4 Attachment(s)
Infliction: Extended Cut Review- A P.T. Inspired Horror Title That Falls A Little Fla
When playing Infliction: Extended Cut, players will find themselves continuously waiting for the big payoff that never really comes. This P.T. inspired horror game has several great ideas that make sense inside the game world, but aren't executed well enough to be memorable. World-building and atmosphere are phenomenal for such a small game, but ultimately the game falls flat after the first hour of actual gameplay.
In Infliction: Extended Cut, players inhabit the role of a man exploring his house, which is haunted by the ghost of his dead wife. It seems like a very basic horror game, but there are a lot of interesting concepts introduced early in the game. The player is forced to explore the house repeatedly as the main character is trapped in a purgatory-like loop, all the while avoiding his ghostly wife. Each chapter gives the player new tasks to complete like finding specific items or going to certain rooms, and the player is only given a flashlight and camera to accomplish their goals. Players are also able to find journals and notes throughout Infliction: Extended Cut that reveal some interesting backstory about characters. Though this concept isn't exactly new and dates back to atmospheric horror games like Bioshock, here it feels organic and engaging, a welcome addition to the title's environment.
Infliction looks great on Nintendo Switch, and the sounds and animations of characters really lend themselves well to the creepy atmosphere. It is exhilarating to hear the sounds of the ghost appearing somewhere in the house as she hunts the player down. The game is actually at its scariest when it does nothing at all, and the player has to explore the creepy house with no sounds to greet them but their own footsteps. Blowfish Studios has done a great job optimizing the game for consoles, and it performs better than it ever has before.
While the world-building and atmosphere in Infliction: Extended Cut are great, it's severely lacking when it comes to gameplay. Infliction: Extended Cut plays like a very generic walking simulator as the player explores the house. As the game progresses, it becomes more apparent that the gameplay won't evolve any further, which is disappointing given the way the narrative itself evolves so naturally.
There are a few environmental puzzles introduced in Infliction: Extended Cut that are supposed to break up the the exploration aspects. Most of these puzzles are centered around taking pictures of certain objects with the camera to discover hidden features. This a great concept, but it is underutilized over the course of the game. The player only has to use their camera a few times before the credits roll, which is a shame, because it is a unique concept.
The camera and it's limited usage is a testament to the biggest issue in Infliction: Extended Cut. The game has a lot of great features that aren't used as often as they should be. There is a terrifying stealth section that lasts just a few minutes towards the end of the game, but those mechanics are never used anywhere else prior, which seems like a wasted opportunity. That's also true of the secondary locations in Infliction: Extended Cut, as players will spend the majority of the time exploring the house but only a brief amount of time in more interesting areas like the game's forest and asylum sections.
At the end of the day, Infliction: Extended Cut is a perfectly serviceable horror game. It wears its inspirations, like P.T. and Layers of Fear, on its sleeve and tries its best to improve on concepts presented in those games. This works with some features like the atmosphere and world-building, but falls flat when it comes to game mechanics. Infliction: Extended Cut is worth a playthrough for hardcore horror junkies looking for another fix, but probably won't excite anyone bored of the genre or interested in something truly innovative.
Infliction: Extended Cut can be played on Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and PlayStation 4.
