Reviews / previews
The 1999 film phenomenon, The Blair Witch Project, left half of the audience scared out of their wits and the other half cursing as they reached for the Dramamine. When Gathering of Developers announced they'd secured the license for not one but three separate games, the obvious question was, how on earth are they going to keep us interested that long in what was essentially a flash-in-the-pan indie hit?
The answer, of course, is the depth of the universe created behind the movie. All that backwoods folklore is a perfect breeding ground for more eerie drama. Terminal Reality is skillfully tying in not only the engine from its action game Nocturne, but its own universe as well. In the first episode of the trilogy, Spookhouse (Nocturne's government agency that handles bizarre phenomena) sends out agent Doc Holliday to investigate Rustin Parr's claims that ghosts made him kill all those children in the 1940s. Unfortunately, Holliday arrives on the scene a day after Parr's execution and just a few hours after his house is burnt to a crisp, so she won't have much to go on.
Keeping the movie's sense of dread without showing actual monsters is, well, impossible. There will be some monsters to shoot--Holliday packs the same laser-sighted pistols as her Nocturne predecessor, and she's blown a few stickmen to splinters--but most of the emphasis is on the creepy atmosphere. You'll see shadows pass over a room, but when you turn to look, nothing's there. There will also be some important tie-ins that help explain the events of the movie...to a point. Suffice it to say that you haven't seen the last of Mike, Heather, and Josh...-- Dan Amrich / GamePro
It's time to go back into the Burkittsville woods and show evil who's boss in Blair Witch Volume 1: Rustin Parr - the first in a series of games based on the now famous Blair Witch legend.
As the title suggests, Volume 1 of the series centers on the notorious Rustin Parr murders of the early Forties. As Elspeth "Doc" Holiday, a member of the secret US government agency Spookhouse, you are sent to the town of Burkittsville to investigate the murders and uncover the source of the evil in the nearby woods.
The story does a good job of incorporating Terminal Reality's own Spookhouse story into the history of the Blair Witch while staying mostly true to the legend, and despite some corny character cliches (a crotchety small town sheriff, a wise and mystic Native American, etc.) the plot is captivating and will keep you interested enough to play through to the end.
Anyone familiar with survival horror games like Resident Evil will recognize Rustin Parr's style of gameplay. You explore various areas from a third person perspective with fixed camera angles providing Hitchcockesque views of the surroundings, while fighting monsters and solving puzzles that require you to put together clues from bits of dialogue and objects you find. One particularly fun puzzle has you manipulating a sound recorder to uncover some mysterious sounds recorded during your travels.
The Nocturne engine adequately creates the spooky atmosphere necessary for a Blair Witch game with some of the best shadows seen in gaming and lots of little details - leaves kick up from the forest floor when you walk and ghostly images lurk in dark corners. The flittering fabric effect, while technically impressive, appears glitchy and the characters' photo-realistic faces are inadvertently frightening.
The sound in Rustin Parr creates a tension that will keep you on the edge of your seat, particularly in the forest where wind howls through the trees, footsteps crunch through fallen leaves, and the air is filled with the voices of lost children asking you to come and play. Your Spectral Proximity Sensor will send chills down your spine as it crackles - warning you of nearby monsters - and you'll jump when thunder crashes. The only problem stems from some mediocre voice acting that bogs down many of the cut-scenes.
Controlling your character can be tricky at times, especially during combat. Auto-aiming doesn't always work and you'll sometimes find yourself pointing your gun in the air or straight down at the ground. It's also easy to get stuck behind a tree, blocked in by an enemy.
If you're looking for a frightful gaming experience just in time for Halloween and you don't mind a few minor flaws, you can't go wrong with Blair Witch Volume 1: Rustin Parr. For a mere 20 bucks you'll get intense gameplay, clever puzzles, and plenty of scares. Just don't play it alone.-- Brian Wright / GamePro
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