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Classic survival horror games such as Resident Evil and Silent Hill were never noted for their outstanding combat or truly dynamic gameplay. Their power rested on the fear generated by the constant struggle to stay alive in a world where you're outnumbered and outgunned and being chased by things with way too many teeth and arms in all the wrong places. That's the bitter irony of Obscure: The Aftermath, a good PSP port of a Wii game that was itself a sequel to a marginally popular Resident Evil knockoff released back in 2004. Much about the game is a well-done throwback to those early survival horror days. Unfortunately, for all the game's virtues, it never manages to rise above a decent homage because it fails in the one area that those games excelled in: creating a sense of atmospheric dread and genuine scares.
The original Obscure followed the harrowing adventures of a group of high school students battling biological monstrosities and their own teachers as a deadly evil overtook a quiet suburban school. Obscure: The Aftermath picks up the story as a few of the survivors of the original game, now college students, must deal with a strange black flower spreading like kudzu all over their campus. Students are grinding the flower up and making tea out of it in order to get high. This naturally leads to all sorts of unpleasant things, and on the night of a big frat party, homicidal jocks, big lumpy meat monsters, and a fascinating collection of ugly Lovecraftian beasties are looking to chow down on your dysfunctional crew of erstwhile academics.
It's interesting how intangibles can damage an experience. From a technical point of view, there's much to praise in Obscure: The Aftermath. The game is great looking, and the soundtrack is stellar. The game controls well, and if combat gets annoying occasionally because of subpar AI, it isn't anything that can't be worked around or, better yet, cured through Co-Op mode. The problem is that this is a game that's supposed to make you laugh and make you afraid. Annoying characters you don't care about and abominable dialogue prevent the former, and it's that ham-fisted attempt at humor that dooms the latter. The result is a game that's not awful but is a mere shadow of what it might have been.
Obscure: The Aftermath PSP Go Game Review - Download Obscure: The Aftermath For Free!
