Decay - Part 1 Hot

[THE GOOD]

- Excellent, very clever puzzles (I'm looking at you, television ninjas!)

- It's scary. Genuinely scary

- It's a great introduction into what I see being a wonderful series (when I'm not being so tight with my moneys anyway)

- Even after completing the game for a third time, I still found myself searching around the rooms for new and underwear-soilingly exciting new things. Trust me, I found them...


[THE BAD]

- For those expecting a little more, it might be a little too short


Graphics: (7)
Sound: (8)
Gameplay: (9)
Accessibility: (9)
Replayability: (7)


Now, we all know that I'm a big fan of point-and-clickers, but it's very rarely that I get to play a point-and-clicker in first-person perspective, unless it's Sherlock Holmes vs. Jack the Ripper, but I would rather wear vomit-laden Wellington boots for a week than play that failed abortion ever again. Decay - Part I, on the other hand, is fucking great! The game was released just over a year ago; I trialled it and thought the graphics were a bit poor, but enjoyed the point-and-clicking nonetheless. It wasn't until early this month that I decided to purchase the game, following a new-found love for Indie games, thanks to The Most Addicting Sheep Game. I'm still highly ashamed of myself for turning my nose up at it the first time around. To be fair, though, the trial didn't have many exploration opportunities, so only the full game could make up for this. The creepy, gritty, tense atmosphere is there right from the word 'go' and it never disappears, even while the credits are rolling. The feeling that almost anything could happen while your guard is down never dies, which is a pretty amazing achievement for a game; it's kinda like BioShock in that sense. However, the game is pretty damn short and can be completed in about fifteen minutes if you're that skilled at the game. That said, the game is more of an introduction to the series (which is probably why it's just 80MSP), as evidenced by the sexy cliffhanger ending, so it's not a particularly negative point that the game is relatively short. I just suspect that some players may get that "Wait, is that it?" feeling at the end. Astoundingly, for such a short game, I found the replay value to be pretty good. Even after beating the game a few times, I still found myself searching for itty bitty details that I might have overlooked during the last playthrough. I don't think I'll stop playing the game just for curiosity any time soon.

Buy, trial or avoid? A definite buy! Even if you're not a fan of point-and-clickers, the gritty, tense atmosphere is a wonderful alternative to lag switchers, rubble and sandbags. I highly recommend it!

Final score: (8/10)

For more reviews, ramblings and whatever else, please visit my blog: www.garygamesoup.blogspot.com

xx

DigitalQuarters's review covers it well so I'll just add this.

Overall the scares and atmosphere are great (scared me a few times :p) and the puzzles are fun to figure out. Sadly, it's a bit too short.

Even considering the length of the game, it's definitely worth checking out if you like horror games.

I normally don't dig the stereotypical "scary" forms of media. I enjoy the psychological or suspense type of scary (and usually crap myself in the process of watching them), but slasher films can bugger off. So when I had the chance to review Decay, I downloaded it with the hopes that the screens wouldn't be filled with pizza-faced immortals or generic morons in hockey masks. What I got instead was a genuinely suspenseful, albeit short, point-and-click adventure.

Decay is a puzzle/adventure game that reminds you of the PC gaming days before WoW and Counter-Strike. You start off with no memory in a bathroom after what appears to be your attempted suicide, and from there you work to figure out what's going on. Along the way, you learn a little bit about yourself, your family and a serial killer on the loose. No dexterity is involved, as everything is done either by pointing and clicking or by opening your inventory screen and THEN pointing and clicking. It really is a throwback to early PC days, and I mean that in a good way.

When you start the game, you're treated to a CG video of said self-hanging. This is the first indication that you're in for a dark visual treat. The stills, video and mood remind me of the early PS1 days of CG but considering this is a 240 MSP indie game that's not a bad thing by any stretch of the imagination. Things feel a little TOO dark at times, but luckily there's a brightness setting in the options that, once cranked up to 10, fixed that problem in a jiff. All in all, it's probably one of the better looking games on the XBLIG Marketplace. The sound received a good amount of detail as well, with a suspenseful soundtrack in the background and ample sound effects that seem to be at exactly the right volume at the right time to enhance the dark and creepy mood of the game.

There isn't much I can say about the control other than that it's exactly what you need for this type of game. A nice touch was the ability to speed up or slow down cursor speed with the triggers. It's something I didn't use often but it was nice to have. Otherwise, you have your menu, your cancel and accept, and your pointing and clicking.

If you didn't gather it by now, this game was meant to keep you in suspense. The entire way through, at least with me, it succeeded. I haven't played any survival/horror since Resident Evil 1 back on the PSX but I can honestly say this game had me on edge from start to finish. On the downside, that amount of time was 45 minutes or so, and that's because I was stuck on one puzzle for about 10 minutes or so (thank you, loving girlfriend, for figuring that one out). It's an interesting ride all the way through, but I can't help but feel it was too short, even as part of a series. The other issue I had with the game was with the various letters and newspaper articles you see throughout the game. It might just be me being anal, but my suspension of disbelief takes a bit of a dive the moment I start seeing newspaper articles with typos and grammar/punctuation errors, and with a game designed for immersion this can be a huge thing.

Even with the short game length, Decay Pt.1 was an entertaining and appropriately creepy experience all the way through. It's difficult to give the game a 100% recommendation due to how short the ride is for three bucks, but I personally am eagerly awaiting the next game in the series. I'll just make sure to play it during the day.