Game:
The Quarry
Published on Sun Feb 19 2023
This "glog" is coming a bit late as I actually finished the game a week or so ago, but better late than never in terms of wrapping up a writeup!
Walking away from The Quarry, and looking back on it now a week later, the thing that stuck with me is how badly I did, and how much I liked that. The ending was pretty clearly a "bad" ending, all but two of the camp counsellors died through the course of the game, and those who made it out did so only just barely. It honestly reminded me of Silent Hill and my first time playing through especially 2 and 4 where I basically did pretty terribly on both, getting the "bad" ending for each, and I really just like that concept a lot. The hero doesn't always win, morality isn't so black and white as good and evil, and failure is a fact of life; I like that you can "beat" the game and walk away having failed. Makes me want to play again!
Further, there's a certain matter-of-factness to the deaths. There's little to no ceremony, and I also like that a lot. Without jumping into spoilers outside of the fact that people die in the game (shocker!), the deaths are for the most part fast and without pity - Character X has died, here's their corpse, moving on... I like that a lot; in spite of the supernatural elements, the game remains relatively grounded in its treatment of death.
Sometimes the faces look a bit funny, it's not as bad as LA Noire was, by a long shot. Overall the game looks amazing - multiple times I exclaimed to my wife "that could be a video of a real live person right there, my god!". I fully accept that I'd have said the same thing about Oni Musha on PS2 when it came out and I'm cognizant that one day soon games will look even better, but for the time being this is at times really quite phenomenal from a graphical perspective. Sometimes songs will play and the specific song choices are really odd... not sure I loved the vibe when they popped up, it felt really out of place a lot of the time (cheery upbeat music after someone just died or took a mortal wound?).
Overall though, really liked the game a lot. Comparing to the Dark Picture Anthology games I've played, they didn't hook me long enough for me to finish them (I really should gain some patience, mind you), while The Quarry had the right vibe right off the top. Will play again.