The Inpatient: PSVR Review
Released by Supermassive Games
Platform: PSVR
Until Dawn was a great title.
A clever one that used the Butterfly Effect to branch its DNA through the core gameplay, its horror edges made you feel like you were part of a film, albeit watching a scary movie from the sidelines.
Buoyed by the commercial success of the multi-narrative game, Supermassive Games have returned to the world they created with this prequel that's set within Blackwood Sanatorium, a place very familiar to those who experienced Until Dawn.
Taking the part of an amnesiac patient, you get to be part of the Sanatorium's world and scrabbling desperately to retain the important memories needed.
In many ways, it's the stock standard use of horror tropes throughout, and the deployment of VR to provide the requisite jump scares.
But yet, The Inpatient manages to use the microphone of the VR to help you engage with the game - with other NPCs reacting to it as you choose which of the dialogue options you want to voice (the branching narrative of the game itself) and placing you in more abject terror as time goes by.
Much like the first Until Dawn and the VR spinoff Rush of Blood, The Inpatient's graphics are excellent, a clever and deeply immersive etching of faces which bring the world vividly to life.
As emotions drip through the characters, you'll find yourself more engaged with the goings on and may actually find yourself completely lost in the world within and the quest to get your memories back.
The game may have a short run time (a few hours, which is probably good given the VR experience generally) but the encouragement to play again and follow different paths make it worth a second run through.
There are a few movement issues here and there, but nothing that's not in keeping with what VR is experiencing and with the technology struggling to map a virtual world and unnatural movements.
But all up, The Inpatient is another sign that experience is important for VR.
(Now if only they could move away from so many horror games and develop it a bit deeper in terms of entertainment, this truly could be VR's year.)
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