Also available on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Xbox Series X, and Windows Devil in Me is the most recent of the Dark Pictures Anthology games and the end of their “season one” games. It actually introduces some minor gameplay changes over the previous three Dark Pictures Anthology games, but it’s still pretty much the same general gameplay as the others. That’s not necessarily a bad thing - “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” after all - but playing them back to back to back does start to feel a bit stale despite having totally different stories, settings, and characters. Still, though, Devil in Me offers an interesting story with some really compelling choices the player has to make. It’s the story I found least interesting of the Dark Pictures Anthology games, but it’s got the choices that left me second guessing myself the most. You play as the film crew for a small production studio that’s making a TV series documentary episode about H. H. Holmes, often considered to be America’s first major serial killer. During a meeting to watch a cut of the episode, Charles, the owner of the studio, gets a phone call from a mysterious man who claims to have inherited from his uncle a recreation of Holmes’s infamous “murder castle” and a lot of original Holmes artifacts. Charles convinces the other four members of his team to spend the weekend at the man’s island hotel and shoot new footage to really improve the episode. When they get there, though, things go from odd to weird to downright suspicious when a figure dressed as Holmes starts appearing. The big gameplay change here is that each character has an equipment ability that only that character can use. Charles can use a card to unlock drawers, Jamie can fix electrical equipment, Erin has a gizmo to hear distant sounds and conversations, etc. If a character dies too early, you may not be able to use the equipment needed to perform some task later on which could put other characters in peril. It’s a fantastic element that wasn’t present in the other games, but it unfortunately isn’t enough to keep the game itself feeling fresh. I can’t even put my finger on what specifically is holding it back. It looks great. Voice acting is fine. The story itself is interesting, and the premise’s roots in the 1893 World’s Fair is fascinating to an American history teacher like me. I guess the kicker for me is that there’s nothing supernatural about this story unlike the others, and the characters are less interesting to me than in the other three games. On paper, this should be a smash hit, but in execution, it just feels so-so. Devil in Me wasn’t exactly a high note to end the first season of the Dark Pictures Anthology on, but by no means does that make it a bad game; it’s just the least good of the four. If it were the first Dark Pictures Anthology game you played, you’d probably leave with a much better opinion of it than I have. I’m glad I played it, I’m glad it’s on my PS5 shelf, and I can readily recommend it to those who enjoy choice-driven horror games and haven’t played this one before, but I’ll definitely not be going back to this for another playthrough any time soon if at all. My Rating - B |
I'm a teacher.And I like to play video games. I like to collect video games. I like to talk about video games, and I like to write about video games. During the day, I teach high school history; during the night, I spend my spare time gaming. Then I write about it. Archives
May 2024
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