There are the usual horror gimmicks of sentient slammed doors, but it’s the atmospheric noises that really shine here.Ĭombine the attention to sound design with the environment design itself, and we really should be in with an absolute winner here. It’s like being home alone as a child, too frightened to move in case the noise you hear isn’t your own. Every floorboard creaks as it should, echoing around the empty space in a way that makes you freeze in space, listening for intruders. Just the sound of Nicole walking down the staircase has a level of realism that throws you immediately into the moment. Where the voice acting falls down, the sound design, and even the world of the hotel itself, makes up for it immeasurably. It gets the job done, as we find out more about Nicole’s family history at a balanced pace, but it fails to give a substantial sense of character to either protagonist. Yet, at times the script is a little stilted, and it's easy to find yourself cringing at some of the interactions between Nicole and Irving. It’s a small missing link, but it's enough to break your immersion, reminding you that this is a game with limits.Īlongside the acquired objects, the game’s voice acting is a welcome break from the usual notes, newspaper clippings and tape recordings that saturate this genre. The sound equipment that is so effectively used once to let Nicole hear the creepy voices in abandoned halls, brings up nothing when used later. While all remain in her inventory after collection, after their particular scene they become redundant. It’s a shame that these small devices aren’t put to greater use across the span of the game.
As the light grows dimmer, you’ll find yourself spamming the camera constantly, snapping shot after shot to get the brief security of a flash of light. Using the flash of each picture taken briefly illuminates the corridors before you, creating haunting images of the empty halls. The Polaroid camera, for example, becomes your limited light source when the hotel’s electricity fails. These items appear at different stages of the story and add a great sense of atmosphere to certain scenes.
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With no time restrictions or rigidly fixed direction, players are free to roam the creepy setting at their own pace, with only the completion of loose objectives structuring when each day ends.Īlong the way Nicole picks up items to help her discover more about the hotel, including a blinking flashlight, a Polaroid camera and a filmmaker’s sound equipment.
Split out into days, the game mostly revolves around the cell phone conversations between Nicole and Irving, as she rediscovers the home of her past, while Irving, familiar with the family and the hotel, fills her in on recent years.
It’s because horror would so perfectly befit this setting that exploring it is constantly tense, even though the lights are on and you’re absolutely sure no one's home. While Nicole discovers more facets to her family’s sordid past, the setting of the hotel groans and creaks around her. If you’ve not thought of The Shining yet, you absolutely should be by now. So, we’re in an old wooden hotel, mostly alone, that shows signs of habitation everywhere, but seemingly houses no one, while a snowstorm rages outside. She’s not entirely alone, however, as a young FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) agent named Irving keeps in contact via a radio telephone, a befitting piece of tech for the game’s 1993 era. With a snowstorm descending on the creaking hotel, Nicole isn’t going anywhere in a hurry. But things obviously can’t work out that easily. Nicole’s goal is to return and inspect the decaying hotel, left empty after her father’s death, so she can sell it off and with it move on from her past.
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