Review for The Inpatient. PlayStation VR game, the video game was released on 23/01/2018
After the success of Until Dawn, many expected a sequel linked to the events told in the first chapter or something that followed the narrative style, perhaps with some in-depth analysis linked to the story of those young people unaware of their destiny. Supermassive Games has instead produced The Inpatient, a product playable entirely with the PlayStation VR. The title turns out to be a prequel of what is told in Until Dawn, in which the mechanics are in some ways similar but in others completely different.
Welcome back to Blackwood
The game is set in the Blackwood Sanatorium, a bleak and scary place that Until Dawn players will surely remember. The events are placed in a time span that revolves around the mid 50s, a period in which the sanatorium had begun to admit patients with mental stability problems. In the first chapter, set about 60 years later, you could already easily find clues about the Wendigo and the episodes relating to cannibalism dating back to 1952, where there was talk of some miners who were welcomed in the sanatorium after a very serious accident. During the continuation of the events of The Inpatient we will be made aware of what happened in the same and some episodes will easily come to mind, such as the reception of miners in the sanatorium and the problems that ensued, all experienced in first person and with terror on the shoulders.
In The Inpatient we will play the role of a patient, of whom we can choose sex and skin color, who does not remember anything of what happened before his admission to the Blackwood clinic. Our first meeting is with a doctor who starts asking us questions and encourages us to search our subconscious for any trapped memories. Shortly after we find ourselves sharing a room (more like a cell) with another rather strange patient, who, like us, does not remember much of his past. We will spend most of your time in here, and we will often be given the opportunity to move freely to interact with some objects and talk to our "very nice" roommate.
Too linear gameplay?
With The Inpatient we would have expected a greater immersion in terms of exploration and interaction of the environments. It will be possible to examine medical records, eat sandwiches by bringing the controller to your mouth, or push it forward to open a door, but there are no other environmental interactions capable of distorting the linearity of the gameplay.
During our stay at the Blackwood Clinic we will have the "pleasure" of relive memories that will help us discover our origins but at the same time we will be overwhelmed by nightmares and hallucinations characterized by such a cure that it will be difficult to remain calm. Screams, noises, creaks and disturbing sounds they will become the norm, forcing us to walk through every corridor with the utmost attention and checking every corner and room before continuing.
The Inpatient seems to focus everything on the narrative, which is deep and engaging especially for those who have faced the first chapter thanks to the continuous references present. However, such "passive" gameplay could turn up their noses for fans who would have expected an experience similar to Until Dawn.
Choose carefully
As in Until Dawn, also in The Inpatient they are present multiple developments of the main plot, which oblige the player to carefully choose the paths to take and the answers to give. Thanks to the microphone integrated in the viewer, it will also be possible make a choice simply by saying the answer verbally, which guarantees a greater level of depth but which in the long run ends up tiring. The answers are limited to two and will allow for "emotional" results that will often change what is already known as "butterfly Effect", which however in this chapter is much better integrated and will give the possibility to influence the final from the first choices.
Particular attention must also be paid to memories, which will be activated at certain moments of the plot by interacting with a certain object. In these memories they are packed valuable information about our past and the history of the sanatorium which can be useful to us in some dialogues and at the same time will provide us with an overview of the events narrated.
Total immersion
The aspect that certainly struck us most positively, is the excellent technical sector, which manages to completely immerse the player in the events. From the graphic point of view we are roughly on the same level as other PlayStation VR titles, which to achieve the necessary fluidity often opt for low resolution textures that are still excellent in the title of Supermassive Games. But the graphics fade into the background after a few minutes of play, in fact the level of immersion is almost total, which is not necessarily a good thing, in fact we will more than once find ourselves jumping out of the chair for jumpscare or feeling the chills while exploring a dark corridor from which sounds not very reassuring. Also excellent is the polygonal and expressive realization of the characters, who are always reactive and never cumbersome, even if there are some interpenetrations when we get too close to a subject, sometimes compromising even the management of the view.
The movement system adopted by the developers is optimal for all those people who could suffer from motion sickness, in fact it is possible without problems to face fairly intense game sessions, even if we recommend taking a few short breaks from time to time.
The Inpatient is definitely a good product, elevating the PlayStation VR lineup to the next level by handling horror and psychological thriller well. The stories told will surely come back to the minds of Until Dawn fans and will help to complete the general picture of the story, even if some questions still remain open, leaving a window for a possible sequel. A gameplay that is perhaps too linear and a low level of exploration are filled by the excellent technical realization and the well-studied plot, as well as by the dark settings and full of horror details that manage to involve the player by constantly putting him on the alert. Supermassive Games has certainly honored Until Dawn by optimally managing a precious resource like PlayStation VR, which allows for a very high level of immersion.
► The Inpatient is a Horror-type game developed by Supermassive Games and published by Sony for PlayStation VR, the video game was released on 23/01/2018
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