The Dark Pictures: House of Ashes

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!

After two installments that did not convince, House of Ashes makes the anthology start to get interesting, since it makes its story, characters, location, script and gameplay the main component of its good opinions. What I liked is that this time the threat is real, and not "it's all in your head", and with this he even manages to pay tribute to Until Dawn. This will be for me and for all the first game in the series going forward. Surely thanks to all this you will be able to calmly enjoy the previous two with another opportunity, as here everything is real and the previous ones are not, it is not to complain. I already hope next year the fourth game "The Devil in Me" because it will be very brutal and bloody.

1. It was fun, campy (the usual for Supermassive) and I never got bored.

2. Took me about 2-3 hours less than the new Resident Evil game.

3. Cost me half as much as the new Resident Evil game.

I say it's a win.

House Of Ashes is personally my favourite installment to derive from the Dark Pictures Anthology. It cleverly crafts its daunting antagonists, but also offers its five central characters depth and exploration. Like previous installments from the franchise, choices and actions determine your story, which the game extends on remarkibly, adding bigger want for replayibility. On the other hand, due to these decisions, some characters will never equally recieve the same likeability as others in one playthrough, resulting in desinterest for few players. As for the story, it has vastly inproved and contains great engagement into its chilling atmosphere even despite the odd campy dialogue scattered throughout. There is area for improvement, which I hope the next installment, 'The Devil In Me', follows through with. Either way, House Of Ashes is an 8/10 from me.

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.