The Dark Pictures: Man of Medan

I have the "Until Dawn" video-game and I haven't played it yet, so the Man Of Medan is my first time with this developer and I have to say, it's a very competently made horror / mystery game.

I began playing it around 12am in the morning and kept playing it till 6am in the morning on the weekend, not a lot of video-games can keep you engaged for this long, it had a certain charm to it that kept me going through it relentlessly.

I am definitely looking forward to playing "Until Dawn" now, not only that I am looking forward to their next ini the series.

I would recommend it to everyone who likes story based video games, with a mystery / horror element to it, whether you ended it liking it up or not, is your personal taste, but as a video-game, it really hit good with me, plus it has multiple endings which would keep you engaged for a long time.

While it is not clear from one playthrough, the plot uses the gameplay to involve the player in the story and its consequences in a remarkable way. I found it moderately enjoyable the first time through the story, and found it to be much better than I initially thought after seeing clearly how the pieces fit together.

The game is good don't get me wrong, but it isn't like Until Dawn. In Until Dawn you became very attached to the characters, which is something Supermassive missed the mark on here. The story of Until Dawn also felt longer and developed characters more. Personally I think using more established actors would have helped make people more involved with characters. Part of what made Until Dawn feel amazing was you had NO IDEA what was going on, while Man of Medan feels a bit too straight forward. The nice thing about Until Dawn was that it was drawn out for suspense, while Man doesn't have as much. Another problem was that Man felt really confined and direct , oppose to the dark and long forest trails in Until Dawn which could harbour collectibles in any corner. On the positive note the graphics were cleaner especially on PC and the multiplayer movie function was a great idea (albeit needs a little tweaking). In the end the game is good and fun to play, but don't expect any GOYT edition. In the future Supermassive needs to work on character development, a more open feeling environment, and return to the horror movie cliches that we all know and love.

Following up from the smash-hit that was 'Until Dawn', Supermassive Games turned to the independent route and created their own "make your own path" horror game franchise, commencing with this very game. However, Until Dawn is the best and worst thing for this game - best as it simply wouldn't exist without Until Dawn but worst as it led everyone to wrong expectations, everyone expected another slasher story but that's not what this is - this is a ghost story.

The plot of the game is somewhat well-crafted as dives into interesting themes such as: paranoia and disenfranchisement of cultures following WW2, however the ambitious over-focus on alternating pathways with no thought of plot armour for specific characters in certain situations (which allowed Until Dawn to have a naturally flowing plot/pace no matter what you've chosen) is gone now - often leading the ending chapters of the game, especially the epilogue, to feel rushed, clumsy and unfinished. The big plot twist simply does the game no big favours, while it is clear what they were trying to aim thematically (with it presumably being a metaphor for how we create our own fears of a past we didn't witness), it simply doesn't work as good as just having a traditional ghost story would have done for this plot. It is also worth noting that despite there being so many ways for the lead protagonists to die, the actual feeling of trying to make the characters survive the night is gone as the game makes it really easy for the player to save them all.

However, on a gameplay aspect, I have no huge quarrels with the game apart from the fixed angle perspectives making it occasionally difficult to navigate your way through the ship. The character models and environments are all beautifully designed, perfectly convey accuracy while creating a perfect atmosphere for the game, the ship literally feeling dead and lifeless which is very apt, as well as some eye-catching aesthetics. Sadly, the facial motions of the character models are nothing to write home about as they are often very hit-or-miss which doesn't compliment the actually decent voice acting on display.

Overall, Man of Medan is a decent launching pad for the franchise and while the it isn't Supermassive Games' strongest, it is an enjoyable experience nevertheless.

I was VERY skeptical about this game! Kind of like when I played Until Dawn for the first time (and ended up loving it!) Medan Of Man wasn't perfect or anything THAT DEEP but it won me over in the end! It was fun, had some good scares and some subtle choices that had MAJOR consequences! Looking foward to the next one! Wow!