Dying: Reborn – Nekcom – Oasis Games – Out now on PS4/PSVR – 1 Player
Dying: Reborn is a PSVR horror puzzler, that will take you back to the B-movie style glory days of survival horror. As it’s designed for VR, obviously it’s a first person style game, but those of us who are not lucky enough to have any helmet based escapism, do not despair, as this daft gem of game is available in a standard version too. In a nutshell, Dying: Reborn, is a first person horror/puzzle point and click, with a voice cast to rival the original Resident Evil or Deadly Premonition. In fact it evokes memories of the original Resi Survivor game. Only without zombies.
The game’s antagonist is certainly one of the more elaborate in recent years, wearing a creepy fish head mask and terrorising you over pa systems and poor quality video feeds. Each level, or chapter, is basically a room or an area in which you need to use variously scattered items to progress, and these areas are often littered with as many mannequins as the Resident Evil 7 demo. The puzzles themselves can be pretty tricky at first, and can be as much guess work, as they are logic based problem solving, or figuring out clues. There were a few times where it felt like the same tricks were being recycled as some of the puzzles started to repeat themselves, but it is forgivable, especially when you overcome a particularly tricky conundrum. It’s got a heavy handed approach to jump scares, which probably work better if you’re immersed in its VR environment than playing through a TV, but it adds to the atmosphere, as do the grimy, dank rooms. Again, seemingly inspired by Beginning Hour (although it could merely be a coincidence due to the short time between the releases), there seems to be a stalker element to it, as well as manky rotting food left around in certain sections. One thing that’s quite amusing in the main menu, is when you choose an option, it sounds like you’re being beaten with an evil harpsichord.
The ending felt like a bit of a cop out, happening quite abruptly and leaves the characters fate to the imagination. It’s not a bad game for a budget release, and if you’ve got a soft spot for the aforementioned games, then this might scratch that cheesy horror game itch, and if you’ve got a few quid burning a hole in your pocket, there’s worse games to waste it on, but it’s far from top quality, especially with how long the game takes to load. Considering how big each chapter is, you spend a remarkable amount of time staring at the loading screen. If it were a movie, it would be one of those silly, but under appreciated gems you stumble across on tv when you can’t get to sleep at 2am.
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