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Until Dawn
PlayStation 4
Dawn Can’t Come Soon Enough.
2/5 stars
“Until Dawn” is the type of Chris-would-love-that game that I would normally be content to ignore to the point of pretending it doesn’t exist. Unfortunately, due to the fact that Chris-would-love-that and the fact that the PlayStation 4 (a.k.a., the PortStation) doesn’t have very many exclusives, let alone good ones, the MJ Crew ended up ‘playing’ this little non-game as a democratic experience where Chris held the controller but Nick and I voted on all of the choices he would make.
“Until Dawn” is an Interactive Movie developed by SuperMassive Games and published by Sony (thus it will never appear outside of the PlayStation ecosystem). Originally, it was intended to be a PS3 title with a cross-generation port on the PortStation, however, the original vision of the game was scrapped and it was redeveloped as a PS4 exclusive instead.
Presentation
Really, all “Until Dawn” has going for it is its presentation. And even that isn’t as grand and glorious as PS4 proponents would have the world believe. The polygon engine that the graphics are based on is competent, but for a ‘next-gen’ game that focuses entirely on being visually stunning, there are still far too many lingering artifacts from gaming’s past, such as occasional jaggies that cause edges of objects to glow, stiff character animations, and male characters whose arms seem ape-like in proportion. The environments, for the most part, do look very impressive, with excellent use of lighting and extremely high quality textures. Characters, however, look noticeably worse. Each character is modeled after an actual actor – though the only one I recognized was Brett Dalton from Marvel’s “Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.” – and their faces and facial animations look fantastic, with none of the lip-sync issues for dialog that are so common. However, they all walk like they’re slogging through hip-deep mud and all of the male characters appear to be constructed of a series of ill-fitting cylinders. The female characters all have oddly-plastic-looking butts and the fact that all but one of them are nearly-indistinguishable generic blondes made it very difficult to keep track of who was who. The few scenes in which animals appear demonstrate that SuperMassive didn’t bother to do any significant work on models that aren’t based on actors, as these critters look like something out of a PlayStation 2 era game (especially the wolves). Seriously, we should be getting cinematic games in the 8th Gen that look like CG movies!
The audio is… mixed. The soundtrack is so weak and understated that I can’t say I noticed any music playing most of the time. On the other hand, the voicework is very well-done due to the fact that all of the characters are portrayed by actual Hollywood actors instead of anime dubbers or rank amateurs.
Story
As a specimen of the Interactive Movie sub-genre of Adventure games, “Until Dawn” should be expected to have a fantastic story. It doesn’t. Instead, it’s a fairly by-the-numbers teenage horror trope that sees a group of obnoxiously privileged teens encountering horror at a remote ski lodge.
Taking place one year after the disappearance of two of the clique’s friends after a practical joke gone wrong, “Until Dawn” plays out a predictable horror story with two fronts: one manufactured and one supernatural. The manufactured horror angle was incredibly easy to see through, and I predicted its outcome before the halfway point of the game. The supernatural horror angle is a bit less predictable from the beginning, but after a few key reveals the ultimate twist is so predictable even Chris figured it out.
The only redeeming quality of “Until Dawn’s” story is the fact that the player can collect clues scattered throughout the course of the ‘game’s’ narrative that really help flesh-out the backstory without hitting the player over the head with it. Collecting each clue unlocks a segment of a backstory video as well, with static obscuring the portions for which the player hasn’t obtained clues, which is an interesting angle to take. However, it is these very clues that make the story’s twists and ultimate outcome so predictable… yet without them the entire thing would just be a 10-hour sloppy mess.
I can’t say I found any of the characters to be likeable or memorable. Nick and I never even referred to them by their names, but by inappropriate nicknames we manufactured for them. One of the key components to making horror media meaningful is for the audience to want at least some of the protagonists to survive their ordeal. “Until Dawn” completely failed in this respect.
Gameplay
Gameplay? What gameplay? “Until Dawn” is an Interactive Movie that stands among the likes of “Heavy Rain” and “Beyond: Two Souls.” It’s almost a Walking Simulator it is so devoid of interactive content. ‘Playing’ “Until Dawn” ultimately comes down to three things: QuickTime Events (QTEs), branching decisions which almost always lead to the same outcome, and hunting for glowing motes that help the game’s many clues stand-out from the background clutter.
Basing an entire Adventure game on ‘Press X to Not Die’ is one of the worst concepts to come out of modern (7th Gen and later) gaming. Even worse is the fact that some of the QTEs in “Until Dawn” require the player to hold the controller perfectly still for a long period of time, which seemed impossible for Chris to do, though I have read that this is an issue with Sony’s hardware that can be mitigated by turning off the force feedback feature of the Dual Shock 4.
“Until Dawn” is meant to be played multiple times, so players can experience all of the minor, minor differences in the story, should they make opposite decisions or biff all of the QTEs and get everyone killed. Of course, the only reason to even care about these insignificantly different routes through the story is the fact that many of them have Trophies tied to them.
Overall
“Until Dawn” is an Adventure game with no puzzles, a trope-riddled story, and an underwhelming big-budget presentation. For the super-massive amount of money SuperMassive and Sony obviously spent on this project, and the fact that it is a full-priced ($60) retail release, the lack of content is simply unacceptable. “Until Dawn” is definitely not an exclusive system seller for the PS4, and most people who prematurely bought PS4s already would even be advised to stay away. Only horror fanatics who like cheesiness and predictability and don’t care about value for their money should even consider this title.
Presentation: 4/5
Story: 2.5/5
Gameplay: 0.5/5
Overall (not an average): 2/5
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