Tormented Souls and The Artful Escape – Zero Punctuation

“Why can’t I save whenever I want? What if my pet chinchilla suddenly goes into labour?” Don’t blame me, blame deliberate homage! I ragequit after my first attempt because I used the first save game token I found way too early and kept getting killed because combat’s like trying to disentangle two dog leashes with both your hands trapped in Pringles tubes DELIBERATE HOMAGE Oh piss off. But I started again and powered through and by the end of the game I had enough ammo to make combat trivial and I was having to sell off unused save tokens as gently used drinks coasters. Bit of a reverse difficulty curve issue, but I have to admit I was somewhat engaged with the gameplay by then, either out of nostalgia for the old Silent Hills or a sheer bloody-minded unwillingness to go back to playing Lost Judgment. It wasn’t the fucking story, which is so achingly generic it’s like it’s trying to set a record for the Guinness Book of Things That Are So Lazy I Can’t Be Bothered To Finish This Joke Properly. Wake up in an abandoned hospital with no memory, check. Monsters are all abominations of humanity who look like they got their brain surgery done by a forgetful orthodontist, check.

Main character seems to have the acting range of a wank sock and gets her tits out in literally her second scene of the game – more a movie horror cliche I suppose but fuck it, pile it on. Also there’s cults and really illogical locking mechanisms and I guessed the secret twist of the main character’s origin within the first thirty seconds. It also seems to be trying to cram in as many stolen ideas from its influences as it can – you have to go to a Silent Hill-esque evil rusty dark world version of the hospital on two brief occasions, but it was evil science experiments horror up to then, you can’t just right turn into Hellraiser reality embuggerance horror and then left turn straight back again like a lost dad on a poorly signposted highway junction. However accurately Torrential Spooge recreates retro survival horror and its classic sense of vulnerability from being obliged to fight off demons while having the combat skill of a man with his elbows glued together, there’s something terribly grubby and ramshackle about it. Between the gratuituous nudity, numerous plot holes, and crazy quilt of stolen ideas, it’s like there’s no higher thinking behind anything in it beyond “other horror games have done it” and “titties are nice.”

It also uses its soundtrack the way I use urine on a speed date. No silence, no contemplative moments, just a constant conveyer belt of spooky music and low drones like we just flushed our earbuds down the toilet in Michael Myers’ house. In brief, Toronto Smells is exactly what it appears to be on the surface and nothing more, which makes for an interesting contrast with our second game, The Artful Escape. A game that after the first ten minutes I really thought I was going to hate. You’re a young hipster guitarist whose glasses are as large as his trousers are tight living in a small town where everyone expects him to live up to his famous guitarist uncle but he’s sad because he wants to have his own identity, and instantly I assumed we were in Dreamscaper slash Sea of Solitude territory – the “get the fuck over yourself” hipster indie game about a boo hoo this small town is oppressing my creative free spirit why doesn’t anyone understand my privileged conventionally attractive person problems conventionally attractive person who will probably end up moving to New York and then never leaving their apartment because they’re afraid of all the shouty people.

Indie games are supposed to be a place of unbridled creativity unyoked from publisher interference so why do people keep making games about sad people in apartments? Also, it uses split pin paper cutout character animation like what I griped about in my Ender Lilies review, the IKEA flatpack of animation styles where characters stand stiffly around like wet floor signs with poor posture, and has some big name voice actors like Carl Weathers, and I railed against big name actors in games in my 12 Minutes review, speaking of sad people in apartments. So I was settling in to massage the hate boner on this one. But then, a few hours later, my dude was on a neon stage the size of the greater London area, dressed like a cross between the Goblin King and Geordi Laforge, playing a cosmic glam rock solo for the benefit of a gigantic transcendental space moth while the universe exploded in the background. Yeah, it takes a bit of a turn. After the initial humdrum beginning there’s a point when the game suddenly bursts into this psychedelic voyage of music and visuals like 2001: A Space Odyssey by way of Yellow Submarine. Yes, it’s an intergalactic ego trip revolving around a whiny twerp and his pedestrian guitar solos, but it’s stylish enough I didn’t care.

Cruddy Holly and his stiff-ass paper cutout animation shrinks to a tiny pinprick against these vast, animated prog rock album covers and it sucked me in, I played through it in one session and came away poised to recommend. If it weren’t for one thing. No, it didn’t turn out to be all a dream. It did fucking seem like it might and that certainly would have scythed the glittery platform shoes out from under the plot, but thankfully it didn’t. The problem with Artful Escape is, and you’re breaking my fucking heart here, guys – it forgot to have any fucking gameplay. It’s a glorified 2D walking sim, I spent the whole time hoping to God it would finally introduce a mechanic beyond pressing right, occasionally pausing to fight a monster by waiting for it to play a note and then playing the same note straight back. In context this is supposed to be us demonstrating our legendary guitar prowess that makes suns go supernova and every barren female in the star system simultaneously emit two pints of hot climax juice, and any amount of skill challenge beyond just playing Simon for five minutes could have really emphasised that. I guess I still recommend for the sheer spectacle, but ultimately it’s like going on It’s A Small World: you spend the whole time on a conveyer belt wishing you could kick someone’s teeth in.