The Park

This is more of an interactive novel, or a new way of story telling than a game per se, so don't expect shooting action or anything like that. This is rather a trip into a Stephen King novel. You also get extras for The Secret World (the MMO) and if you have played it before you will have a wide grin about all the little hints and learning more background infos, since this plays in location that is also part of the MMO. Expect 3 hours playtime, this is how long it took me to finish, but it was intense and every minute nailed me to my seat.

You can beat this game in an hour. It's much more suited to a youtube playthrough, in my opinion. This is a walking simulator, and a short one. Atmospherically, this game succeeds incredibly. This is creepy, atmospheric, and well designed. But that's the kindest words I have for the game. It's predictable, endearingly similar to Silent Hill 2, and answers very few questions. I was very confused until I learned it was based on the MMO the secret world, so I guess you'll enjoy it more if you've played that. They really should advertise this as an MMO tie-in instead of a standalone game at one hour of gameplay.

This is potentially a short game or a very short game. From around half an hour up to 3 or 4 hours. Depending on how long you spend you can make the game experience as bad or good as you want it to be. Your task is to find your son that at the start runs away from you in an amusement park. From this starting point you can run after him, from start to end without reading any of the notes and do any of the "cutscenes" that will gradually tell the backstory of the park, of you, your son and your family. If you decide to skip all these notes and cutscenes, then the game will be pretty boring as you basically will not understand most of what happens and certainly not why it happens. And the game will just be a walking simulator with a couple of jump scares. That said, most of the limited number of jump scares are fairly easy to predict if you actually pay attention. However, if you do take the time to look for the notes and read them you will gradually get a better understanding of what goes on. And the atmosphere of the game will be much better and gradually more creepy, and in the end you might end up with more questions than answers when you eventually reach the end of the game. The difficult part here is that some of the notes are posters on the sides on shacks, or littered on the ground, or just books in a bookshelf or table, and some notes change text as you walk around in fairly similar locations, and thus many are very easy to miss. But if you buy this game, do yourself the favour of taking the time to read the notes and watch the cutscenes. You will get much more out of the game then.

A single mother has lost his son inside a closed park. She needs to find him but what she would live in her journay will not be..... a walk in the park! I am sorry for the pun but i I had it in mind since I have start playing "The Park", and it stuck with me till the end. In fact I had just thought about this pun that the game was already over for how short it is. As the title of the review suggest, the game disappointed me. First of all, aside of few moments, it did not scared me that much as I expected. I was looking for an unnerving experience, in which sounds and visuals are the tools for create eerieness but it was barely effective due to sometimes sequences too short without any build up. The story, even if interesting in some point, it is also was quite predictable and, if you are into horror, you can see where it is going. Technically speaking it is quite good, with quite impressive graphics. I really appreciate first person games like this that actually allows you to see your full body, making you feel really inside a body and not just a floating camera. What I really liked was the voice acting: it is rare to hear such a good acting in this kind of games. The main character's voice actress is top notch and I was amazed by her talent that, for me, almost saved this rather dull experience. The way she changes tone while calling her son or during her numerous inner monologues really captured me. There are few moments in which her tone clash with the situation, but overall it is an amazing acting job. Unfortunately, the acting still can't save this game from another major problem: the lenght. The game is short, I finished it in less that 2 hours and it left me quite perplexed especially because I felt like things where finally getting really intersting. It felt like if the developers were in hurry, which explains why the scary moments are short and not very inspired. Overall I don't feel like reccomending it, at least not on full price. Wait for a price drop.