As soon as I finished the first game, I knew I was coming back for more. It would be serendipitous to make this choice as gog put the whole series on sale, however, and a twist of fate I was NOT going to say no to. Now another chapter is complete, and this series is on an upswing! Come inside!
Story: If you remember the events of the first game, you remember that for one investigative journalist everything started with an anonymous email tip about what the Murkoff corporation was actually doing in the once abandoned now reactivated Mount Massive Asylumn. But that was not the beginning of this story. Not by a long shot, and the man who wrote that email, one Waylon Park, certainly knew that. In just the two weeks he had spent there he saw more then enough to have to act.
What he did not know, however, was just how bad Murkoff's experiments were making things or how much they kept him separated "for his own good." When he decided to be a whistleblower and send that email, he would learn the hard way as his now ex-boss submitted him to the experiment as well... just in time for control over it to be lost.
This basic setup will place you in the roll of this poor software engineer who grew a conscience at the worst possible time for his own survival and his subsequent quest to escape the asylum. And like the main game, the story will be a pretty linear affair through this adventure. Unlike the last one, however, you are pretty much on a single track quest to escape where other characters don't so much give you new objectives (for or against) so much as universally become the new main obstacle impeding your journey. You will meet a few familiar faces for a brief moment, but really these are almost cameos as two new monstrous enemies take I want to say around 3/4ths of the time as the main antagonists. The first is threatening enough, but you will find his writing very hammy and, once his intro was over I found myself more laughing at him then anything else. It was the last one that really pushed the "holy shit this guy is a monster" envelope beyond even what we saw the first time, but to explain either more is to get into that spoiler territory I do not wish to.
But overall, this is a nice little slice of "what else was going on" which simply falls brilliantly into place.
7/10
Graphics: As this is a DLC and not a stand-alone game, you can expect the graphics to basically be on the same level as the main game: It is an atmospheric first person horror that is old enough to have been made in Unreal Engine 3 during it's heyday. And while this will limit the game from looking anywhere near modern, it looks shockingly good with well detailed and animated characters. Unfortunately this time around you have a lot more "normal" characters starting the adventure with you, so expect that creepy "it looks about right, but it looks dead" effect characters of the day tended to.
But sometimes those limitations work in the favor of the game too. In this case, the last real threat you will meet legitimately takes full advantage from the first second you see that terrifying grinning face. And outside these two extremes, everyone will look every bit as good for this extra slice of play as they did in the first one.
And the world it takes place in equally so, especially as in that case, you are basically looking at many of the same places. True you won't visit all of them and you certainly won't in the same order as the main game, but you will see a slice of a lot of it, and it all looks as good and decayed as you remember. Once again, welcome back.
8/10
Sound: As to be expected, the lessons about how sound should work in favor of horror were not lost on the devs between the main game and this expansion. All sounds in this game point to just how vulnerable you are. From the sound of your own bare feet padding along everywhere you go (and making harder noises if you run) to your heavy stuttered breathing and heartbeat when a real threat you should be aware of is nearby, the feel of terror is again palpable.
But it shouldn't just be you you are listening for. That seems almost used to heighten your senses and get your adrenaline ready when things are about to go really bad, both a great hint and a way to mix up the dread. You are, however, listening for literally anything else. There will be noises who's presence will make you stop and say "oh shit" cause you already know exactly who it means is nearby. EXCELLENTLY DONE.
And then we can get to the music score, which again, is absolute masterwork. I do not believe a single tune will stick with you past clicking to leave the game, but the tensions, mystery, and dread they bring to the table are fantastic, each mixed perfectly for the scene you hear them in.
Still the star here is often the voice work. You can expert some babble from various inmates you share this adventure with. However, consider it background noise. The real star here is absolutely the final antagonist of the adventure. From his first syrupy-sweet statements when laying eyes on you to his care-free singing as he basically skips through his murderous ways like a true psychopath, he is absolutely perfect and his voice acter REALLY needs a standing ovation for just how unsettling he made it all.
8/10
Gameplay: Once again, if you've played the original title (and if you are reading this, why have you not? Seriously you can't even run this without it. It's DLC, after all), you know what to expect. For those new, this is a first person horror/survival at it's core. You will not have a weapon. You will not have an inventory. What you have are very human limitations and a camcorder you found when the accident in the lab happened, letting hell literally break loose. With this limited gear, you will navigate your way across the very suddenly abandoned and evacuated grounds of the asylum looking for your own way out.
You will have no way to defend yourself, but while the option to hide is often offered, it is rarely needed. Most of the time sneaking works well enough spiced with some planned baiting to move whoever you are trying to avoid to a better location out of your way. Nor are you going to be doing a lot of item-searching or flipping switches and the like this time around either. In fact you will count (outside batteries) all the items you will actually use, you can do so on one hand with plenty to spare. This time around it's almost all navigation and outmaneuvering your would-be assailants to make your way out. Still that works as this is a relatively short experience (I finished it in a scant few hours).
But you will need that camera during the journey, for much like the original, it has a night-vision mode which will be invaluable due to some of the darker and environments you will need to navigate from time to time. And just as before using this mode will eat up battery, so the more sparsely you can use it, the better. Although times you need it seem a bit more scarce as well for this DLC, making that aspect a lot less tense this time around, not that this game needs extra tension, especially for it's last act.
8/10
Bugs: Much like the original game, this one ran very well, if not perfect. I hit a few bugs along the way which I will need to report:
- Game freeze: This happened exactly once in my entire time playing, but just before my last session before the end of the game, I Alt-Tabbed out of the main menu so I could share the session with some friends over Discord... and the game froze. It didn't just crash and was easy to clear however, as it refused to let go of the desktop, so I ultimately had to reboot my PC to try again.
- Getting stuck in the bushes: This also only happened once, but there is a map outside I was basically trying to use the chain-link fence as my back to the wall... and I got stuck in the bush along side the fence. Ultimately I got out as I slowly floated away from the bush, but, it was annoying.
- White steam: This was just a weird graphical glitch but sometimes steam effects appear as a white outline just before filling in with the transparency to represent the steam blast. It's rare, but you can't miss it when it happens.
Digital Rights Management: This game is actually DRM free. Even on Steam, the game is only using it as a delivery system. There is no DRM here to worry about.
Source: PC Gaming Wiki
Score: This is an absolutely well made DLC. It really doesn't give anything from the main game away, but rather plays as a parallel story of another survivor of this madness: This time that of a man who saw the evil going on from inside and tried to warn the world what Murkoff is really up to, only for it to cost him having a turn living through the nightmare as punishment. And as such, this is perhaps an even more horrific, if much shorter slice of that Hell. If you are a horror game fan who isn't squeamish, this is going to be one hell of a ride. But again, especially during it's final act, this one is going to turn a few people away.
8/10
System Requirements:
- 2.2 Ghz dual core CPU
- 2 GB RAM
- NVIDIA GeForce 9800GTX or ATI Radeon HD 3000 series with 512 MB VRAM
- Windows XP (64-Bit)
- 2 GB of Hard Drive space
System Specs:
- Ryzen 7 (5700X) 3.4 Ghz
- 32 GB RAM
- AMD Radeon RX 6650 XT (8 GB VRAM)
- Windows 11 (64 Bit)
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