In Paranormal you play as an artist who has recently purchased a new home to stay in, you believe it is haunted and so to prove yourself toIn Paranormal you play as an artist who has recently purchased a new home to stay in, you believe it is haunted and so to prove yourself to family and friends, you get out the trusty camcorder and go about the house, hoping to catch something on film.
Let me be blunt, not only is this game STILL not finished, but it is considered "Early Access" on STEAM, which means people are paying to play a game that isn't finished. You willingly do this knowing not only is the game completely unpolished, but it may not EVER be finished.
Because I have been burned on indie early access games in the past, I decided to pirate the game first and try it out, at the time I could only find a early version V1.01, which was what I had to make my initial judgement on. Once I played the early version, I enjoyed what I got to play, but it kept crashing, so I decided to go ahead and actually buy the game.
This review is currently based on the most up to date version of Paranormal.
There is very little actual game play involved in Paranormal. Based off the unreal III engine, you wander around your house with a camcorder, hoping to catch something on film. You can walk, run, open doors and interact with a very, VERY limited amount of things in your home and usually you can only do it when a event is in progress.
As you explore the house, paranormal events may or may not happen and what does happening is wide and varying. I'he had some very good experiences, where there was very unique hauntings to play throughs where almost nothing at all happens.
As you wander around the house, there are random things to click and collect. There's no reason to collect these things, the game doesn't tell you what to look for and you aren't actually given anything in return for finding these objects. I actually don't understand their purpose.
Among the worthless collections you make, you may or may not find slips of papers laying around the house which (barely) explains what is going on and sheds more light on what is happening in your house. If you are lucky (sometimes and rarely) you may actually get a phone call from your wife, which adds some extra narration to the story.
While the game claims to be random and unique each play through, that really isn't honest. The haunting events seem few and far between and you'll often see the same things happening over and over again. Further, there is no divination from the story at all, it always progresses at the same pace and ends the same way.
All in all, the game is very short, there is supposed to be a sense of re-play-ability due to the random generation of the hauntings and location of items, but is simply isn't enough. You can easily play this game at a leisurely pace and beat it within an hour (proper ending and all), at $10.00 for admission to this title it simply isn't worth the money.
The author says there are plenty of planned updates as well as a free expansion called "The Town" for people who already own the game. But if it's anything like Paranormal, then I can't really say I am excited for it. Currently there are plans to re-do the entire game using the unreal 4 engine, but I fail to see the points, I doubt there's much they can enhance upon a game where you basically wander around hoping for something exciting to happen.… Expand
