My first thoughts | Until Dawn

We all love a free game don't we? Especially when they are free on PlayStation Plus, this month Until Dawn was free to download, I've wanted to play it for a while but never got around to downloading it. Luckily it was free and I could spend my pennies elsewhere, I knew this was a horror and was prepared to let myself be frightened, as I've got older horrors have started to scare me no matter if it's a movie or a game but I still power through it! Until Dawn started off as a PS3 game for the move, I actually really like the PS move a lot of people hate it but I find it a very underrated accessory for the PlayStation. Until Dawn was then eventually released for PS4 in 2014, it now gave you the option of using a normal PS4 controller or the PS move, I like that it has two different options, If I had the PS move for the PS4 I would more than likely use it for Until Dawn. 

I decided a while ago not to watch any streams of this game so when I finally did play it I was clueless as to what I would be in store for. I'm not afraid to say this game made me scream and jump, seeing as this was the main goal of the game I think it succeeded in scaring the shit out of me. The game as a whole reminds me of a few movies one being The Decent, my reason for this is the monsters they are a lot like the ones in the descent and are also in caves which I suppose is similar to the mines in the game, I think that's why it freaked me out so much, to be honest. The other movies I would say it's similar too is Jason, SAW, Scream and I Know What You Did Last Summer. It's your typical teen horror, each of the ten characters (Josh, Hannah, Beth, who are siblings and their friends Mike, Sam, Emily, Jess, Chris, Ash, Matt) has their own typical teenage stereotype which isn't surprising, to say the least. It starts off with a number of them pranking one of their friends (Hannah) because she has a crush on one of the boys (Mike), the girl soon learns out of the betrayal her mates have caused by pranking her and runs out of the cabin her parents own, her twin sister (Beth) runs after her to try and comfort her but they end up meeting a terrible death! A year later the twin's brother (Josh) invites his mates back to the cabin to remember his sisters but it soon turns into a race to survive!

I personally didn't think I would like another game like this, after playing through Heavy Rain and Life is Strange I've become to be teleported into the interactive genre which I didn't think would ever happen. I don't want this post to include too many spoilers as a lot of my friends have only just started playing Until Dawn and it wouldn't be fair to them, so I will what I thought of the game as a whole in this post. For any of you who enjoy movies or games that involve the butterfly effect, this game is perfect for you, each time you make a choice you will be told if this will cause a butterfly effect which is kind of like a warning throughout the game. Much like Heavy Rain each choice you make will decide the ending of this game and it has a number of different endings, I have only experienced one so far which was one of the worst possible outcomes! At times I found myself not being sure what choice to make but running out of time to make the best one for the good kind of ending, I actually ended up with 2 survivours at the end of the game which I was kicking myself for.

I liked some of the control options for this game, there are a lot of quick-time events so as I said you need to make your choices as fast as you can, also there will be times where you have to keep the controller still, when it came to those I just put my controller in front of me on the desk to keep it still as I have terribly shaky hands at times. You will be using the R2 button to pick up objects, the touchpad can be used to swipe through books or light a match. The thing I didn't enjoy about the controllers was when you have to move the right analog stick either left or right to make a choice on what your character will do, I would sometimes get confused and try using my left analog stick to make a choice on the left side of the screen. As you're playing through the game you will have to collect clues, one of which are totems, on my first playthrough I didn't end up collecting many of them but since I'm doing a second playthrough I can see how handy they can come in with their warnings and premonitions, other clues which you need to get are the mystery man clues, 1952 clues and the twins clues, lucky for me I don't have too many to get and the twins clues are an essential part of helping Josh survive in the game (keep that in mind). There is also a section that shows you each butterfly effect that has taken place, I haven't included a picture as I want to show all completed once I've got all the trophies (I have 3 right now).

If you're still unsure on this game it may sway you knowing how wonderful the graphics truly are, the facial expressions alone are very life like and look so much like the actors it's unreal! Not only that but both the sound track and voice acting are great, I would have thought they would be cheesy and I wouldn't like them but I honestly found their screams and acting believable. My least favourite character in the game was Emily, I've spoken to a few others about this and it doesn't seem like I'm the only one If it's horror you want, go for Until Dawn it really does deliver and the twist within the game is an interesting one, to say the least! Once more people have played it that I know, I will do a more in depth post about the characters and what I thought would be a better ending!

Elle May

Why not check out my posts on Heavy Rain & Life is Strange.