Dollhouse Review: Straight to Video

Out of all the human emotions, fear is by far one of the weirdest ones in the pool of fluids that come together to make up the brain. Despite being a natural response to external factors pushing us into flight or fight mode, what triggers this for some of the population has little to no effect on others. This is a big reason why the horror genre has become less and less commercially viable – no subject works universally, or enough to terrify the overall market into ponying up their hard earned cash in the amount that makes the investors happy. Even though the straight to video or indie scene has kept the genre alive and well, for every Outlast we’re given at least a handful of releases that launch on par with the horrid quality of AgonyWhere does Dollhouse land? Well, it’s not going to have you petitioning for a sequel.

Borrowing bits and pieces from other established franchises of varying quality, Dollhouse feels like a mash-up of some of the less thrilling aspects of better games. The game features a laundry list of mechanics that are never fleshed out beyond their debut, and never come around full circle to provide an experience that satisfies on any level. The game is akin to taking a dozen or so jigsaw puzzles, throwing them in a trash bag, putting them out on the table face down, and smashing the pieces into place.

The narrative is the one area that drove me to trudge my way forward. The player is tasked with guiding Marie through her subconscious memories to piece together the events that resulted in her daughter’s mysterious disappearance. This requires you to explore procedurally generated levels seeking out film feels that you will later piece together to form a film to submit to a critic for review, giving you a final score for the scene. Despite almost being taken play for play from Slenderman: Arrival and Murdered: Soul Suspect, it’s a story that is just deep enough to keep the carrot dangling in front of you, at least until the rest of the game takes the stick and beats the crap out of you with it.

Much like 99% of the horror titles released in this generation of hardware, the title is primarily a walking sim with an extreme emphasis on the walking. Marie is able to sprint for extremely short distances; however, you’re provided any insight on when you can take advantage of this, leaving you with the crapshoot of whether it’ll actually work when you need it. I found this particularly annoying, even more so than I normally would, due to the fact that Marie has little to no means of defense. This is downright counter-intuitive for a game that puts such an emphasis on the flight part of flight or fight.

The only thing that helps to tip the scales in your favor here is that there are only two enemy types you have to deal with throughout the adventure – the first being a stalking killer with eyes that you have the ability to view the world through, allowing you to see hidden items that wouldn’t appear on your HUD otherwise. The downfall to this is that spending too much time in their brain gives away your position and sends them sprinting towards you. Once this occurs, nothing will save you, since Marie has the same sense of urgency that my 6-year-old does anytime we need to leave the house. The second enemy type – the mannequin, is more of a decoration than a terrifying threat and will only attack you or move if you’re not looking (think Weeping Angels from Doctor Who). At first, this injects some much-needed atmosphere into the game, but it’s not nearly as thrilling as it was back when Condemned: Criminal Origins did it a decade ago, and honestly, they are rather boring compared to the fiendishly sewn together versions from the Silent Hill franchise.

Marie has a handful of abilities outside of the ones I’ve already mentioned, but the only noteworthy one is the flash ability. This allows you to take the majority of your flashlight’s limited battery and emit a bright flash in front of you, much like one from any standard camera. This will destroy any mannequins in its path, clear some paths to secret areas, or in the event you’re being chased, will stun the attacker momentarily. It’s a decent concept in writing, but the execution is a downright failure as there are times that any of the above-mentioned uses just won’t work for one reason or another, and the recharge time is criminally slow. The end result is death coming for you more often than not.

Death is handled in a unique, albeit frustrating way – permadeath is a thing and it’s a mean son of a bitch. You lose all progress, character progression and bearing as to where you are, as the game places you at a random point of the procedurally generated maze and tasks you with either starting the area from scratch or finding your corpse to retrieve the lost materials. There’s a pacifist mode (which I find to be a disturbing trend among horror titles that needs to stop) that disables death and kind of defeats the purpose of actually playing this.

In addition to the standard mode, there is an 8 player mode in which each player takes on the guise of a different character with unique abilities; I have yet to successfully find a single player to connect with, despite trying during peak hours in my week. I’m not sure if this is due to a lack of a community or connectivity issues, but neither would surprise me at this point.

I wish I could say that the presentation makes up for all of the other missteps, but it’s mediocre at best. The voice acting is passable and there are some creepy visuals peppered in here and there, but overall this is a slog that only those suffering from pediophobia (the fear of mannequins) should embark on. Overly repeated textures make the stagnant gameplay even more repetitious, while clipping and stuttering is a constant issue, and the plant life looks flat as if it was made of paper. The controls are sluggish, unresponsive, and on multiple occasions, I was forced to do this little ceremonial dance around a collectible item as I struggled to find the sweet spot allowing me to actually pick it up.

Dollhouse is an utterly frustrating experience on many levels. What could have been a cult classic or guilty pleasure is bogged down by too many systems that never work simultaneously to bring any sense of cohesion to a game that is marred further by technical issues galore. I can’t help but think that if some of the filler had been left on the cutting room floor, there would have been some small moments that paid off and made my time with this game a bit more memorable or even enjoyable. Instead, we have another excuse for why AAA publishers won’t back the genre… because in most cases, they just don’t work.

2 out of 10

Pros

  • The Story is Mildly Engaging

Cons

  • Death is Overly Punishing
  • Convoluted Mechanics that Often Fail
  • Unresponsive Controls

Dollhouse was developed by Creazn Studio and published by SOEDESCO Publishing. It’s available on PC and PS4 for $39.99. The game was provided to us for review on PS4. If you’d like to see more of Dollhouse, 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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