2/5 ★ – vr_'s review of The Medium.

Very torn on this one. The game started off pretty strong in the prologue, and the fixed camera angles were exciting, but it went downhill pretty quick bullet form things I didn’t like: - bad running animation and too slow - character narrates EVERY time you interact with something - the monster antagonist had a catch phrase, which made it goofy and annoying (and way less scary considering they had a good design) - gameplay was too linear It looked pretty neat, and had some interesting parts, specifically the latter ha, and I was at least invested in trying to figure out what the actual plot was. On the other hand, the gameplay was pretty slow and tedious, with too many button prompts telling you what to do, and the puzzles were so streamlined and linear that it barely felt like I was actually playing. For recent horror games I have played, The Medium had some of the worst sprinting. When your player “runs” they have the dumbest and wackiest animation which was also way too slow, making the game feel even more tedious. The extremely slow race walk movement also felt extremely out of place, given the situations characters found themselves in. Life or death situations, race against the clock, and your character slowly jogs as if they are on a treadmill of speed 1. The second playable character’s parts were way more interesting, and I personally preferred the parts when you were only in one of the worlds, rather than the split screen gimmick the game was trying to sell itself on. If you read enough reviews you will see some “controversy” on how it handled certain topics. I think it could have gone without those plot elements as they definitely were not necessary. My biggest issue with horror games lately is the overuse of voice acting. Nothing takes me out of the game more than my protagonist constantly saying stuff I'd never say, and in a way that is so unnatural. Marianne constantly is making one-liners, which given the context of the game and scenes feel very out of place. I’m not saying I hate when games are cheesy or goofy, but rather that there's a time and place for said goofiness. Leons “Big Cheese” one-liners in Resident Evil 4, an action focused horror game that is already pretty unserious and campy is very different than one-liners in a dark atmospheric horror game that with child abuse as a plot element. Annoying examples were Something falls “What the fuck?!“ After knocking down an enemy “stay the fuck down” Turning on lights “let there be light” Finding a medicine cabinet “vitamins, antidepressants. That's a lot of pills even by my standards” Too often modern horror games remove all tension from the scary elements by adding too much dialogue and constant unrealistic quipping. Sometimes I want to form my own opinions on the things around me, and get scared from a jump scare myself, rather than have the character tell me how scared they are. It has devolved into the horror game equivalent of a laugh track. For example, Marrianne finds a fuse moments after being chased and nearly killed, and her reaction is to say “Aww yiss” out loud. It's so hard to feel afraid or to keep tension when the characters are written and act like cliche action heroes. Based on the type of game this is, it is basically impossible to not compare it to Silent Hill. What made me relate to the characters in Silent Hill 1-3 so much is that they would have things to say about stuff, but just through silent text. In the Medium, hearing the character constantly monologue out loud in a tone that is not fitting for the current situation broke all immersion I had. In Silent Hill 3 specifically, Heather would have her own opinions on things, such as stating she doesn't like mirrors, or wondering why there's a creepy wheelchair, but the lack of voice acting let me read them in MY head as if I were thinking them or I could read them in Heather’s voice as if it were her innervoice in my head. This Isn't to say that I just hated Marianne, I just didn’t relate to her as much as Heather, as she would react in ways that seemed so bizarre given the context. The Medium left me super conflicted, as it was a valiant effort, bur in the end it didn't quite hit the mark and ended up being kind of a bore to play, There were some cool ideas, some interesting creature design and environments, however the negatives really made this un enjoyable experience overall i'm glad Bloober isn't doing that Silent Hill 2 remake lol