It is 2 in the morning, I don’t know if I should go to bed or start a new game. I just finished my first game of Van. From start to finish, about six hours in total, I couldn’t get with. In the weak light of my dying laptop, I feel forced to discover the uncomfortable secrets that I missed.
I want to know more about the old residents of this small town in the exclusion zone. I want to know if these hearts that beat that I “found” affected the end of the game.
But I also have work later in the morning.
I hear a bump in the other room.
Is it a hungry creature?
Of course, it’s – my cat shouts from the living room for a snack at the end of the evening. I’m not totally a little nervous.
Let’s eliminate this: Van is the best new third party silent Hill game in 20 years. No, it’s not technically A silent Hill game; Nor is it published or distributed by Konami. Regardless, Van deserves a place next to the best of the PlayStation 2-EE- silent Hill Games.
In its gameplay, its history and its aesthetics, Van pays tribute to his inspiration while putting intelligent twists and turns on the genre that silent Hill pioneer. It may not be the most original, but it is undoubtedly one of the best survival horror games in 2024.
(Publisher’s note: This review was written before the embargo raises it for Konami Silent hill 2 remake. In the days that followed, Silent hill 2 collected Widespread criticism.)
Alone in this city
Van play as you remember silent Hill. For those who have not taken care of a third person silent Hill In a few years: a tortured protagonist is attracted to a desolate city in the hope of finding a loved one. The city takes place like a labyrinth while the protagonist sails in its dreary alleys, its decomposing buildings, its monstrous inhabitants and its complex puzzles.
Van successfully checks each of these boxes by understanding that the atmosphere is a character himself. A sender of the black market without license named Mica goes to the isolated and lonely “exclusion zone” in search of his partner Sasha. The exclusion zone – like the familiar city of silent Hill– Hide secrets on his former residents and current creatures.
Headware Games carefully designed the exclusion zone to look like and honor the city that inspired it while carving out its own frightening spaces. Sometimes the two cities feel strangely familiar. The similarity works well for a good fear but aesthetically means that Van Lacks a real identity beyond his inspiration. It is not a terrible comparison (or apparently undesirable).
Mica sails in the exclusion zone with little fear. She responds to the horrors around her but rarely hesitates. She knows her way in the melee weapons she picks up, as well as the occasional firearm. And this knowledge is necessary, because players must overcome various creatures throughout the city.
Body to hollow ‘The fight is intimate. Like the PlayStation 2 horror games, the monsters are close to our protagonist. The melee fight and the game of pistols drew directly from a previous generation, with fixed camera angles and slow methodological attacks. For a horror of survival, Mica felt surprisingly well supplied; I finished the game with more ammunition and health sprays that I could not use.
Puzzles throughout Van Present a challenge while never being real obstacles. They use the environment and guide mica through strange pieces, towards strange objects, and retreat in the dark streets of the exclusion zone.
Weird area
Playing Van After reading Jeff Vandermeer 2014 Annihilation (The Southern Reach series, Book 1) feels surreal. Body to hollow ‘S Moment of opening on a mysterious beach in the exclusion zone feels inspired by strange zone X Annihilation (or at least the adaptation of Alex Garland’s film). He returns to “New weird“Genre, a kind of subversive subversive sub-genre of fiction and fantasy which often merges literary tropes and aesthetics in something completely new and strange.
Like the new strange aesthetic of Remedy ControlCushionThe world of its feels both close to and installed in the not too distant future. It is uncomfortable to play a game where the technology and the city of a cyberpunk world hides in the background, while Mica herself is surrounded by a decaying suburban city-as if we just look at -the after the horizon. Buildings, row houses and abandoned gaming fields of the city are not much to cancel this feeling, because they recall the late 90s and the first.
The mica lives in a world with flying cars, but your only weapons against hellish creatures consist of weapons of makeshift melee, like a broken bottle and a guitar. Like its inspiration, articles of low daily technology such as Coathangers and Yo-Yos must be combined to create tools to complete the puzzles or access the following space. You will also discover card editors, which unlock digital locks and a Cotac radio which allows you to listen to obsessive signals throughout the exclusion zone.
I rarely had the impression that the mica was in danger seriously VanBut I never felt that she was safe. The world around it is terrifying, but at the same time does not feel alive. I don’t want to call it “dead”; Rather, he feels both hollow and organic. The creatures – designed interesting – are never substantial, but have the impression of becoming space like foam on a dying tree.
Final reflections
Midway VanMica finds an outdoor playground in a dark corner of the exclusion area. The environmental narration merged with the history of residents of the region gave me chills deeply in the night. It was a moment that I came back many times during (and after) my game. The creatures hid at a distance, but the horrors of this lonely city felt closer than ever.
Headware Games solo developer Nathan Hamley has created an excellent horror game alone. Sometimes he persists too close to his inspirations, with moments and areas that have the impression of having come out directly from Silent hill 2 Or Silent Hill: Homecoming. Fortunately, these moments did not distract, leaning completely on nostalgia. The game surprises, just as it will haunt the dark corners of your thoughts.
A remake of Silent hill 2 released tomorrow – a game that promises to feel familiareven 20 years later. The famous Pyramid Head game antagonist has not only appeared in horror franchises like Death by daylight but also made an appearance in Astro. I have wanted a new game in the series for more than a decade, and yet Silent Hill: the short message scratched a itch earlier this year, Van is the closest that we have come for some time to take up the feeling of this city.
I can’t wait to come back to the edge of the exclusion area. With additional secrets to find and ends to discover, I imagine that it will be very soon.
Score: 8.8 / 10
