The Bunker
I “finished” The Bunker. I'll explain the quotes soon. So this is basically a movie with interactive elements. Actually it's a bit more interactive than other games I've played in this genre. You play as John, the last survivor of a bunker during a nuclear war. It's kind of alternate history I guess because the story begins in 1986. These were common stories during the Cold War, but this game was made in 2016. After over twenty years of living in the bunker, John is finally completely alone. And then something goes wrong. Things go from bad to horribly awful quickly, and now he has to find his way out of the bunker. Along the way the story is punctuated by flashbacks to when John was a kid and what happened before.
So, the interactive elements are basically just moving forward, looking at, and interacting with things. There are also these little dolls that John made that you can pick up just to collect them all. There are no puzzles except for one where you have to figure out a code to a door, but I figured it out easily. Then there are the QTEs. I wasn't having a problem with those until the very last one. For some reason it seemed to be designed to be impossible. I admit I rage quit at that point even though the game was almost over because it was clear to me I was never going to get past it. And I really didn't have the patience to sit through a long cutscene to get back to that QTE over and over again. Searching around online it seems I wasn't the only one who struggled with it. Quite a few people were finding it impossible and resorted to downloading auto clickers to get through it. Maybe if I knew about that I would have used one too, but I shouldn't have had to. Bad design. My only other gripe was the autosave system. I couldn't tell when the game saved, and it would have been useful if it saved a little more frequently.
It didn't mar the whole experience for me though. I ended up watching the ending on YouTube and I'm mostly OK with that. There is a big twist in the end that is kind of messed up. This game was an incredibly chilling, claustrophobic, and harrowing experience. It's borderline horror and I could really feel John's terror. I thought the acting was very good and the story was good too. It really grabbed me. I don't think it deserves the low rating it got on Adventure Gamers. I saw that this company has made some other FMV games, so I'd definitely like to try them. I just hope the others don't have badly designed QTEs. I think the positives of this interactive movie still outweighed the negatives. Here's a screenshot. I think this face sums up the game.
Time to play something a little lighter, which is Inspector Waffles about a cat detective.
So, the interactive elements are basically just moving forward, looking at, and interacting with things. There are also these little dolls that John made that you can pick up just to collect them all. There are no puzzles except for one where you have to figure out a code to a door, but I figured it out easily. Then there are the QTEs. I wasn't having a problem with those until the very last one. For some reason it seemed to be designed to be impossible. I admit I rage quit at that point even though the game was almost over because it was clear to me I was never going to get past it. And I really didn't have the patience to sit through a long cutscene to get back to that QTE over and over again. Searching around online it seems I wasn't the only one who struggled with it. Quite a few people were finding it impossible and resorted to downloading auto clickers to get through it. Maybe if I knew about that I would have used one too, but I shouldn't have had to. Bad design. My only other gripe was the autosave system. I couldn't tell when the game saved, and it would have been useful if it saved a little more frequently.
It didn't mar the whole experience for me though. I ended up watching the ending on YouTube and I'm mostly OK with that. There is a big twist in the end that is kind of messed up. This game was an incredibly chilling, claustrophobic, and harrowing experience. It's borderline horror and I could really feel John's terror. I thought the acting was very good and the story was good too. It really grabbed me. I don't think it deserves the low rating it got on Adventure Gamers. I saw that this company has made some other FMV games, so I'd definitely like to try them. I just hope the others don't have badly designed QTEs. I think the positives of this interactive movie still outweighed the negatives. Here's a screenshot. I think this face sums up the game.
Time to play something a little lighter, which is Inspector Waffles about a cat detective.