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The Dark Pictures Anthology: House Of Ashes review: very nearly a fun horror rompIt’s still too serious for its own good, but it’s going in the right direction
It’s still too serious for its own good, but it’s going in the right direction
I have a real soft spot for Supermassive Games.Until Dawnwas a knowingly schlocky teen slasher horror film made into an interactive adventure game, and it was great for at least two thirds of its runtime. I’ve also felt the same about their more recent project,The Dark PicturesAnthology, which began withMan Of Medanin 2019. Every time a new instalment comes out I believe it’s in with a shot of being well good - although each one has since made me doubt the “knowing” part of my interpretation of Until Dawn. The latest entry,House Of Ashes, comes the closest yet to recapturing the daft thrills of Until Dawn, with a classic survival-horror setup that’s half The Descent and half Aliens.
The five playable protagonists you flit between are trapped in an ancient Sumerian temple that leads into an even deeper cavern, and then an even deeperer, ancienter ruin. The turducken of potholing. But instead of delicious stuffing, the surprise in these layers is a race of vampiric monsters whose vision is based on sound, and whose spit is LSD. Your job is to get your goons out alive, and the main problem is that the goons in question are - instead of a busload of teens on a field trip gone wrong - a small team of US marines searching for WMDs in 2003 Iraq. Wakka wakka.
The Dark Pictures Anthology: House of Ashes - Enemy of My Enemy Gamescom TrailerWatch on YouTube
The Dark Pictures Anthology: House of Ashes - Enemy of My Enemy Gamescom Trailer
As you explore the wretched tunnels, you discover that you’re not the first to get trapped in them. An archaelogical dig pitched up here decades ago, but none of them made it out. Still, they rather thoughtfully left behind fragments of diary and other notes to give you some context, as well as dried out corpses and dynamite. These are more than just your standard exposition dumps, though. It’s worth taking a close look at everything here, in case you miss bits of info - or big metal stakes - that are useful later, and it’s satisfying seeing these things add up over time.
I can’t bear itYour choices add up, but the most important ones will change your “bearing” i.e. set you on a course to something else happening that otherwise may not have. The game keeps a track of them for you, and they can result in something totally out of your control - even an unexpected death.
Sometimes while exploring you see bits where you could just clearly climb out, unaided, and escape.
This here is a visual metaphor
