Below is the First Draft Review I made to post on Instagram:
Dead Format is a fun short action horror game that manages to take some aspects from a few huge titles in the genre. It’s a combination of resident evil and alien isolation, and while I don’t think it necessarily gets the gameplay of both down effectively, I think it does nail the look and feel of those kind of game.
This game has some fantastic visuals and scenery in it, and even has a few moments here visual and audio wise that are done far better than some games with far bigger budgets out there.
The gameplay unfortunately falls a bit short here, not that the puzzles are that bad, with what few there actually are, most segments comprise of go to the new place and get an item that allows you to progress. But there is one puzzle in particular that’s actually cool and ties back into the visuals of the game.
I think the actual challenge in the game is very minimal, the AI is very basic and for a game like this in order to really create tension and stressful moments for the player the AI must be a little bit more advanced. On top of that while this is technically an action horror game, there’s not that much action in it. While there are enemies that you can kill and must kill in order to progress there is one enemy that is present throughout the game that you can’t kill and really can’t do anything do except hide and lure it away from you.
Especially towards the end of the game you really don’t use any weapons. Which makes it questionable as to why they are in the game in the first place.
The story is fairly simple with you going to visit your brother and both him and you ending up trapped in VHS like tapes named GHL’s or Ghouls, that are specifically designed for horror movies. The best parts are the live action segments which you are treated to every time you want to move to another world in the game.
All in all it’s a good time with not much time needed for you to invest in it. Good times.
I only have a little bit more to add as the game is pretty short and so I can take some time to highlight a few things I particularly like about Dead Format.
Firstly, what really stands out to me about Dead Format is it’s aesthetics, a lot of the games visuals don’t stand out on account of this being an Unreal Engine game. Where it does stand out visually is in specific sections, for instance, the game involves you transporting to different worlds with completely different settings, atmospheres and stories, each representing different horror movies. One of these, my favorite, is a black and white horror movie that involves a killer violin player, in particular what I really liked about this section was it’s music and gothic aesthetic. This section is by far the most detailed world in the game and has some of the most interesting visuals. There’s even a puzzle that brilliantly uses the black and white visuals that I thought was extremely well done. Most other worlds didn’t necessarily have any visuals that stood out to me. The only exception is the last section of the game where you are making you’re way towards a lighthouse, the light from the lighthouse combined with the skybox and color grading make a super rad visual.
The Resident Evil, Alien Isolation influences of this game are also worth mentioning, I think the game might’ve been better served with either sticking to one or the other. At some point in the game you are introduced to the “Xenomorph,” an old woman who resembles a humanoid bird creature. Each game world has TV screens on the walls scattered all around, these are where the monster comes out of and travels between. The shortcoming of this enemy is that the pathfinding is very very basic and it just doesn’t work all that well. I appreciate the attempt made here, but this game would’ve been better served to be exclusively like Resident Evil. Or to feature a monster that perpetually walks around trying to kill you ala Mister X.
Speaking of RE, this game actually does a pretty decent job with the Resident Evil mechanics, but as you get further into the game it just kind of stops playing into the Resident Evil influences. I felt constrained with my resources throughout the entire game, ammo was always kind of scarce as were healing items, so it was important to hide as much as possible. Usually, RE-clones fail to keep that balance once you get to the second half of the game. The foremost example in my mind is The Evil Within which goes full action mode in the 2nd half, and your ammo count and healing items don’t really matter. This game actually tries to keep that early game tension throughout the experience, but this might be because there are large portions of this game where you’re faced with the “Xenomorph” enemy that you can’t kill. Also the game is pretty short which also plays into maintaining that same tension, because the runtime isn’t as long as an RE7 or RE8. Regardless, the game does a good balancing act that games with a lot more developers and development time put into them, couldn’t, so kudos to these guys.
One of the last things to mention is the VHS tapes that you play when you unlock a new world or get more clues to solving puzzles. These are the live action sequences that involve some funny and weird scenes and are honestly pretty cool. It’s very clear that the developers had a fun time making these short film sequences. I looked forward to unlocking the next film just so I could watch and see what fun weird thing they were going to do next. I’ll be honest live action cutscenes and FMV’s are some of my favorite things in video games. It scratches an itch that I didn’t even know was there. I love watching them, the C&C cutscenes, the Cutscenes in the first God of War, all the games with FMV intros. I don’t know what it is and while technically and subjectively speaking, a real time cutscene or pre-rendered cutscene is much better for players and viewers, there’s just something magical about the shitty live action cutscenes and FMV’s. Maybe it’s because it reminds you that, hey, a human made this, somebody did this. And they put a lot of effort into it.
It’s kinda like how I really enjoy Jackie Chan movies, because pretty much everything in those movie’s are practical. From the stunts to the action, the explosions, the sets, even if they’re simple and they look obviously constructed to just be blown up in a billion pieces. I don’t care, I still enjoy it. Same with something like Dead Format, technically speaking they could have just had a slide show presentation, showing maybe one or two different scenes in the horror movies and just layered some VO and SFX on top of it and it would have made it a helluva a lot easier to make them. But going the extra mile here and making live action short films is something I massively respect.
I enjoyed playing through this game, it’s not that long, there’s no part where I got really stuck or frustrated. I finished it in about 2 sittings, and it’s not priced that unreasonably. So the final rating is if you like Resident Evil 7, I think you’d like this, it’s like a budget version of RE7. But I wouldn’t recommend it if you’re thinking this is like Alien Isolation, I’m afraid you’d be disappointed on that front. And if you enjoy indie horror, whether it’s films or games I think you should definitely give this game a try.
Next up is Phantom Brigade, this will be a bit longer of a review, cause I’ve got a lot to say on this game as well.