Last week I was looking for a horror game to play, hoping to whittle away a couple of occasional hours of complete boredom, and what I got was a game so awesome that I couldn’t stop playing for four days straight. By the time the game was finished, I was really hungry and I badly needed to do chores. (Although I’m still not doing them until I’m finished this review)

The plot centers around Ethan Mars, the father of a child who has been kidnapped by the critically acclaimed ‘Oragami Killer’. Ethan has only four days to find his son, Shaun, before he drowns in a trap involving rainwater. In order to save him, Ethan must go through various trials, most of which would make Jigsaw from the Saw series blush.




During the game there are also three main supporting characters also looking for the Oragami Killer. Scott Shelby, a private investigator with a sidekick who is also a prostitute, Norman Jayden, an FBI agent whose investigation might go a little more smoothly if he wasn’t also trying to kick a drug addiction (he does have access to some cool futuristic technology as well) and Madison Paige, who um…looks pretty. And has her clothes off most of the time.



That being said, the plot is very innovating, and the voice acting is some of the best I’ve ever heard. In addition, the graphics of the game also look amazing most of the time-again, easily one of the best I've ever seen. Unfortunately there is one aspect of this game that fails-the actual gameplay itself.

From start to finish you will only play the game in Quicktime events. For the uninformed, that basically means that during a movie, you will be prompted to push a button on the controlled. Push the button, you pass, push the wrong button, you fail. This game will forgive you a little bit from time to time if you fail, but both the wrong buttons and choices in the game will affect the ending. For example, if any of your characters die, then the story will continue without them. I know to a gamer that doesn’t really seem like a game, (more like a long movie) but for what it’s worth, there are enough Quicktime events to keep you occupied.




A bit of a warning-this game does start off very slow. After the first hour, however, most of the game will have you on the edge of your seat.

FINAL GRADE: 4 1/2 out of 5. I would love to give this game a perfect score, but the slowness in the beginning is really annoying. Plus there are some scenes that could have been edited out. For example, one character has the very tedious task of making scrambled eggs, and his houseguest doesn’t even eat them! What’s up with that?

Guess I should do some chores now…grumble…hey wait a minute…I still have to play Dead Space…