Much like the heavy metal music scene, the horror genre has recently spawned so many sub-genres it’s hard to keep track of them all. Different media try to incorporate as many of these themes as they can, often leading to mixed or failed results (we’re looking at you American Horror Story). It takes something truly special to successfully incorporate multiple themes into one story, which The Long Reach does when working at its best.

The story follows an outbreak of recent violence that hits a small fictional New Hampshire town on Christmas. The mysterious occurrence is causing the locals to lose their minds – attacking others or themselves, acting like dogs or experiencing horrifying hallucinations. You will play through the story as a few different protagonists, experiencing an intertwined story that takes obvious cues from Jacob’s Ladder, Silent Hill, among other popular horror franchises. At a number of points, I almost felt like I was playing a video game adaption of The Belko Experiment, with a clear goal of finding out whom, why and what is affecting the townsfolk. This will take you across multiple locales, with the bulk of the game taking place in an eerie laboratory.

The game often makes the player question the protagonists’ own mental health due to their increasingly macabre hallucinations/visions as well as things in the environment being… off. The elevator in the lab will be the first noticeable change, which often provides hilarious responses, many of which are borderline X-rated. You’ll often question whether this is all in the hero’s head, or if the world is really falling apart around them due to the non-psychological horror that is present. If you’re looking for a slasher that incorporates themes related to cults, religious craziness, and sci-fi inspired experiments gone wrong, you could do a lot worse.

The gameplay is quite simple – the bulk of it tasks you with exploring the different areas and interacting with specific items, either using them as tools or combining them to be used. These can typically be found in the game world by simply looking for items with a faint yellow outline, although they can be a bit troublesome at points due to some of the items being so small, often blending into the pixelated environments. Outside of this complaint, the requirements are challenging and require the player to often think outside of the box, but may frustrate some due to the fact that they overlooked something on the other side of the current environment, resulting in a lot of meandering around the same areas searching for just the right tool or object to progress. You’ll also have to avoid a few enemies by performing a specific action or actions in a specific order, at just the right time, which can be a bit difficult. If you are spotted, they will give chase and often kill you in a delightfully violent manner unless you can outrun or hide from them, similar to Outlast or Alien Isolation. The penalty for death is light, as you’ll typically respawn a few rooms behind, with the game saving after major actions being completed. The biggest issue with death is the break in tension and the otherwise outstanding story and visuals, as the experience is very immersive when you’re not lost or getting destroyed repeatedly.

The visuals are astounding for a pixel art style game. It’s rare to experience a game in this style that evokes the same level of tension or terror that some of the bigger named horror titles do, such as the previously mentioned Outlast series offers. One thing it does well is incorporate objects in the foreground, often providing minor jump scares or panic attacks when entering a new area. You can easily imagine the horrors that took place in the rooms prior to you arriving, with a crazy amount of gore and crazy shenanigans to discover. The sound effects work well in addition to this, often making me stop to check my own home for intruders, as I spent most of the time playing alone in the dark. You rarely feel alone in the game world.

The controls are the weak link in what would be an amazing title. While they are extremely accessible during the slower paced segments, you will likely stand still while the protagonist makes a comment that you have to mash a button while you are trying to grab something and get out quickly during a chase segment, which will usually end with you taking a blunt or sharp object to the head. Granted, this will not be quite as much of an issue if you complete the challenge in the way it is intended, but can make the trial and error process much more frustrating, as I often felt like my timing was off opposed to me actually doing the wrong action.

The game is rather short; I completed the game in a few hours, with walkthroughs being available showing others completing it in a non-speed run environment under two hours. While there is an alternate ending to unlock, it can be easily viewed by reloading the final checkpoint. This means the only reason to return to the game is a few optional collectibles; most players will uninstall the game after completing the story, with no reason to return. Even with some minor shortcomings, The Long Reach is an enjoyable horror title that no horror fan should be without.

8 out of 10

Pros

• Terrifying Visuals
• Interesting Story
• Great Mixture of Horror Themes

Cons

• Some Frustrating Encounters
• Some Items are Overly Difficult to Locate

The Long Reach was developed by Painted Black Games and published by Merge Games. It was released on PC, PS4, and NS in March 2018 for $14.99. The game was provided to us for review on PS4. If you’d like to see more of The Long Reach, check out the official site.

 

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