Confidently Cheesy

Bookended by the spiritual prequel Until Dawn and its spiritual sequel The Quarry, The Dark Pictures Anthology is a series of horror games that feel inspired by Telltale's various sojourns into the adventure genre.  They are all games heavily based around quick time events and decision trees with some light third-person exploration sprinkled in.  The appeal of them, I think, is the ability to manipulate what are essentially fairly by-the-numbers horror film scripts.  In particular, the player can influence dialogue and actions which, in turn, determine who lives and who dies.

As of the date in which this was written, there have been four (out of an planed 8+) entries in the series.  They are, thus far, a mix of ghost, witch, vampire and slasher stories that rely on stock character archetypes and interpersonal drama to propel the plot forward.  To say these games are corny would be a mild understatement, but it is very clear that Supermassive Games (the developers behind The Dark Pictures Anthology) know what they are doing.  Having said that, there is still room for improvement.

The performances by the cast are generally quite solid, but something about the motion capture seems a bit off.  It's especially noticeable when it comes to facial expressions in some of the more subtly acted scenes.  Another area in need of attention is the button prompts.  As one Rob Zacny of Waypoint Vice pointed out, it has been four games at this point and still there are times when the desired input is unclear.  Of course, these issues pale in comparison to the importance of the stories themselves.

Tastes will vary from one individual to the next, but I personally feel House of Ashes is the most enjoyable of the bunch so far.  Its action-heavy approach works well within the framework of a video game.  In all the series entries, I have to say that the camerawork and lighting is pitch perfect...although it can be kind of weird seeing the same actors playing different roles in one game to the next.  It's also a bit strange in that it wouldn't be all that hard to hide this fact by making some changes to their in-game character models.  Maybe the dev team simply doesn't have enough resources to make said adjustments though...

Still, the fundamental appeal remains.  Depending on player choice any or all the main characters in a given story can survive or perish; encouraging replays and experimentation in equal measure.  At the very least, it makes for good Youtube/Twitch viewing fodder.  Hopefully, Supermassive Games continues the series to its intended conclusion so we can see where the enigmatic narrator and his metatextual observations lead.