Republished on Wednesday twenty ninth June 2022: We’re bringing this assessment again from the archives following the announcement of July’s PlayStation Plus lineup. The unique textual content follows.
Possibly it is simply because our Dad allow us to watch Jaws once we have been six, however we have all the time been skeptical of the ocean. It is moist, and there is bizarre issues in there. Man of Medan – from Till Daybreak dev Supermassive Video games, and the primary in an anthology of horror video games falling underneath the Darkish Footage banner – sees 4 mates foolishly heading out to sea in search of enjoyable of a nautical persuasion, and discovering nothing however distress as a substitute. Significantly, do not go within the water, folks. No good can come of it.
Regardless of us shouting on the telly repeatedly to remain out of the damned sea, our 4 heroes casually sit round in a ship with no care on this planet, ingesting beers, and making clumsy passes on the salty French sailor woman they employed to be their information. Finally, they run afoul of some pirates – that is the Captain Phillips variety, not the shiver-me-timbers variety – and every little thing goes to pot. You’d assume being sea-mugged by pirates would ordinarily be the low level of your day, however by the point issues take a considerably supernatural flip, we’ll guess these children have been all wishing they’d listened to us and stayed firmly on dry land.
Over the course of six hours or so you may management totally different characters in Man of Medan, making selections that can have an effect on the entire group, and the story might be molded to fit your choices or lack thereof. In 2019, this is not precisely revolutionary, however the place Man of Medan – together with Till Daybreak – stands aside from a lot of the crowd is that no person on this sport is secure. You will get everybody killed in the event you select poorly, and that does lend the proceedings an air of hazard that retains you in your toes.
Sadly, in the event you do not care in regards to the characters then whether or not they dwell or die just isn’t actually of a lot consequence, and this is likely one of the huge issues for Man of Medan. Our heroes are available two flavours: personality-less, or profoundly annoying. And all the characters are cursed with genuinely, distractingly terrible dialogue.
Till Daybreak had equally cringe-inducing one liners and a completely unlikable solid, but it surely received away with it as a result of they felt proper at residence in a homage to the tacky teen slasher motion pictures of the ’80s and ’90s that impressed it. Man of Medan – whereas undoubtedly campy – is performed straighter than Till Daybreak, and so with out the sport seemingly being in on the joke, the flimsy narrative, paper-thin characters, and stunning writing are each extra noticeable and extra problematic. The one exception here’s a character referred to as The Curator: a well-dressed gent who pops up between scenes to let you know how properly or badly you are doing, and is the right mixture of creepy and charming.
One other difficulty for Man of Medan is that it is a horror sport which is frighteningly unscary. It takes an age for the story to get out of first gear, however as soon as issues truly begin taking place it quantities to little quite a lot of telegraphed bounce scares. There’s actually half a dozen totally different variations on you opening a door, or a drawer, or a locker, and one thing coming out. For lengthy stretches it is a narrative-based sport with out a lot of a story, and it is all very tedious, to the purpose the place we truly discovered ourselves deliberately attempting to make unhealthy choices simply to see if something would occur.
There’s additionally the technical points to contemplate. Man of Medan appears unbelievable at occasions, but it surely’s always besieged by framerate drops, freezing, and bizarre animations. We’re not being melodramatic right here, people. It is fixed. You will be watching characters speak and for a cut up second the visuals will freeze, however the audio continues with out difficulty, that means that the lip-synching is out for the remainder of the dialog. One time it froze throughout a QTE which resulted in one of many solid assembly a grisly finish, which was kinda hilarious, however clearly not proper. Facial animations are regularly sketchy, with one character particularly usually locked in a everlasting pout/grimace combo that appears totally weird. We have been even blue-screened on two events, and compelled to reload.
That is all beginning to sound slightly damaging, and that is as a result of we do not actually like the sport. However that is to not say it does not do something proper, or something fascinating. The inclusion of two totally different multiplayer modes may actually show you how to get just a little extra mileage out of Man of Medan in the event you’re the form of one that likes spending time with different folks for some purpose. You possibly can play on-line with a buddy – and solely a buddy, no randoms – in the event you so want, which sees you every taking management of various characters on the similar time, each making choices, however with the story basically unfolding as within the single participant expertise for essentially the most half.
Film Evening mode is a sofa co-op model of the sport by which as much as 5 persons are assigned characters to regulate, and the pad will get handed round between them on the applicable occasions. Whilst you may do that fairly simply with out having a devoted mode by simply handing your mate the pad, the sport a minimum of tells you when to cross the controller and who to.
Whereas we would not suggest Man of Medan for the story, scares, characters, or writing, in the event you like the concept of getting your buddies spherical, opening a bottle of claret and a pipe of Pringles, and having a large argument when your mate by chance will get his character killed as a result of he was Twitter on his cellphone, then the multiplayer modes right here may offset the weaker elements of the bundle.
Additionally worthy of notice are the array of extras Supermassive Video games has included right here. As you play via the sport yow will discover secrets and techniques which in flip unlock movies, starting from a brief documentary on the historical past of horror anthologies, to interviews with the solid and crew. These aren’t earth shattering, however they seem to be a pleasing addition, and you’ll inform that numerous care went into this, no matter how disenchanted we have been with the sport itself.
Conclusion
Man of Medan kicks The Darkish Footage Anthology off with a whimper slightly than a bang. The format has numerous potential, however this was undoubtedly the unsuitable story to showcase it. The narrative is slight and barely will get out of first gear, the characters are annoying, the scares limp, and the dialogue unnatural. There’s fixed technical hiccups. In actual fact, the scariest factor about Man of Medan is the way it ever went gold within the state that it is in.
