Sunday, April 18, 2010

Game Review: ObsCure




            Well, since my review of the Silent Hill games has screeched to a halt until I can actually find of a copy of a game somewhere in North America, let’s talking about something ObsCure (yeah, I know. Bad pun).

            Looking back at it now, I’m starting to think that Leafmore High is one of those schools where the bottom-of-the-barrel students usually go to, the ones generally with bad attitudes and mohawks who just want to party. That is the only possible reason why no parent or police officer bats an eye when several of these children go missing, and are then turned into man-eating plants.

            A boy named Kenny is the most recent to go missing, and it is up to his friends to find him. Things take a turn for the worst, however, after all of them are infected with the same virus, and they have only one night to find and defeat the evil principal before they turn into man-eating plants. Because, you know, that would be easier than calling the cops. Or escaping through the small wimpy gate when they had the chance.




           ObsCure is a two-player game, and you can select different students with abilities. Josh is the soft-hearted writer who can detect hidden items in a room, Stanley is the bad-boy punk who can unlock doors faster, Shannon is the cheerleading skank who will give hints towards puzzles and Ashley is Kenny’s psycho-obsessed girlfriend who is tough in battle. Poor Kenny can’t even go without two minutes without her calling him and demanding where he is. You can also play as Kenny for a little bit, who can run faster than most (a handy skill when dealing with Ashley).

            Overall the game is decent. The biggest feature to this game by far is the idea of going through a abandoned school and the black clouds that suddenly appear when monsters are near. The game itself is very challenging and so are the puzzles. The music is also pretty decent with a children’s haunting melody throughout most of it.

            However my biggest gripe with the game, by far, is the inventory system. As a player, you can only control two characters at a time. So let’s say that you were controlling Ken and Josh, but Ashley had an item you wanted. You can’t just ask Ashley for the item-on no. First you have to select Ashley to be in your group, take control of her as lead character, and then give the item to say, Josh. But since Ken doesn’t want Ashley to be in the ground (being a complete psycho and all) You would have to select Ken as the lead character, find Josh, and select him, kicking Ashely out of the group. Confused? Well, let me draw a diagram.



            Keep in mind you will normally have to do this several times. Half of those times I usually walked away with the wrong character in the group or the wrong item. It also doesn’t help that the game has a few bugs in it. ObsCure crashed right before the main boss fight, in such a way that I couldn’t continue. So um…that means I won, right?

FINAL GRADE: 2 out of 5. Decent, but nothing to write to home about.

The game is also very forgiving if any of your main characters die. Given what happens to them in the sequel, I wouldn’t get too attached to them either.

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