Trying every PS-Plus Extra game: Until Dawn

Once again I try out a game without knowing anything about it and just take it as it comes no matter if I like it or not. The rule is I play it for at least one hour even if I hate it. Well here comes a surprise, I played Until Dawn all the way through and I think it took me something like 4-6 hours to do so. You've almost certainly played a game like this before and there are a lot of them out there that are just like it. I do not normally recommend these games but I'll be damned if I don't end up playing all of them all the way through.

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This game is listed as a interactive drama horror game and I think that is about as accurate a description as you are going to get. This is one of those games that aren't really a game kind of like all of the Dark Pictures games. They are more like movies where you have a choice in what happens next and whatever you choose will somewhat customize the game in a certain way. However, no matter what you choose you cannot lose and the path the story takes ends up going in basically the same way with minor differences depending on the choices you make in in the chapters. There must be a huge amount of available stories in there because when I finished the game and was looking at the trophy / progress screen on my PS4 it indicated that I had completed a mere 2% of the total available gameplay.

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Until Dawn slowly introduces the audience to all of the characters that are a bunch of teens or 20 somethings that are staying at a remote mountain cabin for an annual party that the wealthy family's son has arranged for all of his pals. Of course, it is established very early on that there is no mobile phone service up there because of course there isn't. The area is extremely remote as in the only way to actually get there is by a privately owned cable car.

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Once everyone gets up to the massive lodge at the summit, they all do typical horror movie stuff like split up, wander off in the woods, go down in the basement alone, and go and take a bath with their headphones in despite the fact that no one has figured out how to get the electricity working yet. The electricity is a bit of an elusive bitch in this game because in some places there is no chance it is going to work but then in others... no problem... lights on everywhere. But right from the start we can see that this is not going to be a realistic piece of fiction and one of my favorite reviews of this game is entitled "The dumbest group of teens all in one game!"

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The game isn't bad. It's actually visually very impressive and the voice acting is actually pretty good for the most part especially when you consider how ridiculous the choices are that these people had to make with them constantly splitting up and making dumb horror-movie decisions. Hell, Rami Malek voices one of the main characters. Since this was made back in 2015 he was yet to hit the big time but he was still a pretty big name to be doing video game voiceovers.

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If i was to choose the biggest issues this game has it wouldn't be that it is not a game but rather a movie that you get to make minor adjustments to while it is on.... that's kind of expected of interactive games and even really good ones like Detroit: Become Human operates in a similar way. The biggest problem is that they often have you wandering around very long hallways or large rooms in a Resident Evil 1 or 2 type of fashion where you just bump into everything, get stuck in a corner, and dear lord does it take ages to go up and down stairs or ladders.

If you hold down L1 it is meant to make you move faster and it does, but only just. At no point and time can you make your character run or do anything other than just casually walk down stairs unless it is a cutscene and just animated something or other that you don't have any control over anyway.

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This ends up being humorous at numerous points in the game because a character will have just moments ago been in a heart-attack-inducing situation that involved some sort of fast moving demon creature that nearly ended their lives and then they arrive at some stairs and just "ho dee ho dum derp" their way up them at a snail's pace, taking the stairs cautiously one-by-one.

There are a ton of cutscenes that I could do without such as the "previously on" recap that happens at the beginning of the each of the story's 10 chapters. I didn't really need that did i? I literally just finished playing that part and believe it or not I remember!

There are quicktime events and that is basically the only parts of the game that you participate in. How you handle these sections can change the overall story, but only tiny details of it. No matter what choices you make the story is going to progress in the same pre-planned linear pattern. The only chapter where your decisions or lack of them results in anything game-ending happening is the last one and even then it is only in the last scene. I made once choice at the end of my run that resulted in 3 people in my group dying and it seemed so obvious after I had made the choice.

A couple of things that I wanted to point out about firearms in this that I found humorous: There is one scene where the gun you are given is filled with blanks by one character... he knows they are blanks. After it is pointed out to everyone that they are blanks the other people in the room use that same gun with the same ammo to threaten other people who also know that it has only blanks in it.

Later on a double-barrel shotgun is found and you fire that thing so many times without reloading that is becomes rather hilarious after a while. Later, despite having many other things to use instead of this obviously very effective weapon, it is used to lock a door and left behind.

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It's not so easy to see it but the sawed off shotgun has been wedged into the handle to keep the door shut. They could have used the shovel or any of the pieces of wood or metal that are strewn about. That infinite ammo zero reload gun could have come in really handy later!

This game is actually pretty good if you can tolerate the fact that you don't really do a great deal and there is nothing to master as far as the controls are concerned. Your ability to walk somewhere faster is never a factor nor are most of the decisions that you make or button presses that you succeed or fail with. I will say that it is kind of rewarding to get the button presses right though and since the graphics and story are pretty good, it ends up being pretty entertaining even though most of the dialogue is pretty silly.

Recommended for a very casual gaming day

Games I have already tried in my journey to play at least 1-hour of every PS-Plus Extra game

Gravity Rush 2 (action adventure game with fast movement in every direction. It has RPG elements and a pretty decent story. Make it past the first hour and the game really opens up. Recommended)
Oddworld: Soulstorm (2D+ platformer with great graphics, sound, and voice-acting. Unfortunately it is plagued with a lot of repetition. Recommended for a few hours)
Bee Simulator (sort of like a flying FPS game but with no combat. It's graphically impressive and filled with tidbits of knowledge about bees... unfortunately it is repetitive as hell and gets boring fast. Not recommended)
Prison Architect (a prison management simulator game similar to SimCity. It's a great game but just like most simulation games, it just isn't very playable using a controller. Not recommended on PS4)
Hotline Miami 2 (a top-down shooter with gruesome violence and terrible AI. Would be great for speedrunners and hardcore gamers. Casuals like me are going to quickly tire with it)
Battle Chasers: Nightwar (turn based RPG of medium-length that does a good job of teaching you how to play in the first hour. It's pretty old-school and I happen to like that... recommended)
Chorus (3rd person open-world space fighting game. It's graphically impressive but combat is too repetitive to really hold your interest for the entire story. Still recommended though.)
Portal Knights (a very well made survival action builder game similar to Minecraft. I really enjoyed this and look forward to playing it more. Recommended)
Saints Row: The Third (clever and funny FPS game that intentionally puts you in impossible and absurd situations. It's innovative and humorous but ultimately quite dated and got repetitive and boring pretty quick. Not recommended)
Balan Wonderworld (A rather beautiful 3D(ish) platformer that is extremely easy but still engaging enough to hold your attention for a few hours. Recommended for casual gamers)
The Artful Escape (an adventure game of sorts with awesome visuals and music, but repetitive areas and controls combined with IMO far too much dialogue makes this game get boring, fast... Worth a look but not recommended to play)
Until Dawn (interactive horror game that you don't really control a great deal of. It's reasonably entertaining, you can't lose, and the graphics and sound a pretty great. It's not really a game but I enjoyed it and played it to its finish. Recommended)

All other games I have already reviewed (there are a lot of them)