Sunday 13 November 2022

Scorn (2022) - Horror Video Game Review (XBox Series X)


From the cover image alone I was intrigued by horror puzzle/adventure game Scorn. That led me to pre-downloading the game without even a concrete idea of its genre. I assumed it was going to be a first person shooter, but instead this is a more sedate experience, which does feature combat, but only more as a side show.

There isn't really much of a story in Scorn. You play as a humanoid figure who begins the game coming to consciousness in a vast desert, in what looks like a nightmarish alien world. Seeing a giant tower in the distance, your character decides to head towards it. Before too long however, the ground beneath you collapses and you find yourself in a giant underground biomechanical facility.

The most striking element of this game is the fantastic artstyle, being in the world of Scorn is like walking around in a Zdzislaw Beksinski painting. The world is horrifically alien, with the merging of technology and organic being a constant. This is a place where you traverse fleshy corridors, operate machines by biomechanical tools grafted to your skin, and use living batteries to open doors. It is also true to say that H.R Giger was another big influence, more so as the game progresses. The final area of the game in particular is full of grotesque statues of fornicating alien beings. Roughly split into five different chapters, from your beginnings in an underground factory, you follow a path that takes you through the literal belly of a giant monstrous creature, ride a tram line that appears to have been created out of a spine, and suffer a parasitic entity that causes you as much pain and misery as it helps you. Along the way you witness an increasing amount of cancerous like growths, which perhaps hint at the doom that must have occured in this once working civilisation. Throughout the game there are many references to the process of pregnancy, from android creatures with pregnant bellies, to the foetus like creatures that operate as power cells, suggesting a world in which machines had been created to replace the natural pregnancy cycle.

The game is a series of puzzles, with your progress always requiring you to flip switches, and upgrade your key card to progress. Often this will cause you to inflict trauma on alien creatures to do so, this is a world where technology appears to have melded with all living things after all. To begin with I figured this would be a combat free game, something which naturally made this less of a survival horror, almost a walking simulation. I have never played Myst, but I have heard from people who have that Scorn is very similar in style. You have large open levels full of maze like corridors from which the puzzles of the game can be found. I never once found myself stuck when it came to solving the puzzles. That isn't to say they were so easy that they felt pointless, there was a lovely balance struck where I felt like I always knew what needed to be done to progress, making me feel clever due to the obtuse nature of the game world. While I would have liked more of a story, that opening shot of the tower in the distance spelled out what the goal I was heading towards over the roughly five hour game was.

This obtuseness is no more apparent than your character's inventory, the parasitic entity that latches on to you before the halfway point of the game is your source for weapons and healing. Weapons, for there is combat, with the middle section of the game having quite a few fleshy monsters to battle. The first weapon you get is akin to a fleshy cattle prod or litter-picker, a nearly useless close-up attack that can only be done twice before needing to recharge. Battling enemies with this pathetic weapon was a real headache and truth be told nearly led to me abandoning the game. It made the whole middle area quite frustrating as it felt unfair how I was expected to battle acid spitting enemies while only armed with a small melee weapon. Towards the end of the game you get a version of a shotgun, which while holding barely any ammo was a welcome relief. Later still, you get access to a grenade launcher, mainly used for puzzles, this was still a fun tool. I was going to complain much more about the poor combat in this game, that is until I discovered after I had finished it that there was a pistol early on that I didn't discover. So, all those terrible melee combat encounters were actually ones that had been intended to be battled using a gun! The game is obtuse, perhaps no better example than me literally not discovering a pretty essential weapon.

Scorn looks and sounds amazing, there are some really stunning locations, with the game never failing to impress with its bloody and haunting locations. Due to the heavy reliance on puzzles this wasn't actually scary at all really. It also helped that your protagonist seemed to be a creature of this alien world, rather than a normal person who discovers themselves trapped there. While I had frustrations with the combat, I really don't know how much of a difference having a better weapon would have made. I did find the non-combat sections to be a lot more enjoyable however. This was a game that really stood out for me, while it wasn't all fantastic, I'm glad I persevered all the way to the downbeat ending. Scorn can currently be played for free if you have Xbox Game Pass.

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