Obscure
Published by: DreamCatcher Interactive
Developed by: Hydravision Entertainment
Genre: Third-Person Action Adventure
Number of Players: 1-2
Release Date:
US: April 4, 2005
Obscure or Ob's Cure as Steve would call it, starts you out playing as Kenny, a student at a high school where there have been reports of students suddenly disappearing. Kenny decides to stay around after school to practice shooting hoops, when he hears the gym doors close beside him. He follows them outside, but only notices the person walking through another door. He follows him to the basement of an old house beside the school (which is locked off till the end of the game of course). After searching the basement he finds a student that was locked in a room, they try to escape together but mutants capture them before they can. The game throws you into a new group of students which you can originally pick from 3 to play as, but increases as you advance through the game. Each character has their own special abilities, like fast lock picking or faster running. You can team up with a computer controlled character or have a friend take control of the other character, I didn't get to try out the two play mode, but I thought the computer had decide AI not to screw up the whole game. When picking up objects, they either fall under the puzzle/ health button, which is L2 or the weapons button R2. You use the right analog for R2 and of course left for L2, pretty simple, but after picking up too many items the scroll through them might be a bit hard we you are being chased by the monsters that run around the school. Oh, right, I almost forgot, the enemies are weak against light, it seeems the game designers almost forgot about this as well seeing it only gets used a few times in the game. If you get stuck on a puzzle pressing up on the d-pad will give you advice from the other player. You can also switch players on the fly by pressing O, it helps when the computer doesn't feeling like running from a monster. You can also give them commands with the other d-pad directions, like follow, stay or switch their weapons. One complaint about the level design was that you would find some doors locked on both sides, I don't know if they wanted to annoy you or this school really didn't want you to escape, either way it was annoying.
I found Obscure to be a solid game, even if there are better survival horror games out there (Resident Evil, Silent Hill), but I found the second teammate switching rather easy to do on the fly, unlike Resident Evil: 0 where it felt clunky to use, but that might have been because the game had more to load then Obscures few rooms it loads at once. The was like hunter in almost everyway, but I don't think it comes close to the orignal Hunter: The Reckoning. Oh well, I will just have to wait for High Voltage Software / White Wolf Game Studio to make a longer Hunter... ya right.
Developed by: Hydravision Entertainment
Genre: Third-Person Action Adventure
Number of Players: 1-2
Release Date:
US: April 4, 2005
Obscure or Ob's Cure as Steve would call it, starts you out playing as Kenny, a student at a high school where there have been reports of students suddenly disappearing. Kenny decides to stay around after school to practice shooting hoops, when he hears the gym doors close beside him. He follows them outside, but only notices the person walking through another door. He follows him to the basement of an old house beside the school (which is locked off till the end of the game of course). After searching the basement he finds a student that was locked in a room, they try to escape together but mutants capture them before they can. The game throws you into a new group of students which you can originally pick from 3 to play as, but increases as you advance through the game. Each character has their own special abilities, like fast lock picking or faster running. You can team up with a computer controlled character or have a friend take control of the other character, I didn't get to try out the two play mode, but I thought the computer had decide AI not to screw up the whole game. When picking up objects, they either fall under the puzzle/ health button, which is L2 or the weapons button R2. You use the right analog for R2 and of course left for L2, pretty simple, but after picking up too many items the scroll through them might be a bit hard we you are being chased by the monsters that run around the school. Oh, right, I almost forgot, the enemies are weak against light, it seeems the game designers almost forgot about this as well seeing it only gets used a few times in the game. If you get stuck on a puzzle pressing up on the d-pad will give you advice from the other player. You can also switch players on the fly by pressing O, it helps when the computer doesn't feeling like running from a monster. You can also give them commands with the other d-pad directions, like follow, stay or switch their weapons. One complaint about the level design was that you would find some doors locked on both sides, I don't know if they wanted to annoy you or this school really didn't want you to escape, either way it was annoying.
Closing Comments
I found Obscure to be a solid game, even if there are better survival horror games out there (Resident Evil, Silent Hill), but I found the second teammate switching rather easy to do on the fly, unlike Resident Evil: 0 where it felt clunky to use, but that might have been because the game had more to load then Obscures few rooms it loads at once. The was like hunter in almost everyway, but I don't think it comes close to the orignal Hunter: The Reckoning. Oh well, I will just have to wait for High Voltage Software / White Wolf Game Studio to make a longer Hunter... ya right.
Final Score: 7.7
posted by Jonny at 4:16 PM
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