Metacritic Score: 79 Though there's an undeniable appeal here in getting to play through an interactive horror movie (and it's certainly more fun with friends), without subverting or overly mocking all these genre tropes (the stock characters, the predictable jump scares, the absurd plot twists), the game for the most part feels like an agonisingly trite horror film dragged out for 6 or 7 hours. Perhaps the deference towards cliche might have been more bearable if the game were instead divided into 3 or 4 different "movies" with their own novel scenarios, but as it stands, Until Dawn runs out of steam long before its climax, driving a novel idea into the ground due to its blatant lack of self-awareness, which is odd because the developers clearly took note of almost every horror trope in the book, but did nothing to upend them. Presentation is also a big bummer here: the game looks and sound gorgeous, but a frame-rate that often dips below 20FPS makes it frequently feel more like a slideshow than a video game. And no, that's one frame-rate that's certainly not done on purpose for "cinematic effect". We'd love to see another take on the idea, but the technicals need serious work alongside the script.
Stay at home dad who spends as much time teaching his kids the merits of Martin Scorsese as possible (against the missus' wishes).
General video game, TV and film nut. Occasional sports fan. Full time loon.
