Scorn horror adventure game Review plunging into the world
Scorn is an atmospheric first-person horror adventure game set in a world of nightmares. The game is built around the concept of “plunging into the world” while being completely isolated and lost. The player will have to explore various interconnected areas in a non-linear manner.
Each location contains its own theme (story), puzzles, and characters that are integral to creating a unified world. Throughout the game, you will discover new locations, gain new skills, weapons, and various items and explore all the local attractions.
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Scorn is finally here after it was originally announced back in 2014. You’re a strange, quirky character who’s thrown into an unforgiving gray world filled with Giger-inspired locations and creature designs. For 6-8 hours, you’ll insert phallic objects into cork-shaped biomechanisms, and fire bioweapons at strange flesh puppets, and it’s available as part of your Game Pass subscription. So let’s break down this weird, beefy mess of the game.
Story
Scorn has no script, voice acting, or written words of any kind. “You are a strange humanoid creature made of flesh that wakes up in some terrible place and finds itself in a strange world that wants to kill you” – such is the whole backstory. The first few hours of the game are entirely based on puzzles. It is a fully 3D world played from a first-person perspective. Everything is like flesh and biomechanical in nature. Every part of this world feels alive, and here you can poke phallic-shaped objects into things that look like butts. The puzzles themselves tend to be extremely simple with minimal trial and error. Chances are you’ll find yourself wandering around not knowing what to do until an object you couldn’t interact with lights up and the lights go out above your head.
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There is nothing in this whole game to give way. You’ll stumble upon this disturbingly meat-filled series of gaudy and, frankly, rather ugly corridors. I reviewed the game on PC at max settings and was surprised at how ugly most of the game is. Some sections look great, but they are rare exceptions in a completely mediocre game. Although the first few hours were so slow and full of insipid puzzles, I spent the rest of the time figuring out the terrible combat system. Eventually, you will unlock a handle that can have different ends attached to it. Everything is disturbingly biomechanical, of course, even the cartridges. First, it’s a near-useless and infuriating piston-rod-style contraption. This does not work on ammo but requires a cooldown period.
Once you have ammo, it can be used with a mouse and keyboard, but it’s too hard with a controller. I was able to fine-tune the scope, but with the surprisingly high number of enemies you’ll face as you progress through the game, I found mouse aiming to be much better at staying alive. Health replenishments are similar in their ultimate nature in each act. This was especially frustrating as the game regularly took away your health segment during the inevitable cutscenes. Add to this the fact that almost every enemy can make an unlimited number of ranged attacks, and one of the largest opponents can attack you non-stop, and the fight becomes unbearable. Even with bland, uninteresting puzzles,
mediocre graphics, and terrible combat, I could find something worthy of praise, if the plot and sound were good. Unfortunately, they are fair no better.
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Story? What story
The title revels in giving you absolutely nothing. Even after five full hours of playing time, I couldn’t tell you what this story was about, no more than five minutes later. As previously stated, the game lacks voice acting or text. The user interface is as minimalistic as it gets and you can’t even save it. Instead, you have to rely on checkpoints, which usually made me replay entire sections of the game when combat reared its ugly and unbalanced head.
In terms of sound, the sound effects are ok, but the music is out of the question. You get a random tone and a little ambient noise, but that’s about it, and it drains a game already devoid of any fun or a life that has some sort of personality. In the end, I keep feeling like every part of this game is either boring or infuriating. Had he stuck to the puzzle style early on and mixed in the minimum number of fights, he could have just been mediocre. Instead, we are given a game that has too many enemies to fight and no way to do it with pleasure. I didn’t feel the tension when I fought anyone, instead, I was just scared because of how frustrating every combat encounter was without ammo, and that’s most of them.
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There is no jump button in the controls, only aim, reload and use. You have an inventory showing each fleshy contraption and the number of bio-munitions built into it. Your tiny ammo and health monster squid will never get in the way too much. So much of what’s behind this title seems to focus on being weird and quirky rather than being fun and enjoyable. It is the usual miserable experience for each of your senses, with occasional flashes of creativity for your vision. This is what really gets me in the end. How could something that took so long to come out in such a state? I’ve played games of this genre before and they can be fantastic. There is nothing to fear here, and there is no hook in any area. Was the idea “let’s make some cool sets.