Resident Evil 7: Biohazard 'End of Zoe' (2017) - Horror Video Game DLC Review (Playstation 4)

After finishing the enjoyable Not A Hero DLC story for Resident Evil 7: Biohazard I had high hopes for End of Zoe. This one wasn't free after all so I imagined it would be bigger and better than Chris's campaign. Sadly though this may have some good moments but for the most part it is an exercise in supreme frustration.

Several months after the events of the game and hillbilly Joe, the brother of Jack, arrives at the swamp the main game took place at. He discovers his niece Zoe now in a monstrous form and assumes the nearby soldiers are the cause of this (they are actually there to help, arriving along with Chris Redfield at the end of the main game's story). He takes them captive and learns that there is a vaccine that may return Zoe to normal. Setting out into the swamp in search of this cure he discovers that there are plenty of monsters around, and also finds himself pursued by a powerful swamp creature who may just have a link to his past.

Going into this I knew that the combat for End of Zoe was all melee focussed with no guns to be found. I imagined somewhat foolishly that this meant I would be a powerful character. That isn't the case, a good eighty percent of this was stealth based misery. The game isn't built for stealth and so most of my two hour run time was spent repeating the same sections over and over again. It doesn't help that while crouched or while in the swamp you move at the speed of a snail. Repeatedly dying and having to slowly repeat the process over and over was not fun at all. Even worse are the alligator enemies. These are set up like puzzles, you have limited resources (a crafted single use spear is the only weapon capable of killing them) and should you kill the wrong one at the wrong time it will mean it isn't possible to proceed due to a lack of weapons. I wish the spears respawned, as doing a five minute section only to realise it is impossible to proceed was zero fun, it doesn't help that the targeting reticule for the spears lies to you, what seems like a sure fire attack will see your spear sailing off into the distance.

Resident Evil 7: Biohazard 'Not A Hero' (2017) - Horror Video Game DLC Review (Playstation 4)

My time with the DLC for Resident Evil 7: Biohazard was a strange one. Despite loving the core game I just never felt in the mood to play the DLC, even after a second playthrough a few years later I only marginally dipped my rotted toes into the 'Banned Footage' part of it, which was a series of small mini-games that were actually canonical. To be honest I had totally forgotten about this extra content for the game, it was only after buying Resident Evil Village that I realised I now had to play it so that I was up to date with the story. Not A Hero was actually free so it will be hard to be too harsh on this.

This takes place immediately after the main campaign finishes. With Ethan airlifted out of the estate Chris Redfield is able to carry out his intended mission, that is to capture or kill Lucas Baker due to his connections to a black market bioweapon group known as The Connection. Your team identify his location as the Abercrombie Salt Mine. You find Lucas but things don't go to plan, with Chris ending up with an explosive device attached to his wrist. Warned to stop chasing him, Chris instead decides to head onwards, attempting to rescue various members of his team, who have been captured, along the way.

I had heard Not A Hero was far more action orientated than the main game and this was right. Weirdly you only have access to a shotgun and a pistol throughout the ninety minute story. I would have thought with the amount of enemies around you would have gotten more weapons than that. Ammo is also very scarce, so scarce that it can be possible to fail sections due to entirely running out of the stuff. Luckily Chris has an ace up his sleeve, if you stun an enemy you can then follow up with a swinging punch that knocks any enemy off their feet (Chris of course infamously once punched a giant boulder to death), and of course you have access to grenades, flame grenades and stun grenades.

Transference (2018) - Horror Video Game Review (PSVR)

I really don't use my PSVR device as much as I should, it is always the case that I forget just how amazing it can be until I actually put it on. Also it is sad to admit but I hate being removed from my phone, in VR I don't hear any texts or calls and so I get a pathetic sense of anxiety! I played the Transference demo last week for Halloween and found it be darn scary, luckily for me a couple of days later the game proper went on sale and so I quickly snapped it up. While Transference isn't as scary as the demo was it was still an enjoyable couple of hours.

The story is a bit abstract with it spread out in snippets throughout the game, I will sum it up but this is just my interpretation. Raymond: a brilliant scientist has created a 'transference' device which is able to transfer the memories and souls of people into a digital recreation to act as a sort of eternal heaven for them. You play as an unknown person who has found his device and travelled into it where you find out that Raymond, his young son Ben, his wife Kathryn, as well as the family dog Laika are all now residing. However far from be a heaven this unnatural reality has turned into living hell for each of them, each of the family members trapped in their own perpetual nightmare. It is up to you to find each of the crystals housing their essence and reunite them to fix the corrupted device.



I'm first going to mention the demo as rather than be a slice taken from the game itself it was a stand alone experience. Transference: The Walter Test Case was a fantastic fifteen minutes of tight creeping terror. In the demo you are exploring the mind of a PTSD suffering soldier and his abused son. There were jump scares, but more importantly there was a pervasive sense of dread with the sound in particular being a real highlight. I didn't review it at the time but it would have gotten a 9/10 due to not only being free, but also in how effective it was due to a combination of amazing 3D sound design and how well the story is told. It was also brilliant in how it skipped between two different time frames: that of the son as a loving child, and him as a bitter teenager.

The Exorcist: Legion VR - Chapter 2 'Idle Hands' (2018) - Horror Video Game Review (PSVR)

In July I reviewed the first chapter of the five part The Exorcist: Legion VR game. I felt that first chapter was a nice introduction to the game but it wasn't as scary as I had hoped, overall though I was left with good impressions and high hopes for the other chapters. Second chapter Idle Hands I really hoped would improve on the strengths of the first, but instead it plays a little bit differently, and managed to be even less scary than chapter one.

In this chapter you head to a mental asylum to interview a school teacher who went crazy and kidnapped a bus full of children. Things don't go according to plan due to evil being present at the asylum, luckily for you though you still have the handy exorcism kit you picked up at the church from chapter one.

For whatever reason the controls in this game are really messed up for me and I am not sure why. I think my save might be a little corrupted but for a weird reason the left Move Controller controls my on screen right hand, and the right Move Controller controls the left. This made it really fiddly and a tad irritating to pick up and use objects. Idle Hands starts off good enough with you getting to explore a security room, it felt much like chapter one in that there is plenty of stuff to look at and read. The second half of the game has you in a long twisting corridor that has a couple of surprises, but only a couple. Like before this is quite a short experience, I was done within half an hour of starting which was a bit of a downer.

I really wish The Exorcist had actual free movement as walking around by teleporting is quite immersion breaking sadly. This is displayed very well in the second part of the game as constantly having to teleport wasn't a great way to move around the narrow corridors. I also found using items to be a bit fiddly with items jerking around when I tried to use them, though this could have been an issue with my camera rather than the game. It ends with an exorcism that to be truthful was a bit boring, I couldn't quite work out how to speed it up, or if it was even possible to speed it up. There were a couple of jump scares but only one of these actually made me shout in genuine fear. The problem with the series so far is that jump scares are the only method really used to try and get a fear reaction. There is no creeping terror like in the excellent Paranormal Activity: The Lost Soul.

I ended Idle Hands a bit deflated, it wasn't what I thought I had signed up for when I brought the series. It's fine enough, it just lacks any real scares, the graphics aren't stunning, is pretty short and has a host of wasted opportunities. I'm not convinced these bite sized chapters are an effective way of creating any kind of lasting fear. Check out my complete playthrough of it below.

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The Exorcist: Legion VR - Chapter 1 'Last Rites' (2018) - Horror Video Game Review (PSVR)

The same guy who recommended I check out The Blobby Witch Project also said I needed to check out The Exorcist: Legion VR as soon as it came out on PSVR. Well I love virtual reality, and I love horror even more and so this was a good fit, especially as the demonic possession sub genre of horror is one of my favourites. The Exorcist: Legion VR is split up into five chapters, each one has you as a detective investigating a different case. I shall be writing a review per chapter, mainly as the first chapter was available as a stand alone purchase (I went ahead and brought the complete package). Currently only three of the five cases are there to play with the others coming later on, a trailer for the fourth case recently came out.

The police station is the hub area that you go to between cases, it is here you get the training room that tells you all about the controls, and also where you are able to go to the evidence room to look at objects from past cases, as well as your office where the chapters can be selected from. Chapter 1 has you going to a crime scene at a church. It soon becomes apparent that a priest has been murdered, items of note have already been marked for your perusal. The main goal in Last Rites seemed to be to collect the items that make up an exorcism kit. This includes salt, holy water, a burner, and of course a crucifix.

I like the graphics here, they give the environments a realistic look to them while use of darkness hides how limited the play area really is. I get the impression that each chapter is going to be quite brief. This one contained two different rooms and took me around half an hour to get through, that was including messing around with everything, if I had purely done the essential objectives I could have been through that in a third of the time. There is a checklist of things to do and on my go there was an objective I missed so there is some replay value there. I liked that there is plenty to read, with text that is meant to be readable. This was fine with printed stuff, but you get access to an exorcism guide that I struggled to make out any of the text in it which was a shame as it felt like I was missing out on story elements.

I had been told this was a scary game but going by this first chapter it wasn't really. There were a couple of moments that mildly scared me but I didn't feel any type of dread. To be fair I was playing on a lazy Sunday evening when the sun was still bright and out, I think for the rest I will make it a point to play at night time. Aside from being able to pick up items there isn't really a lot of interactivity to be found here, I finished the chapter unsure if it is even possible to die or if the horror is all just scripted. I would say if you are planning on getting this as stand alone then avoid unless it is on sale, it is not worth the asking price, even with the reduced price of getting it as a bundle it is not worth it. Regardless I will literally never get bored of holding a crucifix out in front of me and shouting "the power of Christ compels you!" and so for that fact I had a grand old time with this and can look past the short length.

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ARK Park (2018) - Video Game Review (PSVR)

I had a list when I first got my PSVR of exactly the type of things I wanted to experience. I wanted to be scared, to go into space, and to fly like a bird. I have done all those things, but when I heard about ARK Park I realised I should have added walking with dinosaurs to that list. ARK Park is a spin off of ARK: Survival Evolved which as far as I can tell is a survival game that has is full of dinosaurs. Now this is game is playable in multiplayer too, however I don't know anyone who has that so this review is based on my time with single player only.

In this game you play as a visitor to a Jurassic Park style theme park island that is full of dinosaurs. After riding the monorail you go to the visitor centre, then onto the park proper where you can visit a series of different areas in order to gather resources, as well as help defend a robot that is repairing special machines that keep the various dinosaurs docile.

This is a game that starts to show more and more cracks the deeper you get into it, in fact the first hour of this is the best as there is a lot of excitement and wonder. However with each passing hour you begin to realise just how shallow this experience ultimately is, and it soon sets within you a kind of desperation to find more stuff to do. It starts off fantastically with a wonderful tutorial that has a flying robot guide you through the basics of the game. You are introduced to the controls, and then take a really fun train ride over to the visitor centre. The centre lets you play around with some static dinosaurs, feeding them, looking at them, and activating the different animations they have. It was a lot of fun getting to see all these creatures up close, with some such as the T-Rex being quite imposing due to their size in relation to you. The tutorial takes you through the basics of gathering resources before taking you to one of the shooting missions.

Soul Dimension: Episode 0 (2018) - Horror Video Game Review (PSVR)

The third video game review in a row now, can you tell it is nearing the end of the month and I am picking the low hanging fruit to increase my post count? Soul Dimension is a new episodic VR game, currently only episode 0 is out. The whole experience took me around 15 minutes to play through, however this was less than £2 and so that alleviates the short length somewhat. Whether all episodes will be as cheap and as short I don't know.

Soul Dimension takes place in a large mansion, you play as a father who is trying to piece together missing fragments of a photograph at the behest of the ghost of a little girl that is likely the protagonists daughter. As you search the house you catch glimpses of a strange mask wearing woman, as well as frequent sightings of the little girl's ghost.

It is becoming clear to me that VR within the confines of a house is pretty effective. With this game though the detail isn't as clear as it should be in places, specifically with text that appears as unreadable smudges. This is a horror game, yet it really wasn't scary, save for one moment when some crows flew towards me. After surviving the terror of Paranormal Activity: The Lost Soul this pales in comparison, there isn't really much horror to speak of, the masked woman, the occasional swinging chandelier, and those crows are about it. Your progression through the mansion is very linear with doors you pass through usually locking behind you. There are a few simple puzzles to solve along the way, such as books that must be put onto a shelf in the correct order, and a safe with a combination to find.

The Rotting Zombie's Round-up of Horror News for February 2018

Another news round-up, this time for everything received since last months one. First up horror legend Dee Wallace (Critters, Red Christmas) has joined the cast of DEAD Afterlife. The cast for this already included Michael Berryman (The Hills Have Eyes), Bill Moseley (The Devil's Rejects, Texas Chainsaw Massacre: Part 2), Kane Hodder (Friday the 13th series), and Bill Oberst Jr (Coyote, DIS). It sounded exciting already just reading this list of iconic names. The film itself has been described as 'Night of the Living Dead meets Heaven Can Wait', and has an interesting story. Donald has been murdered and has became a ghost. At his funeral he is shocked to see his corpse come to life and start eating his friends and family. Now he has limited time to stop his zombie body or his soul won't be able to get to Heaven.

A new poster has been released for The Owlman: Chapter 2 (also known as The Black Gloves) which obviously now implicitly states this is a continuation of the Owlman saga (after Lord of Tears). The film that is a prequel set in the 1940's is due for a Spring 2018 release and can be preordered here.

Eric Red (Body Parts, Bad Moon) has teamed up with the Horror Equity Fund for his new horror movie - White Knuckle. This film tells a story about a woman who survives a serial killer attack and decides to stop him from ever hurting anyone else.

A teaser trailer for upcoming horror Five Wild Animals has been released. Written and directed by Blair Hoyle (Happy Endings Are A Rarity) this is about a group of friends who travel to a small mountain town for a Halloween party, but instead find themselves the victims of an ancient ritual.



The guest judges for the 2018 Fractured Visions Film Festival are now known. These include Chris Crow, Dominic Brunt (Before Dawn), Giles Edwards, Shelagh Rowan-Legg, Emma Dark (Seize the Night), Diego Lopez, Richard Elliott, James Blower, Richard Geddes and Jay Kay.

Flesh of the Void is due to release on DVD - here (and a very limited VHS run - here). Pre sales started February 10th with normal sales from March 9th. The film is described as a 'grotesque and depraved depiction of what the act of dying could feel like. This was shot on Super 8 and 16mm and has caused some controversy. Apparently director James Quinn has been accused of devil worship among other things, and Sodom & Chimera Productions official website apparently got hacked four times by a radical Christian group in protest of this movie!

There is an Indie-GoGo campaign running at the moment to raise funds to make Scottish post-apocalyptic thriller Ribbons. This is to star Shauna Macdonald (The Descent, Star Wars: The Last Jedi) and tells the story of 5 houseguests locked in a basement during the onset of nuclear apocalypse. This is to be made on a micro budget with the filming to take place over just 4 days. They are looking to raise £5,000, currently £1,951 has been raised with 6 days left. if you want to contribute then head to their page here.



Video game news now with Snail Games announcing that VR multiplayer game ARK Park (based on survival game ARK: Survival Evolved) is going to be released on March 22nd. This sounds similar in idea to Jurassic Park and has you exploring a functioning dinosaur theme park. As well as exploration mode there is also a story mode in which you must defend your base from rampaging dinosaurs. This is due for release on Steam VR/HTC Vive, PSVR, and Oculus Rift, check out the trailer below.



Finally onto music news. Ludovico Technique have a new video for their single 'Absence', this was released on my birthday (13th February). That's all the news for this month, all light on details but I do what I can.

Stranger Things: The VR Experience (2017) - Horror Video Game Review (PSVR)

Before starting out on this review it has to be noted that Stranger Things: The VR Experience is completely free and so I find it hard to be too critical. The bigger question becomes; is it worth your time? With that I would say yes, though only because it is so short at around three minutes long.

The experience takes place within the time frame of the first season of hit show Stranger Things. You play as a person unknown who is at Will Byers house that has been decked out with the iconic Christmas lights. While in the house you get a phone call from a familiar voice warning you about the Demogorgon...

Even for an experience this is pretty bare bones, I would say my favourite thing about this is the title screen that has the theme tune playing and titles nicely decked out in glowing red. You play the game using the Playstation Move controllers, one acts as a flashlight, while the other grants you minimum interactivity. You can turn on the spot but you cannot move until set times have passed, in total you get to warp to two different places in the house, and answer a telephone, that's it as far as gameplay goes.

The graphics aren't amazing, I didn't really feel like I was in a real location unlike say Paranormal Activity: The Lost Soul. Immersion is a key strength of VR and so it was a shame it didn't really feel like I was anywhere due to the muddy textures used in the house. It all ends on a jump scare that leads into a trailer for season 2 of Stranger Things.

If you have PSVR then there is literally no point in not giving this a go, it's cool that it is free, but then it would be criminal to charge money for this. As a test bed for a VR game set in the shows universe it demonstrates possible potential, with much better graphics and more movement a game such as this could be fun, as for this experience itself though it is unfortunate that the best thing about this is the title screen.

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Statik (2017) - Horror Video Game Review (PSVR)

So technically Statik isn't horror despite what I may have said in the reviews title, it does have an air of bizarre mystery about it, while sometimes it hints at awful things. This is an exclusive PSVR puzzle game that makes ingenious use of the PS4 controller to create atmosphere.

The plot is pretty obtuse but what is clear is that you are a test subject for Dr Ingen at an undisclosed laboratory. You are given a series of puzzles to solve, in each test you awake strapped to a chair with a strange device locked over your hands. By interacting with this device from the inside you complete a series of tests on it, once successful you are knocked out, awaking in either a room to be surveyed with weird questions, or inside a tank where you are given puzzle parts to make up some sort of cube.

It is going to be hard to explain just how clever and unique Statik feels. Each of the 10 or so levels gives you a different device to solve, this is done by using pretty much all the buttons on the PS4 controller. Each button or stick corresponds to a part of the device on screen, each device has three different sides that all have different functions upon it. So one time for example the buttons can set dials, other times rewind and fast forward cassette tapes. In each level you are expected to work out the answers for yourself, there is no hint system and all the answers are already subtly around you. Sometimes solutions to puzzles are contained within the set dressing of the room you are in, such as a poster on a wall (for a shape based puzzle), or as colour coded objects (for when you have to put in a colour combination lock). Other times it is the device itself that gives you the hints such as one that had a screen of static on it that would clear when pointed in the right direction. There are all sorts of ways you are forced to use your brain with memory puzzles, shapes and sound ones among others. Sometimes I would nearly be pulling my hair out in bafflement only to then have a Eureka! moment and feel like the cleverest person in all the land. The fact that you are always left to your own devices rather than spoon fed answers I always thought was fantastic.

Bloody Zombies (2017) - Zombie Horror Videogame Review (PSVR)

Before I can get on with my review of Bloody Zombies it is essential I mention a few things which have certainly coloured my enjoyment with the game, and which have influenced the path of what I am about to say. Firstly I didn't complete the game, I reached the final level but it was just too damn hard to beat. This goes onto my second knowledge bomb; I only played this game in single player, as with every single scrolling beat-em up ever made the fun increases the more players you have. I did try and play online with other people but the servers for Bloody Zombies are pretty dead. My final footnote is that I played this in VR, going the other way I feel this would be a lot more bland outside of the virtual world.

Zombie apocalypse has come to the U.K but it has been contained within the boundaries of London thanks to the K.R.O.N.O.S Corporation who have built huge walls around the capital. A year since the outbreak occurred four survivors; Teller, Mick 'The Brick', Rei, and Eddie happen upon each other just as a K.R.O.N.O.S copter crashes in the street. They are informed by a transceiver they find in the wreckage that they need to use a homing beacon to locate the key cards of 4 key members of the company in order to get into the H.Q where the cure for undead apocalypse awaits.

Bloody Zombies is a classic style 2D scrolling beat-em up that has up to four players fighting through the over run streets of London. The graphics are cartoon like and reminded me quite a bit of the hand drawn style of The Dishwasher series of games. Each level takes place in a different location as is the way, these include a graveyard, a train, London bridge, the Natural History Museum, a night club and more. It was cool to have a game entirely set in London and made for some detailed environments. There is variation in the levels in that your not just fighting your way to the end, but occasionally have little missions to do. In the night club for example you have to destroy the speakers to stop zombies being attracted by the noise. At other points you have to survive against waves of enemies as you try to use switches and raise bridges.

Paranormal Activity: The Lost Soul (2017) - Horror Video Game Review (PSVR)

If you had asked me before yesterday the last time I had taken some decent time to play PSVR I wouldn't have been able to tell you. It was my favourite purchase of 2016 and I had some great times with it at the start of 2017 with Resident Evil VII: Biohazard but I had come to think of it as being pretty poor. In my head it was a let down. However I decided to give Paranormal Activity: The Lost Soul a go as I had brought it when it first came out a few months back, but only tried it for around 10 minutes. I'm really glad I did give this another whirl as it reminded me how damn good PSVR actually is with an immersive and genuinely terrifying experience.

In the game you play as an unnamed person arriving at night at what appears to be a typical American house. Finding the key you let yourself in but it isn't long before you discover something isn't right at all, a demonic force is prowling the place and hunting both you, and a mysterious girl you find. Armed with a spell book you discover you must explore the house, finding the required items that will hopefully expel the dark evil...

So this falls into the 'walking simulator' of game types in that your avatar is totally helpless in terms of being able to defend themselves. You explore the large house with events happening that lead to new areas opening up. Along the way you find keys, letters, and key items, as well as cassette tapes that both shed more light on what has occurred and help you try and achieve your goal. While a lot of the environment can be interacted with, such as opening drawers and doors a lot also can't be interacted with, more often than not you will find your disembodied hands vanishing into the furniture. I got around this immersion altering fact by saying in my head that was just part of the spooky goings on. Less so is that while some doors can be interacted with (either making a locked noise or actually being able to be opened) there are some that just appear to be set dressing with no interaction at all. The controls are awkward in that you use the ever not perfect move controllers, thankfully there isn't the hateful teleporting to move around, instead you use the face buttons to move forward and backward, while you can turn incrementally to the sides. I really wish there had been the option to move around without the weird incremental turn thing.

Resident Evil 7: Biohazard (2017) - Horror Video Game Review (PS4)

After the frankly fantastic playable teaser for Resident Evil 7 a lot of people had high hopes that the once scary zombie fighting series was about to get back on track. While Resident Evil 4 is an astounding game it really did herald in the age of action over survival, with Resident Evil 5 being a copy of that format, and Resident Evil 6 being a bit of a mess (that I admit I am quite a fan of regardless). So with the promise of a return to just what made the games originally great in the first place; namely survival horror, and almost a soft reset of the very convoluted over arching plot there was much for this new entry to live up to.

You play as Ethan; a man whose wife Mia went missing three years previously. One day he receives an email from his lost love, the email gives him an address of an abandoned plantation in deep Louisiana as the place he will find her. It isn't long after he arrives however that he finds himself kidnapped by the Baker family; three sadistic and brutal psychos who it appears have been infected by some mutative virus. Escaping his captors Ethan must locate Mia and find a way to escape the nightmare he has gotten himself into...

Until Dawn: Rush of Blood (2016) - Horror Video Game Review (PSVR)

So 13th October and the wait for VR was finally over for me with the release of Playstation's VR headset. My remit for this new device was that I wanted to experience three key things. I wanted to fly like a bird, I wanted to go into space, and I wanted to be scared. Of the launch titles here in the UK there were two horror related ones; Here They Lie (I have this to play but it has received a mixed reception), and the Until Dawn spin off - Until Dawn: Rush of Blood that is an on rails shooter. Thankfully with this game I have been able to tick off my third desire...

Rush of Blood was in development even before Until Dawn had been released and as such this game only has tenuous links to that one. There is only the very bare bones of a story, basically it appears you are an unnamed visitor to a fairground ride, on the ride your carriage accidentally gets sent down the closed haunted house track and from there all sorts of real monsters start appearing. There is strong evidence as you play that the whole ride is all in your head as part of some sort of medical experiment but as I said, very bare bones.