Title: Visage
Format: PS4, PC, Xbox One
Price: USD 34.99
Perhaps inevitably, on first downloading this game, I was pondering where I might end up crowbarring a ‘fade to grey’ gag into this review. Having now played the game through to completion, I really don’t feel much like laughing.
One of the contextual control choices here gives you some idea what you’re getting yourself into.
This is a game with not just one warning on start up, but two of them. The first one advises that the game is hard, and will require resource management. Of course, a number of games fit that description, and several in the horror genre. Resident Evil for example, although Visage is not a combat game, but one of exploration, puzzle solving, light-source management and, critically linked to this, sanity management. So far, so Amnesia.
Speaking of Amnesia, here’s a hole in the floor to fall through!
The second warning indicates some players may find some of the game’s imagery disturbing. I wondered if that was some form of hype, or even a gimmick, like cinemas handing out sick bags to audiences going to see particularly gruesome movies. Nope, no gimmick. Starting the game presented me with a particularly unpleasant scene I am not going to spoiler. Suffice it to say my mouth dropped with an audible “oh.” Having started out harsh, it then doesn’t let up.
Trying the lock is the closest you’re coming to ‘feeling safe’ in this game. Eh? Eh?… I’ll get my coat.
We’re playing as Dwayne Anderson, who seems to be trapped in his family home, presumably following the unpleasant opening events. There’s some rapid introductions to game mechanics, which is good as they are far from complex and once out of the way, there’s no tutorial windows disturbing the atmosphere. Dark is bad for your sanity. Absence of sanity is bad for your health.
Well, at least they kept their underwear on. I could be getting strangled by naked insane eyeless monsters.
There is a two-level inventory; one for key items, and one for dynamic items. Key items are, as the name suggests, critical for progress, and so if dropped will automatically be placed into the storage room in the basement. Dynamic items are the resources to be managed: pills for restoring sanity, light bulbs for repairing lights, candles which can be placed in certain places also to provide light, and cigarette lighters, which provide a portable light source, but don’t protect sanity. These can be used up, and if dropped, are dropped where they are and if you lose them, tough.
You might have used up the last of your candles, but there’s no call for that kind of language.
Dwayne is free to explore the house, although much of it is blocked off until a chapter is started. Chapters can be played in any order, and are initiated by picking up a specific item. Once started, a chapter cannot be quit, nor another started, until it is finished, although the game does helpfully warn you of this. While they are, then, self-contained stories, and can be approached in any order, I don’t think it’s a spoiler to recommend not doing Rakan’s chapter first, as I accidentally did, as it is harder than the others and when not used to the mechanics, or the resource management, this can make it even tougher than needs be.
I’ve a grudging respect for Rakan. Despite his physical disabilities, he isn’t letting that hold him back. He moves faster than you on those things. Oh, and can beat you to death with them, too. Go Rakan!
I’d initially thought the chapters might be related to Dwayne’s family, but the implication is that Dwayne is observing the experiences of the previous occupants of the house over the years which have led to the hauntings he is experiencing and then being threatened by. It seems all of them suffered mental illness in some form. Whether this is a result of, or exacerbated by the house itself is touched on in a particularly bizarre conversation between kitchen appliances that you can stumble upon at one point. Another creepy touch is that while Dwayne is an observer of past actions, these shadows of the previous residents are aware of him. It is unnerving to be watching what you think are events long past, only for the subject to suddenly address you.
The presence of the VHS machine helps to uncouple the game from a specific time, as well as helping with the visual aesthetics. It’s purpose becomes apparent in the end game.
The graphics are excellent. I don’t think the developers have hidden their inspiration by the ill-fated P.T. demo, and have done an admirable job of recreating the same quality of setting, and lighting, that turns something so everyday as a home into a malignant threat. I’d also note they’ve done a great job in their overall world building, as variety and depth is provided not just by contorted, otherworldly versions of the house (although there is that too), but also a surprisingly varied set of locations, all of which hold the same washed-out sense of menace.
Lighting effects and graphical rendering are first rate. You can almost smell that wallpaper.
Sound is similarly well done. Use of clashing orchestral chords for jump scares is set to minimum; there is unsettling background noise, some very visceral event and action-specific effects, and some very impressive voice acting. Controls are fit-for-purpose, a relatively simple set of inputs for picking things up, opening doors or containers, or using what is in Dwayne’s right and/or left hand. There’s also a pleasing variety in puzzles, certainly more variety than, say Amnesia: Rebirth. Solutions to puzzles also usually require some observation and deduction, rather than simply “you need to align the three MacGuffins.”
Case in point. This is the solution to a puzzle. Not that you know which one, nor where it is.
In fact, the developers have done an excellent job all round following the principle of “show, don’t tell.” While not quite as inferred in its story telling as, say, Dark Souls, and some of the exposition is still from reading things, other parts of each character’s history needs more observation and deduction. This also helps build atmosphere. On more than one occasion I felt a frisson of horror, or indeed revulsion, as I realised what had happened, or what a character had done. Considering the horror of this game’s story is partly from its characters’ mental illnesses, I am also impressed with how this has been handled. There is no titillation here, no two-dimensional psychopathy to create a Bad Guy to beat.
Oh for crying out loud, really??
Niggles are minor. Considering the quality of the environments and the creatures in the game, when the actual human characters make their brief appearances, these character models are surprisingly ropey. The control scheme can get in the way (picking up an object pauses you, but not the insta-kill enemies pursuing you), and there is a section late in Rakan’s chapter which seems to require more route memorisation and luck than ability, and the absence of an Amnesia-like hiding mechanism makes this feel even more arbitrary. But these are, as noted, relatively minor.
Never really needed it signposted, but thanks anyway.
As a teenager, my friends and I enjoyed watching gory horror movies – the works of Lucio Fulci and the like. Part of that is obviously the shock factor, but I think also it speaks to the relative lack of emotional development of a not-yet adult, a certain lack of empathy born of immaturity and lack of experience. Visage is a game with tremendous atmosphere that I think would be interesting and engaging to anyone, but I also think that as an adult, with more life experience, more idea what it is like to have something to lose, and friends who have experienced tragedy along the way, it makes the mental suffering of the characters in this game even more compelling. It’s honestly hard to describe Visage as fun at times, but it’s certainly the best horror game I played in 2020. 9