Lifeless Take, the second sport from Tales of Kenzera: Zau developer Surgent Studios, is a quiet horror sport the place the monster is ambition and the lengths an individual will go for stardom. Like numerous horror video games, Dead Take depends on jumpscares to get the guts pumping. However enjoying this sport, my deepest, most upsetting scares didn’t come from the startle of a sudden knock however from the performances of the sport’s actors.
In Lifeless Take, you play as Chase Lowry (Neil Newbon), a struggling actor who has come to the creepy mansion of Hollywood producer and kingmaker Duke Cain (Abubakar Salim), to search for his buddy, Vinnie Monroe (Ben Starr), one other struggling actor. The sport mixes the exploration and puzzle fixing gameplay of a Resident Evil sport with a story delivered virtually totally through full movement video cutscenes, or identified to us Olds as FMVs. I do know FMV video games have been round for some time, however that is my first, it felt novel in a approach video video games hadn’t made me really feel in a very long time.
As you journey by way of the mansion, the principle thrust of the sport is piecing collectively what occurred to your buddy Vinny. You try this by way of discovering snippets of movies — interviews, auditions, and video messages — and splicing them collectively to create wholly new movies by way of the usage of a elaborate schmancy AI editor. These new movies reveal plot components and puzzle options which all sound slightly like the traditional course of a online game till you understand these performers are performing their asses off.
All through Lifeless Take, you watch Vinnie attempt to safe a task in Duke Cain’s subsequent huge image, one thing he’s hungry to the purpose of desperation for. When a involved name from Chase interrupts an audition, and Duke questions Vinnie’s dedication, Vinnie brutally insults Chase.
I wish to inhabit the characters I play in video video games. In any case, they’re largely clean slates on which you’ll be able to challenge your personal ideas and emotions. The character you pilot turns into a proxy for you even once they have their very own personalities. I can’t try this in Lifeless Take.
Watching actual, flesh and blood individuals act is a lot extra engrossing than listening to them act with the motion mapped onto polygonal our bodies. I performed each Baldur’s Gate III and Final Fantasy XVI, through which Newbon and Starr gave glorious performances. However watching them act, they’re on one other stage.
That is solely a pattern of what to anticipate from Starr.
Starr scared me on this sport. A few jumpscares acquired me actual good, and even the quiet, unsettling mansion created an environment the place I actually jumped at my very own shadow, however Ben Starr is the scariest factor on this sport. There’s a second when, throughout one more audition take, he begins screaming at his costar like Christian Bale that one time. It was so properly achieved, so paying homage to all of the instances I’ve had run-ins with violent, abusive males, that I forgot he was performing.
Not all of the performances are bone-chilling depictions of what it’s like promoting your soul to turn out to be the subsequent huge factor. There’s some humor in there too. Sam Lake, identified for his work (and dance moves) on Treatment’s Alan Wake series, offers a hilarious look enjoying a washed up director. Due to plot shenanigans, Ben Starr and Neil Newbon are two British males, enjoying American actors pretending to be southern, and it’s fairly humorous when these three-layers-deep accents often break.
However don’t get me improper, this sport is all in regards to the scares. With out FMVs, Lifeless Take could be a wonderfully effective however forgettable sport. By way of the usage of expertise that peaked within the days of the LaserDisc, it’s turn out to be one in every of my favourite horror video games ever. I don’t thoughts horror video games, however I don’t search them out. I’m glad I sought out Lifeless Take.
Lifeless Take is out now on Steam.