Obscure Preview

Looking fairly spooky, the new Dreamcatcher title "Obscure" aims to unsettle gamers on a whole new level. Instead of military specialists or police officers, the game has you firmly planted in the role of several high school students who find themselves looking into the strange and odd circumstances surrounding their school.

Let me say this first of all. When I was in school, and was there after hours for one reason or another, and found myself wandering the halls as they were empty and with no one else around, I always got a bit freaked out. Maybe it was my diet of 80's horror flicks, maybe it was my overactive imagination or maybe it was something else ... that feeling of loneliness when in a large building or some sort of psychological hoopla. Either way, the programmers must have walked their own schools a few times at 9:30pm and remembered that "Hey, that's really creepy!," because they sure got that aspect of the game down pat.

Being able to switch from one student to another (five in all) is a nice change in the genre, often times, you can have a fellow student follow you around in order to access other areas or complete puzzles. The group dynamic seems to work well with the game at this point and the fact that as your characters may not make it through the game does not mean that the end is not attainable. As a matter of fact, it almost appeared to me that some of the students simply won't see how the game ends, they will succumb to the creatures and evil that surround their school.

And speaking of the school, the game has an almost Lovecraft-ian feel to it. The clues you find lead this reviewer to believe that there was (and still are) experiments going on, not to mention the weird location found in the school. Clearly, it was not always a place of academia. The game is so far looking like it is taking advantages of that late 1800's architecture and uncomfortableness. Yikes!

The game is looking great too, the textures look gross (appropriately) and the smooth-playing framerate make the game that much more creepy. The monsters that I did run into were genuinely nasty and disturbing looking. Man, I just really got freaked out playing this title, of course it didn't help that I only played it when it was late at night, but hey, I'm a glutton for punishment.

The preview I received was only 55% done and I know that there is still a bit to do, but I must address the controls, at this point there is no using the mouse, and the keyboard configuration is, at it's best, bad. But again, I know the game's not done, so let's hope they get the controls a bit more dialed in because quite frankly, I am looking forward to playing this title.