Blogger's note: Usually I would have a book review here, but I'm still reading through my next one. Sorry peeps!

There are only a very few games to affect me on an emotional level to a point where I wanted to quit. One was Call of Duty Black Ops 2 where I wanted to take the game outside and burn it (erm, sorry COD fans). The second is PT, which is short for playable teaser. I quit this game shortly after I played it, and then only came back to it after I realized what it was, which was a teaser for the next Silent Hill game.


So do I hate it? No. PT is without doubt the best horror game I have ever played, and I have found few that match to its level. I just want to point out the poster for the game as well because it's a flat out lie. This poster deliberately lulls you into a false sense of security. At no point will the player ever be outside, and there probably wouldn't be anything sunny waiting out there.



You play as a man who, for some reason or another, shot his wife and a family. Including an unborn baby. Yep, that's when I wanted to quit the game, because that wasn't exactly a character I wanted to play (well, that and I was frustrated by a puzzle). But already this game pushes a boundary where few games are brave enough to go-most people would not want to start the game as a person who literally kills babies. This character is trapped exploring the same rooms over and over again, in some sort of purgatory, which repeats as he goes to the basement. Every time he repeats however, there is a subtle difference, even getting worse as he goses.

And yes, I know I criticized Slender the Arrival for being too simple, so you might be wondering why I'm not doing the same thing here. Well, if you are going to do something simple, you have to do it right. With Slender the Arrival, you at least had some idea what the threat was and where you needed to go. Not so much in PT, where every now and then a door might closed unexpectedly, or you might hear a baby cry in the distance.....in short, it is simply terrifying.

Gameplay-wise, PT is simply beautiful in terms of graphics. Plus there is a weird blur effect every time you move, making it seem like you are just waking up after a hangover (given the bottles around, that is possible). The puzzles though, are extremely difficult at times, almost unsolvable without a walkthrough. You might think I am simply not clever enough, but let me put it this way-one puzzle requires you to use a mic to make a baby laugh, even though there was no indication of this at any point in the game. Also, it's a minor nitpick, but you cannot restart the game until it is complete.

But alas, sometimes we can't have nice things for long. Those that have been following this game know that the upcoming Silent Hill game was cancelled, from what appears to be disagreements between Hideo Kojima and the studio. Not only that, but there are no longer any copies of PT available for download. This created a brief black markets of sorts, with users selling their PS4's with this game on it for amazon for a thousand bucks, but eventually amazon cut off those users. It's a real shame as well, because I am sure the Silent Hill game would have been amazing, and was supposed to star Daryl from the Walking Dead. In the meantime, however, we need to be content with Hideo Kojima taking all of us back to school to show even the most jaded of horror fans that they can still be terrified.

FINAL GRADE: 5 out of 5. Need I say more? The annoying puzzles are only a minor nitpick among a fantastic game. We can only hope this is revived again in the future somehow. For now, however, anyone who wants to see the game in full will need to look at on-line walkthroughs on youtube.