When you look back on your favorite childhood video games, they are typically better off staying clouded by nostalgia. What used to be the most amazing thing ever to grace your TV screen will likely never live up to the pedestal you placed it on all those years ago. This revelation never really stood out to me on a personal level until today, when I revisited 1995. My old favorites – Resident Evil 2 (not the remake) and the original Silent Hill were staples of my childhood. Looking back, the graphics are downright awful (even more so on a widescreen display), the controls are nigh impossible to comprehend, and pretty much anything that isn’t story related would be looked upon as a complete failure. These issues have long since been resolved in the newer releases of the respective franchises and in doing so, made the originals (or how we remember them) better somewhere tucked inside of our brains – that is, until Back in 1995 makes you relive them. I’m not sure if this is a parody or a legit attempt at being an old school survival horror experience, but I would like to think it’s the former, because this game would’ve been bad even by 1995’s standards.

This puts you in the shoes of Kent, who is trapped inside of a building during some sort of monster outbreak. This event seems to have started long before the game even begins, and by doing so fails to provide any type of legitimate build up or inkling of tension. Aside from the fact he wants to make it across town to the highest point of the city, we’re given no other information until he sets off to explore the lower floors… and passes out almost immediately after seeing the first of the handful of creatures the game throws at you: The Dookie Monster.

Now, I am not sure if “The Dookie Monster” is the proper name for this creature, because they don’t explain this tidbit of knowledge in any of the useless notes strewn about the world. However, it’s a brown blob that floats along with the speed, texture, and intelligence of yesterday’s breakfast; and if you get too close, it will try to hug you, leaving behind nasty poo particles that cause you to vomit blood. Or at least that’s what I think is happening based off of the horrid graphics.

The way the game is displayed makes it feel as if it’s a game within a game, with the border of the screen being taken up by what would appear to be the exterior of an older 4:3 ratio TV that comes equipped with mock CRT scan lines that are almost nausea-inducing. Once you actually get into the game, it gets much, much worse. The character models are all stiff and blocky; textures look flat and bland – even the original Silent Hill had more detail than this. As you get further and further into the narrative, it almost makes you hate yourself for playing it, leaving a dirty, used feeling within yourself where joy used to be found. The tediously slow and almost insulting “This door seems to be broken..” with the sound of a broken lock to follow often results in an endless loop of mashing the A button to free yourself from its grasp before the enemies close in on you, or the same tired line repeats itself.

Every dated feature or staple of the genre I held within my sub-conscience is raped and pillaged by this throwback attempt. The tank controls that I used to be able to manage like I was parallel parking a school bus are now so difficult to use that I had to pause the game and walk away from it at multiple points just so I didn’t throw the controller at the screen in anger. The way that the game loads, each and every time you open door, regardless of if it’s a large room or a broom closet that housed nothing but cleaning supplies that no one had dug out in centuries and where your happiness once hid. Thankfully, this game doesn’t come with a run button, so you have to creep your way around the convoluted, clustered areas at the speed of a drunken sloth on Ambien. It features the short, low-resolution cut scenes that utilize the in-game engine with horrible voiceovers that could’ve been performed better by a pre-schooler in addition to still images with text overlays that you need to read to keep up with the plot. Oh, and do you remember those lovely points of a game where you’d have to go to save? Yup, those are back, since 1995 didn’t know what a checkpoint or auto save was.

Before I was even finished with this, it made me hate myself. This game and every game that inspired it have been ruined, causing my memories of Raccoon City and Silent Hill to crack, peel, and wither up as if I took my own personal tour through a version of Hell. As a parody, Back in 1995 is an amazing tribute to some of the worst mechanics in gaming history. A salute to the long history of things that were praised at the time and cursed years later, something that you really would have to be a fan back in the day in order to truly appreciate now. With this being said, I almost waived the numeric score on this title entirely, because as a legit video gaming experience, it’s just as broken as the inspirations that came before.

5 out of 10

Pros

• Accurately Recreates the 1995 Survival Horror Experience
• A Hilarious Game Hidden Within a Game

Cons

• Extremely Short
• Everything Bad About 1995 Survival Horror Games, but Worse

Back In 1995 was developed by Throw the warped code out and published by Ratalaika Games. It’s available on NS, PC, PS4, PS Vita, and X1. The game was provided to us for review on X1. If you’d like to see more of Back in 1995, check out the publisher’s site.

 

Here at GBG we use a rating method that you are more than likely familiar with – a scale of 1 to 10. For clarification, we intend on using the entire scale: 1-4 is something you should probably avoid paying for; 5-7 is something that is worth playing, but probably not at full price; 8-10 is a great title that you can feel confident about buying. If you have any questions or comments about how we rate a game, please let us know.

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