“Look at how a single candle can both defy and define the darkness.”
From the minute I first heard about White Night it sounded like my kind of game. An old school puzzle/exploration game with a noir setting. Stylised black and white graphics with an old school fixed camera perspective. This is the kind of game I grew up on during my formative gaming years. So all the elements of a trip back in time are there but how does the game stand up?
The game itself opens with a very simple menu screen that with the press of a button launches into a mini driving sequence. As you drive along various billboards appear with the names of all the people involved in making the game which I thought was a nice touch. Suddenly out nowhere a ghostly figure of a woman appears in the middle of the road. You swerve to avoid her and in doing so collide head on with a tree. And this is where the story begins. You are injured, alone and stuck in unfamiliar surroundings.
You stumble from your car confused and injured and this is where the story begins and also one of the most annoying game sections I have ever played. I am all for realism in games and the fact that you're injured should affect the way you move and interact with objects. But walking from one side of the screen to the other is a painful and laborious process. You stumble, trip and walk at a snails pace throughout this whole section. And when you are constantly having to backtrack because you need to uncover hidden objects and clues my frustration levels quickly hit the roof. There is no way to heal your injuries either so you just have to press on.
After stumbling for what seemed like an eternity I finally arrived at an abandoned house but the door was locked. With no key in sight I had to go and find it somewhere in the grounds of the building. Now trust me when I tell you that stumbling from one screen to another over and over and over again in search of the hidden key was beyond frustrating. I must have spent 20 minutes looking for this bloody key only to stumble upon it by chance. Without spoiling the location in case any of you decide to play White Night it was located in a spot I had been to several times already. The only difference being that I approached this specific object from a different angle which triggered the context menu. And to add insult to injury I had been staring right at the damn thing but because a certain something had cast a shadow over it the key was completely obscured. Yeah that's right a bloody shadow totally obscured what was directly in front of my eyes.So with the key in hand I opened the door and entered the gloomy mansion.
Upon entering the mansion a short scene plays where I pass out only to wake up much later on with a clean bill of health. No explanation as to why my injuries have now disappeared at all. Just a pop up informing me that I can now use X to run. This is where I really hit a brick wall. There are no clues, obvious or otherwise as to what your suppose to be looking for or doing. So my only plan of action was to literally walk up to every single object in every single room I entered in the hope of triggering something. After about 30 minutes my character would have needed knee pads if this was real life. Running into a desk, a chair, a wardrobe and then a lamp in one room would be repeated in the next room and the next. My interest in White Knight was very rapidly dying.
I know that I am painting an awful picture here but the game does have a good atmosphere. You play the entirety of the game in the dark and your only sources of light are matches which you find scattered around or electric lights which either work or don't work. This partial illumination of your playing area adds a lot of tension especially considering an evil spirit might be hiding in a dark area right where you are exploring. If the match you are using burns itself out the darkness creeps around you and a thumping noise can be heard getting louder and louder and louder. This is another simple but stand out moment in the game for me because it adds another layer of tension and signals that your demise might just be around the next corner unless you find a match or a light switch very, very quickly. The way you die can be quick, brutal and extremely unfair. Sometimes you won't even notice a spirit until it is right upon you and by then it's way too late unless you're lucky enough to be by a light switch and that only happened once for me. They seem to appear out of nowhere most of the time because they are so hard to see in the first place and this can lead to some frustrating deaths and unless you have saved your game you will be doing a lot of backtracking. I very quickly got into the habit of saving as soon as I had completed an objective.
I enjoyed playing White Night even though this review may seem very negative. Going back to a much simpler time in gaming mechanics has its advantages. There are very few controls to remember, one button pretty much does everything. and the story is king. The atmosphere here kept drawing me back in even when I was at the point of just giving up. However it also has some extremely annoying gameplay mechanics that were left behind a long time ago and for good reason.
Review copy supplied by XCN.
Game: White Night.
Genre: Puzzle/Survival Horror.
Developer: Osome Studio.
Publisher:Activision.
Platform(s): Xbox One