Lifeless Take, the second recreation from Tales of Kenzera: Zau developer Surgent Studios, is a quiet horror recreation the place the monster is ambition and the lengths an individual will go for stardom. Like a variety of horror video games, Lifeless Take depends on jumpscares to get the center pumping. However taking part in this recreation, my deepest, most upsetting scares didn’t come from the startle of a sudden knock however from the performances of the sport’s actors.
In Lifeless Take, you play as Chase Lowry (Neil Newbon), a struggling actor who has come to the creepy mansion of Hollywood producer and kingmaker Duke Cain (Abubakar Salim), to search for his good friend, Vinnie Monroe (Ben Starr), one other struggling actor. The sport mixes the exploration and puzzle fixing gameplay of a Resident Evil recreation with a story delivered nearly solely by way of full movement video cutscenes, or recognized to us Olds as FMVs. I do know FMV video games have been round for some time, however that is my first, it felt novel in a approach video video games hadn’t made me really feel in a very long time.
As you journey by means of the mansion, the primary thrust of the sport is piecing collectively what occurred to your good friend Vinny. You do this by means of discovering snippets of movies — interviews, auditions, and video messages — and splicing them collectively to create wholly new movies by means of the usage of a elaborate schmancy AI editor. These new movies reveal plot parts and puzzle options which all sound fairly like the traditional course of a online game till you notice these performers are performing their asses off.
All through Lifeless Take, you watch Vinnie attempt to safe a job in Duke Cain’s subsequent large image, one thing he’s hungry to the purpose of desperation for. When a involved name from Chase interrupts an audition, and Duke questions Vinnie’s dedication, Vinnie brutally insults Chase.
I wish to inhabit the characters I play in video video games. In spite of everything, they’re principally clean slates on which you’ll undertaking your personal ideas and emotions. The character you pilot turns into a proxy for you even after they have their very own personalities. I can’t do this in Lifeless Take.
Watching actual, flesh and blood folks act is a lot extra engrossing than listening to them act with the motion mapped onto polygonal our bodies. I performed each Baldur’s Gate III and Remaining Fantasy XVI, by which Newbon and Starr gave wonderful performances. However watching them act, they’re on one other degree.
That is solely a pattern of what to anticipate from Starr.
Starr scared me on this recreation. A few jumpscares received me actual good, and even the quiet, unsettling mansion created an environment the place I actually jumped at my very own shadow, however Ben Starr is the scariest factor on this recreation. There’s a second when, throughout one more audition take, he begins screaming at his costar like Christian Bale that one time. It was so nicely carried out, so paying homage to all of the instances I’ve had run-ins with violent, abusive males, that I forgot he was performing.
Not all of the performances are bone-chilling depictions of what it’s like promoting your soul to turn out to be the following large factor. There’s some humor in there too. Sam Lake, recognized for his work (and dance strikes) on Treatment’s Alan Wake sequence, offers a hilarious look taking part in a washed up director. Due to plot shenanigans, Ben Starr and Neil Newbon are two British males, taking part in American actors pretending to be southern, and it’s fairly humorous when these three-layers-deep accents sometimes break.
However don’t get me incorrect, this recreation is all in regards to the scares. With out FMVs, Lifeless Take could be a superbly effective however forgettable recreation. Via the usage of know-how that peaked within the days of the LaserDisc, it’s turn out to be one in every of my favourite horror video games ever. I don’t thoughts horror video games, however I don’t search them out. I’m glad I sought out Lifeless Take.
Lifeless Take is out now on Steam.