Asemblance Review- Why Aren’t you helping, Leon?

Asemblance Review- Why Aren’t you helping, Leon? 


As a little context: the game literally starts with the words, “Why aren’t you helping?” 
Title: Asemblance 
Initial release: 21st June 2016 
Platforms: PS4, PC.  
Genre: puzzle, weird, psychological horror, mind fuck. 


I quite like horror. However, it is- in my opinion- one of the hardest genres to pull off well; or even passable. It’s why I think that I don’t really have that many great experiences with the horror genre. It’s so easy to make horror cheesy or to make just make it boring, at least if it’s cheesy it might actually entertain people. In horror I think it’s important to be able to build an atmosphere, a nice thick atmosphere, like smog. [note for later: Make sure you spell ‘smog’ with an “o”]  

Story 
OK, so... I have no idea. You’re a guy, I think, who is in a lab- thing- and you explore your memories; that may not be real memories but you’ve also forgotten them so it’s all a bit befuddling. The game doesn’t last very long, I mean I think I finished it, but there are a few different endings but I didn’t actually get them. However; I did watch the ones I know about on YouTube: Why? Well, you remember PT? That cool horror game I never got to play and looked cool but had the issue of having puzzles that are so specific that it is very unlikely that you’d get to the end just by following the game, remember that? Well yeah, same sort of issue. From what I saw to get one of the endings you have to wait in pause menus and stare at things intently, there’s a lot of waiting around really; it really does kill the pacing. There’s also something about your mannequin wife that can’t stay still, and if you stare at clocks you can travel in time; when I do that, I just get a headache and pass out for standing for hours on end without eating.  

Presentation 
The game looks alright, for the most part, there’s only really five different areas in the entire game. In those areas there are parts that just look bad, for example: In the forest area, the foreground looks fine but the background is just a very low resolution, flat image and it just makes me wonder. In the office area, most things look fine- unless you look at the phone and see, again, it’s just so low resolution. I have to wonder if this was simple laziness or if it was a because these areas are within the memories, I’m leaning to this frame of mind because in the main hub like area there doesn’t seem to be any places with horrendously low resolution.  

Gameplay 
The main mechanic of the game is to zoom. You can walk too. Or, you can do a brisk walk. Actually, I take that back it’s not brisk at all. You walk like someone at the bottom of the river with a pocket of lead weights. To be perfectly honest, there’s not much gameplay that isn’t just walk and zooming, because the guy you play has the amazing ability to extend your eye balls an extra meter. Although, I want to praise the game for not making things just jump out at you when you’re zooming in. That’s all I’ve got really.  

Horror elements 
Basically, there's more I want to say that doesn't necessarily fit with the other categories; because like I said I think horror is one of the hardest genres to get right so it makes sense for me to look at how this game handles the horror. All in all, the horror is pretty good; there's unsettling things here and there that just make you uneasy and the game never really overstays it's welcome. Although it never really stays at all, the game is so short that it just feels like it is over without ever doing anything. The mystery helps to add to the creepiness, but with no actual pay off nothing ever really stands out as being that amazing or scary because it just feels like it's gone before you even get a chance to see it. Another point; you can tell the game doesn’t have much of a budget, which in my opinion works for the game. There's a moment where you see the only character model in the game, and it looks; well, unreal? It's unsettling. It kind of crosses the uncanny valley and at one point it moves and it doesn't walk, it slides. Which I find really unnerving, because it's not natural.  

My overall point is this game has so much opportunity to be a good horror game; it just needs to be fleshed out more. I'm not someone who thinks that a game needs to be a hundred hours long to be worth the money. However, I paid £2 for this, if I paid the full £7 I don't think that I would have been as forgiving with how much you get for this. I think this game has some enjoyable parts and some good horror moments but it is absolutely not worth a full £7 for 70 minutes or so of content.  

Being scared of a ghost that only wanted to make you a lovely meal, out of you/10 

Also as an update, I've stopped using Twitter for the foreseeable future so just keep an eye open here for updates.  

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Image
Oxen-Free of Satanic  Possessions .   Title:  Oxenfree   Initially  Released: 15 th  January 2016   Developer: Night School Studio   Platforms: PC (reviewed)  , PS4, Xbox, Mac, Linux? (I can't even be bothered to make a joke about this being used less than macs. ( Whoops, I guess I just did))   Well look at this, I think this is actually the newest game I've talked about on here, which is surprising cause I'm normally way too poor to ever actually buy a recent game. Although what I should mention is that I got this in a sale a while ago and streamed a blind play through. I also then bought a humble bundle that had it on but I gave that to a friend, there is actually a reason I mentioned this but I'll get to that later. When I first saw this game I thought it looked cool but with it's 2D side scroll  like gameplay I didn't think it would be scary (This is in the   horror  category ...
Read more
Image
BloodBorne Review :  YOU CAN BLOOD MY BORNE (wait what) .     Title:  Bloodborne   Realese : March 24, 2015   Director:  Hidetaka Miyazaki   Platform: PS4 only I'm af raid .   I had to think long and hard (no pun intended) on what game I should do for my first review; then it hit me, the game I've been playing for the past 100+ hours:  Bloodborne  or as it's  known in the From Software community "a sample."   BloodBorne  is the newest instalment from  From  Software. Personally I think they need a better name cause I can't think of a better way to put that. For those who do not know From Software; they are a company based in Japan and founded in 1986 in which they developed office software, but who cares about that? Anyway, in 1994 From Software released their first game called King's Field, a launch title for the PS1. They have released many games since then. The game tha...
Read more

Uncomfortable Labels Review

Uncomfortable Labels Review Wow doing a degree is hard and takes up a lot of time, who woulda thunk? Anyway, new year, new... Ah screw it, I've missed my window for that. But, maybe it is time to try something different; I'm kinda used to talking about video games, although this isn't that unrelated cause it's Laura Kate Dale's book, Uncomfortable Labels (review copy provided). For those who may not know Laura Kate Dale is a writer for Kotaku, she leaked a bunch of accurate shit about the Nintendo Switch and is just an all-round great journalist (psst, if you can't already tell, my opinions on Laura are highly positive and she's part of the reason I decided to do what I want and write about video games). She is also a trans lady, gay and has autism (which is quite common; actually), so if you've ever been on the Internet; even just the once; you'll probably be able to see that it's hard to just be yourself. We'll with the introduction...
Read more