Allie<p>October 18, 2023 - Day 291 - NewPlay Review<br>Total NewPlays: 310</p><p>Game: The Quarry</p><p>Platform: Steam<br>Release Date: Jun 10, 2022<br>Installation Date: Oct 18, 2023<br>Unplayed: 0d<br>Playtime: 30m</p><p>The Quarry is a third-person interactive horror adventure game.</p><p>I've made no secret of my dislike of horror games, and I feel much the same about straight horror movies. I'm OK with horror comedy, and there are a handful of horror movies (the original "Last Summer" movies, most of the "Scream" franchise), but as a rule, if a horror movie is on, I'm somewhere else.</p><p>When October's Humble Choice Bundle dropped earlier this month, I opened up the email to see the AAA game for this month was a horror game I'd already looked at briefly before, and added to my Steam "ignore" list.</p><p>So here we are. </p><p>The first surprise was the cast list: there are a number of well-known names in the cast, including horror staples, David Arquette, and Ted Raimi, as well Ehtan Suplee, and Lance Henrikson - which was an even bigger surprise, because for some reason I thought he'd passed away recently. Nope. Still alive and well, and doing the voiceovers for the game tutorials.</p><p>The second surprise was that while this time I wasn't going in completely blank, as I knew this was a horror game, I didn't realise it was effectively a playable movie.</p><p>Which meant it actually combines two of my least favourite things, horror games AND horror movies.</p><p>The graphics are good, with a couple of caveats.</p><p>They've used the likeness of the actors, and in the prologue you encounter a couple of recognisable faces.</p><p>Unfortunately, it feels a bit Polar Express; the uncanny valley is strong with this one.</p><p>The other thing, is that one of the characters is played by Skyler Gisondo (you may know him from The Righteous Gemstones, or Santa Clarita Diet).</p><p>He doesn't seem to blink; it becomes really unnerving, because the intro doesn't appear to be setting him up as a bad guy, it's just REALLY disconcerting.</p><p>The navigation controls are a little frustrating, with the camera swinging around wildly, occasionally leaving me wondering which direction key I needed to use. In the TellTale games of this style, the QTE key is clearly defined. Here it's a black keyboard key icon, with a small white triangle that appears at the last second to indicate which direction to go. More than once I hit the wrong key at the right time.</p><p>On the other hand, the environmental design and sound design are very well done, leading to exactly the kind of extremely heightened dread and anxiety that is the *exact* reason I don't play horror games.</p><p>If you enjoy that overwhelming tension that doesn't seem to have any catharsis, this might be the game for you. Me?</p><p>1: Nope</p><p><a href="https://aus.social/tags/TheQuarry" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>TheQuarry</span></a> <a href="https://aus.social/tags/ThirdPerson" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>ThirdPerson</span></a> <a href="https://aus.social/tags/Horror" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>Horror</span></a> <a href="https://aus.social/tags/HumbleChoice" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>HumbleChoice</span></a> <a href="https://aus.social/tags/Gaming" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>Gaming</span></a> <a href="https://aus.social/tags/Project365ONG" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>Project365ONG</span></a> <a href="https://aus.social/tags/Project365" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>Project365</span></a> <a href="https://aus.social/tags/NewPlay" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>NewPlay</span></a></p>