![]() ![]() But clearly that wasn't the end of it, with another bunch of teenage dirtbags finding themselves trapped in a living nightmare thanks to trendy new 'drug' that takes them on the kind of trip they wished they hadn't embarked on. The game's set two years after the first one (which in itself is curious, given it's three years since the original Obscure.), with life seemingly back to normal after a mysterious plant wreaks havoc with the populace of a high school and kills almost everyone within it. Listen to Iron Maiden babyīut with emerging Dutch starlets Playlogic picking up the publishing duties, Hydravision has had a second chance to establish its mini-niche with another intriguing attempt at teen horror, co-op style. But with a title that positively screamed 'self-fulfilling prophecy', the game slipped under the radar completely. Complete with drop-in-drop-out co-op play and light-based combat, it made a pleasant change to play a Western horror game for once, after all the super-serious, arty Asian horror we'd been immersed in for years. ![]() Released by Ubisoft on PS2, Xbox and PC way back in 2004, it was a pretty decent stab at applying the teen horror movie formula to a gaming context. Think back two or three years and we were pretty much spoiled for choice, with two new Silent Hill games in quick succession, three Project Zero games released in just over three years, a fantastic Resident Evil renaissance, and a ton of other interesting titles vying for attention.Īnd it's in among the likes of Haunting Ground, Forbidden Siren, Clock Tower 3, Cold Fear, Call of Cthulhu and Condemned that you might find Hydravision's forgotten gem Obscure. The random and jumbled locals we get here worked horribly.There was a time when gamers with a fetish for horror could enjoy a new blood splattered title every few months. I thought the “trapped in the school” format worked really well for the original game. That, and the gameplay sucks, and the story is terrible, and the basic level design is disjointed and chaotic compared to the first game. It just doesn’t work when the deaths in the story essentially have no meaning, resonance, or purpose to the player. And yes, I know we are trying to immulate a slasher movie here, but based on this experience I’d say there are real big problems with making playable characters that are essentially as expendable and pointless as your axe murder’s cannon fodder. ![]() New characters are introduced to replace dead ones, which serves the dual purpose of making me feel like the party doesn’t matter and making not care at all about finishing the story. Meanwhile, the characters that do survive, including the ones from the previous game that I liked, take actions in this game that I found completely unlikable. This game I found all the likeable characters died off early, even while they created sequences that made you think they might live. But you could keep them safe if you were careful. The danger was real, if you lost a player you lost them for the whole game. Obscure 1 was a good game because there was little things in character interaction that allowed me to grow attached to most of the cast. I think the main problem with this game is that there is no chance of liking any of the characters. I don’t post here too often (eg- ever) but I wanted to throw in my two cents. I’ll admit though, Obscure 2 did have writers who thought they were transending the genre somewhat with the teen suicide angle (and the obviously designed monsters based on teenage fears), but with the rest of it, they obviously knew what they were brought in to make. Let’s face it, Obscure 1&2 isn’t original in the slightest (expect for the 2up mode), but it knows its limits unlike a lot of survival horror games out there. Sure, the gameplay is very tired and familiar so it has every right to be criticised. I don’t think you should ever hold it against Obscure for doing that. While games like Resident Evil and Alone in the Dark 5 are trying their best to prove to you that they’re works of narrative art (sadly, I was really disapointed by AITD’s paint by numbers plot), Obscure just puts out these stereotypes and lets you play out an interactive version of The Faculty. ![]() I can’t understand why people can’t get their head around the fact Obscure revels in its b-movie roots. You do know all the characters and situations are intentionally cliched, right? ![]()
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