Visage

Often times, the most terrifying things are the ones we can’t see. The true terror in watching Jaws wasn’t what you saw, but rather what you COULDN’T see. You never fully see the man-eating great white shark until the final minutes of the movie, leaving your mind to wonder just what lurks in the waters below. This has pyschological roots stemming from humankind’s innate fear of the unknown and unfamiliar. This is what made P.T. (released on the Playstation Store in 2014) so effective in completely terrifying players. It’s also interesting that P.T. – a short demo for an enigmatic game that never saw the light of day, would be such an inspiration for so many.

Visage is a first-person psychological-horror game developed by SadSquare Studios and released October 30 2020 on PC, PS4, and Xbox One. The game is heavily influenced by Hideo Kojima and Guillermo del Toro’s work in P.T. as you make your way down the dark, eerie corridors of a dark suburban home, searching high and low to piece together the former resident’s encounters with the macabre and paranormal. The allusions to Konami’s cancelled Silent Hills project in Visage are not just a coincidence as the developers at SadSquare stated in an interview that the cancellation of Silent Hills and subsequent removal of the P.T. demo were the inspiration for creating the game. As a result, Visage is essentially a spiritual successor to P.T. and feels very much like the closest thing to a full version of Silent Hills we will likely see. Disclosure: review copy of Visage provided by SadSquare Studios

The story of Visage revolves around Dwayne Anderson as he awakens to find himself trapped within the house and must search for clues to discover the fates of the previous inhabitants. The game is mostly non-linear and is divided into four separate chapters, each one telling a different story. The introduction of Visage shows Dwayne as he murders his wife and two children before turning the gun on himself. He then wakes up, lying on the floor of an empty room(just like P.T.) and ventures into the hallway before discovering he is trapped inside the home as you spent the rest of the game interacting with objects like drawers, doors, and keys in order to access all areas of the house. With the exception of a select few functioning light switches, the house is shrouded in darkness and will require you to search for items such as lighters, candles and replacement bulbs to provide visual assistance.

The puzzles contained within the game consisted mostly of finding your way through the house and searching high and low for keys to unlock doors. There’s also the occasional object such as a camera or sledgehammer which will allow you to solve some of the environmental puzzles. The camera when used will very briefly illuminate the area with its flash and will allow you to see the markings on the walls and floor as you follow the trail of breadcrumbs. In another chapter you will find a sledgehammer in the garage which you can use to break various mirrors that act as shortcuts between different areas of the house.

Hello…anybody home?

The controls can feel a little unintuitive at times, but I never found myself too bothered by that in comparison to the constant anxiety of my ever-draining sanity(still talking about the game, btw). I opted to play the game on my PS4 as a nod to my time spent playing P.T. a few years ago, though perhaps a mouse/keyboard setup on PC may have suited my tastes slightly better

The biggest drawbacks of the game for me were the sanity meter used in-game, as well as the simple fact I was simply unable to see much of anything at times. The game features a sanity meter, which is drained whenever you’re somewhere not illuminated by light fixtures or candles. A brain icon will show in the lower left of the screen whenever your sanity is being strained, with a bloody red symbol appearing when your sanity is dangerously low. Once your sanity is depleted, whatever monsters lurking in the shadows turn up right behind you….and lights out. Sanity meters have been used in other games, Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem being one of my favorites featuring this mechanic, but this is compounded by being able to see so little due to what feels like 85% of the game being shrouded in darkness. Visage encourages you to use patience and thoroughly search the area as you solve puzzles in each of the chapters(it says so right as you begin the game), but the sanity meter feels as if there’s a timer continuously counting down as you wander down pitch black hallways. At one point, I even resorted to turning the brightness on my tv to near max setting as the only options in the game is for Gamma Level, which creates a gray “hazy” appearance on the screen and doesn’t provide much of an improvement in visibility. Regardless of how frightening something was, it seemed to give way to frustration a little too often. I find myself comparing sections of Visage to waking up in the middle of the night to make your way to the bathroom(or fridge) with your arms stretched out, stumbling your way there as your eyes haven’t adjusted to the darkness.

The game looks very impressive…in areas where I was able to see my surroundings

The strengths of Visage, as with most horror games, lie in its atmosphere and ambience. Just like the P.T. demo, Visage creates a menacing environment where you never quite know what lurks around the corner or at the end of a dark hallway. The lighting in the game, where visible, is quite impressive and deserves mention when discussing the way the game is effectively terrifying. There’s also very little music, making the dark, foreboding house even more creepy as the empty silence is oftentimes, broken only by a loud crash or thud coming from the room right behind you

Despite some frustration with a sanity meter that always seemed dangerously low and my difficulty in seeing much of anything in the game, which is a shame as what you can see is visually on par with the P.T. demo. I feel Visage does still accomplish what it intends to do – scare the living hell out of you. I don’t usually consider myself to be easily scared, but Visage is one of the scariest games I’ve played in some time; certainly in the past few years. It has everything from an eerie, unsettling atmosphere to some well-placed jump scares…followed with a streak of obscenities. For those looking for a good fright, Visage is more than capable of providing one.

Thanks for reading!

Blogtober 2020 – The Horror Tag

Welcome back for another Blogtober post! For the month of October I have all my posts sorted out so every Monday will feature a post regarding a specific game and every Friday will have a few assorted ideas I thought befitting of the spooky Halloween season. I’m talking about horror games and movies today. Michelle from A Geek Girl’s Guide posted The Horror Tag a few days ago and I thought it sounded fun to go through after reading her answers. Ready? Here we go…

How old were you when you saw your first horror movie?

I’m not entirely sure. If I were to guess I would say somewhere around 5-7 years old. However old I was, it’s safe to say the answer would still be “not old enough” as I was already terrified by countless things as a kid.

What was the first horror movie you saw?

I’d love to say the first “horror” movie I saw was something of higher quality than this…

Jaws: The Revenge. I remember being pretty young when I first saw it(see previous question) and despite being horrified by anything and everything as kid, I don’t recall being as scared by the movie as one would think. Of course, this depends on whether or not one considers the Jaws movies as part of the “horror” genre or not. I find it almost….amusing that I have memories of sitting watching Looney Tunes cartoons as a kid and then followed by Jaws: The Revenge. It’s also interesting(sad?) the first Jaws movie I ever watched just so happened to be the most awful one….well, tied with Jaws 3 for being the worst one.

What is your favorite horror movie?

Classic sci-fi horror with an iconic theatrical poster

It would most likely be a sci-fi horror movie, probably Alien or The Thing. I don’t consider myself a big horror movie fan, I’m usually pretty selective about which horror movies I will bother to watch. Much of the time, I’ll end up watching something along the lines of a horror-comedy movie like Shaun of the Dead, Dale & Tucker Vs. Evil, or Young Frankenstein(another favorite to watch regardless of the time of year).

Do you prefer gore or thrillers?

It depends. I’m not as freaked out by blood and gore as much as other stuff(needles, broken toes & fingers, etc.), movies like Saw make me more squeamish than something like The Exorcist or The Evil Dead…one of the main points of many horror films is getting you to squirm in disgust. Thriller movies on the other hand, if done right, can be far more entertaining to me, but very often come off as nothing more than shallow attempts to set up jump scares. Something I often mention in discussing “scary” things in video games or movies is to note the distinction between being legitimately frightened by something or merely startled by a sudden noise or movement.

If you got trapped in one scary movie, which would you choose?

I would rather not be trapped in any scary movie, but…The Blair Witch Project. So little happens in the movie that you have considerably less to worry about than other movie settings. I’d definitely choose being stuck in the woods over avoiding monsters roaming the area…right?

If you were in a horror movie, would you be the final girl, the first to die, the comic relief, the smart one, or the killer?

The comic relief. I’m reasonably certain I would be the person in a horror movie that survives about halfway through the movie, living just long enough to make a few unfortunately-timed jokes before meeting an unremarkable end.

While watching a horror movie, are you the person who yells at the characters, the person covering their eyes the whole time, or the person who falls asleep?

Either the person falling asleep, or the one pointing out obvious situations like “welp, you’re screwed…”

Do you have to watch something happy after watching a horror movie so you can go to sleep?

No, not usually. I’m more likely to watch something happy or funny as a palette-cleanser after watching something very serious/heavy/depressing than a scary movie.

Have you ever played a horror game? What is your favorite horror game?

An all-time favorite I’ve played countless times

Yes. In fact, I usually prefer horror games to movies. Resident Evil 4 is one of my all-time favorite games and something I play frequently. The Resident Evil series had shifted towards action-horror by the time RE4 was released, but there’s still quite a few creepy moments in the game. Other horror game favorites would be Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem or the Resident Evil remake, the game that properly introduced me to horror games as a kid.

If you got trapped in one horror game, what would you want it to be?

Again, I’d prefer NOT to get trapped in any situations where the area is crawling with zombies or pyramid-headed monsters. Wait…I know! How about Luigi’s Mansion?

That’s all for now! I’ve left the questions below if you’d like to answer them in your own post or in the comments. I’ll be back with another Blogtober post on Monday…

  • How old were you when you saw your first horror movie?
  • What was the first horror movie you saw?
  • What is your favorite horror movie?
  • Do you prefer gore or thrillers?
  • If you got trapped in one scary movie, which would you choose?
  • If you were in a horror movie, would you be the final girl, the first to die, the comic relief, the smart one, or the killer?
  • While watching a horror movie, are you the person who yells at the characters, the person covering their eyes the whole time, or the person who falls asleep?
  • Do you have to watch something happy after watching a horror movie so you can go to sleep?
  • Have you ever played a horror game? What is your favorite horror game?
  • If you got trapped in one horror game, what would you want it to be?