plagiarize
Banned
Dreadhalls impressions.
So yeah. They haven't improved the graphics and lighting much, but they have improved both. Also, it's not 100% setup for playing standing, but I'd still recommend it. With positional tracking standing and physically turning around seems to be less nausea inducing. You have to tweak the controls to make sure they are move in the direction you are looking, and I'd recommend snap turning for when you get tangled up in the cable.
Basically, I would remember which way I was looking. Turn so the cable was behind me, and then hit the back button to recenter, and then snap turn in game so I was facing the same way again. Doing this at the start of every area meant that I didn't have to really do it again during that area. It still beats playing it sitting down though.
What is dreadhalls though? Well it's a scary ass game. You have to explore a randomly generated dungeon filled with monsters and find an eyeball, which unlocks the next area back in each small hub. So far I played through the first hub up to the second, so about three dungeons if I'm remembering right.
There is no defending yourself, only running. Each monster has its own quirks. There are those you shouldn't look at. Those that your light wards off. Those that will attack you if they can see you so you need to turn your light off. Those who only see motion... etc etc.
There's one monster that Doctor Who fans will see the inspiration for that is especially scary. At least for me.
There's a story and a mystery of sorts, pieced together via various notes and by these weird stone faces who you can pay to answer one question. Your lantern consumes oil, and some of the doors you encounter are locked. You open them by holding down the A button to fill a meter. You can use lock picks to speed this up. You use these by waiting for two arrows to align and hitting RB. You can sprint for a while with RT but you will get tired and slow if you do this too much.
When you look down you will see a map that fills in as you explore.
There are these larger open halls in most levels that are safe areas where you can catch your breath and let your heart rate get back to it's resting speed.
There's also a mode that just throws you into a randomly generated map for when you want to make your friends suffer.
Graphically the game isn't much, but that doesn't undo how scary it is. The sound design is solid and I'm pretty confident that there is going to be at least one type of monster that's going to scare you. It gets very tense, but there are moments of release to help it from getting too much, although the randomly generated nature of the levels can sometimes leave you stuck between all sorts of nasties.
When playing it standing, you really need to stay on the spot as best you can, as walking away from where you last recentered just leaves your invisible body behind. You can lean to peak around corners, but since the lantern stays with your body, what's around the corner will be generally cloaked in shadow.
For ten bucks, and considering that there aren't any other horror games on the Rift yet, I'd say this one comes recommended to anyone who wants to test out how healthy their heart is. If you're prone to motion sickness play it standing with snap turning. Any game that can get me swearing outloud in the middle of the day is something I'm going to enjoy... but the only draw here are the scares, so if that isn't your thing, give it wide berth. If they are your thing, it delivers.
Alright, I've got to tidy the kitchen a bit, then I'll play something else. Probably Project Cars next.
So yeah. They haven't improved the graphics and lighting much, but they have improved both. Also, it's not 100% setup for playing standing, but I'd still recommend it. With positional tracking standing and physically turning around seems to be less nausea inducing. You have to tweak the controls to make sure they are move in the direction you are looking, and I'd recommend snap turning for when you get tangled up in the cable.
Basically, I would remember which way I was looking. Turn so the cable was behind me, and then hit the back button to recenter, and then snap turn in game so I was facing the same way again. Doing this at the start of every area meant that I didn't have to really do it again during that area. It still beats playing it sitting down though.
What is dreadhalls though? Well it's a scary ass game. You have to explore a randomly generated dungeon filled with monsters and find an eyeball, which unlocks the next area back in each small hub. So far I played through the first hub up to the second, so about three dungeons if I'm remembering right.
There is no defending yourself, only running. Each monster has its own quirks. There are those you shouldn't look at. Those that your light wards off. Those that will attack you if they can see you so you need to turn your light off. Those who only see motion... etc etc.
There's one monster that Doctor Who fans will see the inspiration for that is especially scary. At least for me.
There's a story and a mystery of sorts, pieced together via various notes and by these weird stone faces who you can pay to answer one question. Your lantern consumes oil, and some of the doors you encounter are locked. You open them by holding down the A button to fill a meter. You can use lock picks to speed this up. You use these by waiting for two arrows to align and hitting RB. You can sprint for a while with RT but you will get tired and slow if you do this too much.
When you look down you will see a map that fills in as you explore.
There are these larger open halls in most levels that are safe areas where you can catch your breath and let your heart rate get back to it's resting speed.
There's also a mode that just throws you into a randomly generated map for when you want to make your friends suffer.
Graphically the game isn't much, but that doesn't undo how scary it is. The sound design is solid and I'm pretty confident that there is going to be at least one type of monster that's going to scare you. It gets very tense, but there are moments of release to help it from getting too much, although the randomly generated nature of the levels can sometimes leave you stuck between all sorts of nasties.
When playing it standing, you really need to stay on the spot as best you can, as walking away from where you last recentered just leaves your invisible body behind. You can lean to peak around corners, but since the lantern stays with your body, what's around the corner will be generally cloaked in shadow.
For ten bucks, and considering that there aren't any other horror games on the Rift yet, I'd say this one comes recommended to anyone who wants to test out how healthy their heart is. If you're prone to motion sickness play it standing with snap turning. Any game that can get me swearing outloud in the middle of the day is something I'm going to enjoy... but the only draw here are the scares, so if that isn't your thing, give it wide berth. If they are your thing, it delivers.
Alright, I've got to tidy the kitchen a bit, then I'll play something else. Probably Project Cars next.
