I am not ashamed to say that I am a total wuss when it comes to scary games. I find video games a lot scarier than movies, which is REALLY weird thing to say, but there is a science behind it. When you are watching a movie, you are listening to the story, watching for plots, enjoying the cast and the atmosphere and always on alert for jump scares and those stereotypical moments that you know are coming. In a video game, you are immersed in the world. You aren't watching a cast, you become the cast. You have sounds that are forever keeping you engrossed in the game. Your anxiety is on high alert because your goal is to beat the game, but you want to survive it with the best possibly solution. When a game can pull you into it's world using graphics, sounds and immersive world tactics, it's a sign of a video game that is doing a pretty good job. Thus, Azdimension's "Evade the Light" turned a situation that I thought I wasn't going to enjoy, into a high anxiety fueled jump scare, and this was only the alpha.
I'm not a fan of first person's because I get motion sick quite easily, but this game was worth the dizzy spell. I'm not sure if you will initially start with all the choice weapons when the game initially launches, but for this test you get to use sniper rifles, assault guns, a shotgun and a pistol. On each of these weapons, you have an indicator that lets you know if you are safe, or you have been sighted and even worst, if you are being pursued or attacked. There is a weapons bench that allows you to customize the weapons to fight your needs, even though I didn't find this usefully currently because you can just click the same part over and over until the stats bar you want is as high as you can get it. I'm not sure if this actually increases the stats they say they do, I'm not the guy you go to for that kind of testing, but I thought this bug is something I wanted to point out. When you're initially in the bunker, there was just a dead silence really. I was turned off by this at first. It wasn't until I actually left out to explore, and that music hit with all the other noises, that I instantly was on high alert. THIS feeling was the feeling of being dragged into this world. I've said it many times, sound is important. Sound is VERY important for video games to succeed. And when you have a game that can envelope you in it's world using sound, you have a game that will produce lots of fun and different emotions. Evade the Light put me on chronic alert. There were sounds of bushes rustling and weird noises, while I was exploring the woods and it creeped me out to all hell. I could feel my heart rate racing and I could feel my hands jittering. There were a couple of moments that I had to stop and take a breather just to get a grip on myself because this game was sucking me into it's world so brutally, and it was all thanks to the amazing sounds that this game produced.
Graphically, the game was very well done. Using the Unreal Engine 4 to create some very eerie effects and feelings, there are screenshots that shows just how deep and creepy Europe and Asia can be. I didn't personally get the chance to see a lot of this, but from what I have seen, they definitely grant you more of that deep dark horror of sucking you into its world combined with all the other elements of the game. The fog effects were probably my favorite as they consistently made me feel like I was being watched, or something was going to leap out and tear my heart out. The game gives you that Sci-fi horror feeling so well and it really does make you want to traverse the world and story more. Again, I'm not a fan of first person games, but I did find myself wanting to get more sucked in. I was being overly cautious and every step was a heart race for me. And being an open world game doesn't help in me feeling safe or not because that just means anything and everything can come out to murder death kill me.
Unfortunately, I didn't get to really see the customization of the game. The developer's say that you are able to upgrade and use skills to help you within the game and I didn't really get too into this. Maybe it was because it wasn't fleshed out in the demo or a gross oversight on my part, but it would of been nice to really dabble in the skill system a bit. As I stated before, the weapon upgrades were lack luster and I didn't notice any difference, so that may be a glitch or just not completely worked on yet in the demo.
I don't know if Evade the Light will be the next big hit. I feel like, if the team at Azdimension keeps working in the direction they are going, they very well could produce a hit game. Like many games at G.Round, there is potential and possibility with the right guidance and determination and drive. But from what I've played from Evade the Light, so far, it could shape up to be a scary new addition to the growing horror genre style games.
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