Entertainment

Games: The Dark Pictures Anthology: House of Ashes gives gamers a top-drawer 'Aliens meets The Descent' adventure

The Dark Pictures Anthology: House of Ashes
The Dark Pictures Anthology: House of Ashes The Dark Pictures Anthology: House of Ashes

The Dark Pictures Anthology: House of Ashes


By: Bandai Namco

THE third in Supermassive's cinematic choose-your-own-adventure horrors follows up Man of Medan's ghost ship routine and Little Hope's witchery with a tale of demonic goings-on down a sinkhole.

Once again plundering Hollywood for inspiration – this time it's a mix of Aliens and spelunking shocker The Descent – House of Ashes is the most action-packed entry yet.

Celeb seasoning comes from High School Musical's Ashley Tisdale starring as Marine Rachel King who, along with a rag-tag bunch of grunts, finds herself trapped in a long-lost temple when a post 9/11 mission in Iraq goes pear-shaped.

Switching control between five characters, it's up to the player to save their collective bacon. The Curator, our Rod Serling-esque master of scaremonies, guides players through what's essentially an interactive movie with gameplay boiled down to quick-time mash-the-correct-button responses.

Once again, malevolent forces attempt to hoik characters out of frame, but this time come up against military hardware as players guide crosshairs over dusty irritants. It's possible to reach the end credits with all five intact, and a crutch comes in the form of the titular Dark Pictures – artefacts that reveal quick blasts of premonition to steer you right.

It all looks and sounds top-drawer – especially on the latest hardware – and while gameplay is largely unchanged from previous entries, House of Ashes finally introduces a controllable camera during its third person exploration.

While it can be played solo, the whole shebang is best enjoyed with some couch company. Movie Night lets a group of friends assume specific characters, passing the controller around like popcorn when it's their time to shine, while Shared Story lets you play simultaneously with others online, opening up new perspectives on scenes.

With its B-movie vibe, the character business is cardboard, though this is to be expected in what's essentially 'Aliens in a cave'.

While the free camera is welcome, it's pretty cumbersome, often leaving you facing the wrong way after examining objects – and for a game that apes James Cameron's finest, its cast move with all the urgency of a second-class stamp and boast the turning circle of a boat.

Part creature feature, part rumination on war, the good news is that Dark Pictures' shift to action hasn't diminished the horror, with enough edge-of-seat shocks and grisly bedlam to keep genre fans happy.

Next year's effort – titled The Devil in Me and starring the fittingly Munster-born Jessie Buckley – is billed as the finale to what's been a solid season of cinematic scares, even if it never quite reaches the giddy heights of Until Dawn.