I am not a particular fan of the horror genre. And it’s not about because, they say, scary, no. The fact is that the heroes who fell into non-standard situations behave as if their brains consist of jelly. And there is no need to write that it is not known how a person will behave under such circumstances, that the brain can turn off fear and chop a person. All this is nonsense. The decalpers of adrenaline, which will enter the body, make people get concrete slabs with their hands and run faster than they have ever known. This is how a person works, and the brain in particular, at the time of danger.

• Plot
• gameplay
• for the results

So, watching from the side of the frank dullness of the heroes of the horror films is dull. Moreover, their behavior is simply annoying. But then films. Another thing is computer games. Here the hero is actually a player, and the first-person camera for more immersion, and the logic of actions should be more thought out. After all, we are a central character. We decide what to do in a particular situation. Yes? Hell no! Not! Developers will be decided for you, and you only play the role of a brainless doll, which should unravel the next delusional mystery of the designer from the indie studio. Today we’ll talk about the Madison horror, which receives a lot of positive reviews from players in Steam, but in fact it is a medium-sized lousy screamer.

Plot

As if in some dull anime, you play for a teenager for 16 years. His name is Luke-an extremely rare and non-standard name for video games. Usually you are given to play for some next Alex, Brian or John there.

The game begins with the fact that Luke comes to his senses in some kind of dumb room with a working TV, illuminating the room. The door is closed, but someone is breaking into it very persistently. Either this is your grandfather, or father, it is not completely clear. In any case, we must somehow get out of the room. Nearby there is a break in the wall that is closed flipped in appearance of the boards. But no, onions cannot break them-apparently, by his 16 years he had a little porridge, and looked more than the Chinese pornoals. We have to look for some improvised means. This is a hammer. As a result, you get out of the room in a dark gloomy corridor (I love you, Kish!) No less dumb than that room at home. The game has begun.

Luke, as it should be, so as not to explain anything, does not remember anything. But in the process you will learn that this house belongs to your relatives, grandfather and grandmother lived in it. The house, I must admit, is not very small, has an attic and a basement, in addition to several bedrooms, a living room, a dining room and a couple of portals to another dimension.

In addition to the hammer, in the first room (you will no longer return to it), Luke will find photos of severed limbs (Hello, Peter!), And from that moment the boy will begin mental parishes. It is clear that it is necessary to get out of the house, but it is not clear how. The hammer in the hand and the old glass windows obviously do not lead to the simplest thought to knock the glass and escape through the window, from which irritation begins to grow in your soul. And well, the developers would have worked hard to beat such an obvious moment, explaining everything with some demonic barrier around the house, but no. You walk past a huge number of windows, but the hero will never occur to the hero to break and escape. But this is only the very beginning of the game!

gameplay

So, in front of you is the horror in the first person. According to the plot, you need to get out of the house, but instead of concentrating on the key task, Luke is constantly distracted by all sorts of nonsense, like noise and rustle around.

You are doomed to roam the room to the room in search of various objects and tips, what to do next. Along the way, you will surely come across the next audio cassette or grandmother’s diary, from which you will learn that there is a natural damn thing around with a generic curse, a terrible ritual and a demon named Blue Siz. But this is still far away, and now you are surrounded by continuous screamers. And this is a very weak part of the game.

Even the master of mystical thrillers, Stephen King, used to say that a good horror movie should be created by discharge of the atmosphere, sazpiens, and anxious expectation of something nightmare. And not with the help of a smile b-oo-o-o-o-effects, like jumping out of the darkness into your face of monsters. Such a trick acts on a person once a maximum, and if they repeat him a good half of the game, then the player will openly begin to miss him, yawning in a full mouth. And so it turns out at Madison-the first crew is good, really. From him, his hair immediately stands on end. You take a pause in the game to translate the spirit, contemplating the ESC menu. But if this is repeated ten times, twenty times, only one thought remains in my head-when will this despondency end?

In general, this is the feeling that several people worked on the game on their own, without intersecting and without discussing various details. After all, Madison is quite capable of giving out atmospheric sections of gameplay, when various unnatural sounds spread around the house, or my favorite in the game is a restless statue, begins to wander, suddenly appearing in the most unobvious places and disappearing, you just have to turn away. But there will be very few such moments in the game. But there will be a lot of dull scamers.

One of the key chips of the game is the Polaroid camera that can take instant pictures. She was so PR, but in fact it turned out that with the help of this device you would solve simple puzzles or activate the next creeped portal. Well, at the end of the game, you will still have to withdraw the demon with the help of a flash when he starts to rewell on you. True, at the same time he is noisy like a steam locomotive, so his appearance cannot be called unexpected.

Some riddles will make you stop and break your head. No, they are not solved by logic, but with ordinary guesses what was in the head of the designer who invented them? Fortunately, there will be few such moments. Most puzzles are reduced either to finding the right place for photography, or to endless running in search of the desired object.

But the most terrible moment in the game is a limited inventory! Luke can carry only eight items with you at the same time, and you will meet them much more in the way. At the same time, there is no logic in the distribution of things. Pockets are completely equally clogged with bolt cutter, shovel and hammer, without binding to dimensions. Because of this, you have to regularly run to the safe and put into it those things that are not needed right now. And if everything is clear with audio cassettes-I listened and threw it away, then the purpose of some other things is far from obvious. For example, I did not use the shovel, pushing her the whole game! Why did you come up with an object that turned out to be unnecessary for its passage? For what?

for the results

And what in the end? Is Madison bad? No, not bad. The design of locations (houses, cemeteries, cathedral and others) is made at a very decent level. Sound accompaniment is also very, very good. The plot is quite intriguing, it is interesting to read the stories of a witch, a demon and understand that Luke has already managed to dismember one of the relatives.

But, unfortunately, Madison does not cope with the main task-he cannot really scare the player. All that is enough for it is dozens of scamers from whom it is drawn to yawn. I did not regret the seven hours spent on the game, but you will definitely not lose anything if you decide to miss it. 6.5 points out of 10. Frankly, I can’t understand why the game has 85% positive reviews. Because of the price?

Liked :

• Sound creates the desired atmosphere.

* Graphics and location design.
* Story.

Did not like:

• Dull scammers.
• Illogical riddles.
• The frank stupidity of the protagonist.