Whilst Silent Hill, Fatal Frame and Resident Evil games have been the mainstay for survival horror games on consoles the style has pretty much remained the same throughout. Obviously Silent Hill portrays a more psychological horror aspect compared to the in your face antics of the Resident Evil games, however Xbox has sadly and probably never will have a Resident Evil game made for it. Well never fear as Obscure ( a new survival horror game) might just be a title that will fill the never ending hole that is, no Resident Evil on Xbox.

Gameplay:

Obscure tells the story of five students in an American high school where things are not as they seem. It looks like the school has a sordid history of missing students leading to no clues as to their disappearance. Starting the game, Kenny (a sporty type student) discovers a secret area behind the school which leads into the dark depths of a dingy basement. Naturally being intrigued by all this Kenny does not hesitate to investigate despite being unarmed, unprepared and alone. Cutting a long story short, Kenny finds a trapped pale looking student who needs help and so attempts to escape this weird underground hell hole. However as they near the exit they are attacked by vile creatures and with nowhere to escape are doomed. At this point the game ends, as this was merely a prequel to even more sinister events to come.

The following day the students discover that Kenny is missing (he didn’t show up for a date the previous night and is currently absent from school) and so the adventure begins as the students decide to go all Scooby Do and search for their missing friend.

Upon starting the game proper, players can choose between three students to begin the hunt for Kenny. Players are also able to ask one other student to help them, naturally each student has their own special skills such as lock picking or searching rooms for items, which are useful in certain situations and therefore its up to the player to decide who is best to take along for the ride. Players can switch characters at any time during the game to suit their needs and with a handy safe point and teleport feature this is easy to do.

What is also rather neat, although nothing new (as seen in Resident Evil Outbreak) is the ability to share items with each other such as weapons, ammo and health items. Which is handy as two of you fighting along side each other is better than a single firing player. The AI does a reasonable job of following your lead here and surprisingly didn’t waste too much ammo. There are a number of weapons to find throughout the game including hand guns and shotguns, even a laser and with the ability to add flashlights to the weapons (enemies fear bright lights) made combat engaging but far from scary.

The actual meat of the game is searching through a number of rooms to solve some very basic puzzles to accomplish your goal of finding Kenny. Not once was I ever stuck at what to do next as most things were pretty obvious and the map would highlight key areas in red ink a la Silent Hill. This really helped to keep the pace of the game flowing, as at times enemies would be sparse and the eerie silence perhaps more intriguing than the enemies themselves who resembled small critter like creatures and looming long armed zombie types.

Graphics:

Obscure’s graphics are reasonable and portray the high school surroundings quite well. The main characters all look like typical students even though some of the animation appears to be a little stiff. The actual background images are all 3D yet the game uses a forced perspective to create a little more tension in places. Overall the graphics do an adequate job of conveying the scene but looks very sub par for an Xbox title.

Sound:

Sound is of reasonable quality but again like the graphics is adequate rather than mind blowing. With some reasonable voice acting used to bring the characters to life and a spooky choir soundtrack the sound does create atmosphere but not as much as I would have liked for a game of this type.

Longevity:

This is where Obscure fails, as the game is very short. I think most players will beat the game around the three hour mark on their first play, depending on the pace they use. There are extra difficulties to try for an added challenge plus the lure of playing using alternative outfits. Obscure does allow two players to work together using the same screen but is cumbersome more than anything due to the nature of some of the confined areas in the game so only the most co-operative of players need apply here.

Overall:

Obscure isn’t a bad game and at times is quite fun. However the lack of any real scary moments and the general length of the game make Obscure a title that could well be easily overlooked. With none of the finesse displayed in the Silent Hill games and lacking in general atmosphere from the Resident Evils of this world, Obscure is a rental at best which is a shame as the developers could have been a little more imaginative and put some more meat into the game.