Windows

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