The Dark Pictures: House of Ashes

Pros:

-Visual -Characters more well written than the others games of Supermassive Games

• Various QTE

-An interesting love story between Rachel, Eric and Kay -some of the characters have a real personnalities and make them lovable

• Some interesting secrets

-can be funny (most funny in the beginning when the scare is not there yet) -Dialogue (Fun, dramatic, opinion, build relationship) -some scenes in the cave can be quite anxious and have some tense moments (due to the proximity of the camera and a very close point of view of the character) -simple gameplay -Randolph Story -some memorables deaths that make us wonder the fair decision of our choices

Cons:

-An end that feel a little bit rushed and precipitated in the writing i mean

• too much actions (can be boring during these scenes)

-Some choices make us wonder of their real impact in the game (the impactful choices are just for to survive with a character thats all and not make him die)

• a beginning without scare or any mysterious ambience that make us wonder of the genre of this Video game

-Short -The story is not very complex and lack of depth -Characters well written but way too simple and already seen in other movies -simple gameplay: no new mechanics

• i found the story of the monsters not very interesting and the sci fi that their bring are not the most thrilling part in my opinion

The game also remember me a lot of the Descent, the movie. Can be entertaining but lack of complexity and should be more long.

Originally I had completely trashed this game since I got the casual plot development, that is at the end of the day only one of the playable characters survived, and that unfolding was fairly tedious, boring and made the game look like it lacked any spark or commitment.

However, after playing The Quarry, coming from the same SuperMassive Games, and absolutely loving it, I felt kind of guilty for downgrading the House of ashes, so I decided to try another playthrough, instead this time I aimed for saving every playable character, and it did the trick, leaving me pleasantly surprised.

This is exactly why I strongly recommend you do the same with your very first run, or even if you felt disappointed like myself, don't give up on this game, re-play it, saving everyone, and you'll like it quite a bit, to say the least. To get the job done, it is mandatory that you set the difficulty settings to easy/forgiving for your first time around.

One more thing to keep in mind early on is, it starts off pretty weak and slow, but I personally could forgive that, since Resident Evil Village had the same issue, but eventually redeemed itself. So don't get your hopes too high up until halfway into the game or so. The game is pretty long, so don't worry, you will have all the time to enjoy it later, just be patient, enthusiastic, and give it a chance.

As I unlocked more plot developments required for different achievements, I can confirm the script variations for this game are pretty ample and dense, hence, if you want to get the most out of it, you better go for platinum.

Definitely the best game in Dark Pictures Anthology series.

So good in fact, I'm gonna revisit the previous 2 entries before playing the Season One Finale.

Well done, SuperMassive Games!

Looking forward to playing The Devil in me.

The Dark Pictures Anthology: House of Ashes is a survival horror interactive drama video game developed by Supermassive Games and published by Bandai Namco Entertainment. It is the third of eight planned instalments in The Dark Pictures Anthology series, following 2019's Man of Medan and 2020's Little Hope.

After playing the first game in this series, Man of Medan, despite some issues I enjoyed the game and was looking forward to where the story would go next. Little Hope, however, was rather disappointing, taking an interesting turn in the series but a rather dull result overall.

House of Ashes however has restored my hope in the series, the story is better, the characters are more fleshed out and interesting and there is a lot more action in an interesting and creepy environment. Visually the game is stunning, with detailed creatures and a realistic setting. Paired with great voice acting and a stellar performance from Ashley Tisdale.

Overall, I found this game to be the best so far in the series. And the next game looks promising too. Hopefully, it's onwards and upwards for this horror anthology.

This third installment really shows the growth and love that Supermassive has given us horror fans. Man of Medan was fun, Little Hope had the best jump scares and House of Ashes is probably my favorite story line. The visuals and the ease of gameplay have really improved. I am never bored with these games and as an achievement hunter I played about 4 play throughs of this one to get 100 percent and honestly was sad that it was over. The others took a few more but that is not me complaining. As fun as it is to see the different outcomes, the other games seemed to give way less leeway when failed qtes came in to effect. House of Ashes definitely exceeded my expectations with the over all relationships, qtes and story. I also enjoyed that they added a difficulty level so that when I play with my friends that don't game as often, have an easier time keeping their character alive. This has become one of my favorite series and I cannot wait for the next one!

THE DARK PICTURES ANTHOLOGY: HOUSE OF ASHES (2021) is a really great installment to the series. I personally enjoyed this one more than Man of Medan.

The characters are all pretty interesting and some were compelling enough. They all had original personalities and back stories and I appreciated the (Non- Western / American) story of Salim as well, giving more depth to the geographic region the story takes place in.

"A group of American marines comes across an underground nest of pure, ancient evil while trekking through the Arabian desert."

As per my usual, I played this game with a group of friends and it thoroughly entertained us. While not super scary, it certainly held tension and offers a very cool story (and creature). Fun trying to make split second decisions and keep your characters alive. A great installment in the series!