2Dark

2Dark is a very good survival horror that always mixes some interesting action and stealth mechanics. The art design is very good, characterized by plenty of blood and violence.

2Dark that creeps on a subject that not many dare to venture in; the kidnapping, torture, and murder of children.

Quotation forthcoming.

The story of 2Dark gives you the creeps. This is not your typical horror game, but it is more spooky than some of those. Unfortunately, the game is frustrating from time to time.

If 2Dark’s tone was in line with its subject matter, it might have been something worthy of recommendation. But its story is almost nonexistent and nothing quite works as intended.

The setup for 2DARK holds intrigue, with a grim plot, and suitably creepy settings, but so much of how it actually plays out quickly diminishes the horror aspect of it. Respectable enough as a game, a failure as a horror.

Visually and thematically, 2Dark succeeds in paying homage to its forebears. Everything else, however, is desperately lacking. Alone in the Dark had twenty years in which to rise and fall but Raynal’s latest stab at survival horror barely gets twenty minutes.

2Dark starts off with a pretty intense scene. You watch as the main character who is a workaholic as a Police Detective is taking a weekend off to finally spend some time with his family. You and your family go camping and as you are setting up camp your wife decides to take the kids to find some firewood while you finish setting up the tents in camp. Just a short time after they leave for firewood you hear screams. You run toward the direction your wife and kids walked off to get wood and that is when you find your wife laying dead on the trail. Next you hear your two children yelling for you and you see them in the back of a van through the back window being kidnapped and driven away. This is just a video game but as the player you are left thinking wow this sort of thing has more than likely happened in real life or at least a similar situation like it has at one point or another so it is pretty scary and real in a sense. You can imagine how this one night affects our Main character Smith for the rest of his life and soon after this happens he looses his job as a Police detective because he spends all his time looking for his two kids who were kidnapped. Eventually our character Smith turns into a sort of vigilante who begins finding out about certain places where kids are being mistreated, used, sold, kidnapped and anything else terrible that can happen to kids and he goes to these places and basically turns the place upside down doing whatever he has to do to rescue any children who are at these locations all the while he is looking for his children. The Games Inventory mechanics work really well and you can add items together to complete certain tasks. A simple thing like saving the game requires you to light a cigarette with a flame and smoke which saves the game. The first real level takes you to a local rundown amusement park called Gloomyditch Amusement park and this was the first taste of what the game was really going to be like which was very impressive. Without going into any further details to be careful not to spoil anything I will say that I truly enjoyed my time with 2Dark By Gloomywood Games on the PlayStation 4. 2Dark by Gloomywood Games Quick Review Rundown Score 8 / 10

Despite the gameplay itself not being out there, the horrifying story of the game and being more disgusted as the game went on was super interesting to me.

2Dark More frustrating than fun. In 2dark you play as a father who’s kids are kidnapped while camping... you spend the game searching for them… This is a top down survival adventure stealth game… you search the environment for clues and items to proceed through the levels.. Find keys and weapons... take out enemies... take their weapons... rescue children in the levels and deal with a boss at the end… Its decently fun trying to figure everything, set things up and look for the items you need and just set up a domino effect of figuring the levels out… you have guns and melee weapons… you can even sneak up behind enemies for an insta kill… but if they see you you’re practically dead…. The melee is slow and beyond level 1 they usually have guns that kill you in one hit despite enemies needing around 3 to die... and ammo is scarce here, so you can’t just run through and shoot everyone… The stealth play is very difficult and rewarding once you finally pull a section off… and you can save at any time to make sure you don’t lose progress of a tough section… I spent around 3 and a half hrs. with this game but I never beat… and that’s because I’m almost certain its bugged… I ran into a bug at the end of level 2 where the buttons in the elevator completely disappeared… so I had to reload my save to get them back… after I got them back I ran into a frustrating decision that stopped all progression for me… Not only do you have to save the children in these levels by grabbing them or luring them away with candy… you also have to find clues… which I was doing pretty naturally.. I had no issue with it… but level 2 either has a ridiculously hidden clue or there’s a game stopping and game breaking bug much like the elevator glitch in the same level… I covered every inch of every floor of this level multiple times… every room telling me there was nothing else here… and the game would not let me progress because I didn’t have enough clues… so this is where it stopped for me… After the 5th sweep of the level… I was done. Any ounce of fun I was having was gone, all because of the idea of having mandatory collectables and making them nearly impossible to find... unless this was indeed a bug… This is a frustrating game… once I suggest you stay away from unless looking for stuff while things shoot at your is your favorite thing to do I give 2Dark a 5/10

The macabre theme of this game lured me in, and from the very first level I was hooked on the narrative. Unfortunately this is where it also all began to go wrong. The graphics are simplistic yet at the same time portray the sense of darkness and threat very well. They are cell-shaded or cartoonish but certainly not child-friendly at the same time. The controls and gameplay are where the game really falls flat. This is a punishing and difficult game. Whilst this is a deterrent for some, I ploughed ahead to discover that this difficulty was made even worse by bad design choices, awkward controls and menu layouts, such as trying to change between weapons in the midst of action. The flashlight is your main source of light, but the batteries expire far too quickly. One-shot kills are littered around levels such as spikes on a floor which can often only be discovered through trial and error; I literally fell through the floor to my death on the first level with no prior indication this trap awaited me. Even the stealth mechanics are unpredictable as enemies suddenly turn in your direction as you attempt to knife them from behind. These all add up to poor design choices rather than difficult gameplay, which is a shame as I really liked the concepts within the game but playing it became very cumbersome and repetitive even at the first level. Fortunately I only paid £9.99 for the limited edition at GAME. Do not pay any more than that for this game. I have a shiny steelbox and art booklet to look nice in my collection, if nothing else.