Paranormal Activity: The Lost Soul

 PlayStation 4
Metascore
tbd

No score yet - based on 2 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 0 out of 2
  2. Mixed: 2 out of 2
  3. Negative: 0 out of 2
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  1. IGN Italia
    Sep 25, 2017
    70
    Paranormal Activity: The Lost Soul has some problems with the controls and doesn’t last long, but the atmosphere is great and all this is enough to make it an interesting horror game.
  2. UploadVR
    Aug 22, 2017
    60
    Paranormal Activity: The Lost Soul is a relatively solid VR horror game. There is a strong foreboding sense of terror, a thickly developed atmosphere, and excellent use of sound and lighting to convey a real sense of fear. The adaptive scare system also works well, for the most part, and keeps you guessing. However the poor control system, occasional bugs (which will likely be addressed soon with patches,) short length, and inconsistent pacing keep it from being as successful as it could have been.

User Reviews

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User Score
6.5

Mixed or average reviews- based on 17 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 8 out of 17
  2. Mixed: 5 out of 17
  3. Negative: 4 out of 17
  1. ZeroEhxe
    Aug 27, 2017
    3
    Previously, I was not a big fan of horror games. My time in VR with horror games has changed that a lot. The sense of immersion youPreviously, I was not a big fan of horror games. My time in VR with horror games has changed that a lot. The sense of immersion you experience in VR takes what would be a laughable game on a flat TV and turns it into a heart attack inducing experience. This has been my experience with Resident Evil 7 and The Bellows, both great horror games, although they are at very different ends of the spectrum both in gameplay, length, and cost. Paranormal Activity: The Lost Soul tries to fill the middle ground between an expensive, full-priced game and a budget title. It was $30 USD at launch but is fairly short. It plays like a budget title due to the simple omission of any pause menu. Once you start the game, you can't go back to the title screen or change the options. You have to completely close down the game from the PlayStation's home screen and relaunch the game to get to the options in order to change the controls or the brightness. That's something you might see in a $10 game that you're going to play through in one sitting, and to be fair you're probably going to fly through this game that quickly too, if you can figure out which key goes in which door. Oh, the doors... This house is full of them, but most don't open. Or they seem like they don't open, but then you realize the move controller doesn't work very well. You press the T button to grab a door handle, and it will make a shaking sound like you tried to open it but it was locked. But you can still open those doors, the sound effect is misleading. You just have to fight against the move controller to get the door to open wide enough to let you pass through. I wish this game included a standard Dualshock 4 controller setup. As it stands, you have to remember the control scheme, which really breaks immersion. On the right move controller, you have to press x to turn left 45 degrees, and square to turn right 45 degrees. The square button on the left controller walks you forward, but if you double-tap it you sprint ahead. Many times, I tried to walk forward slowly only to have the controller think I tapped it twice and zoom, off I go unintentionally. The x button on the left controller walks you backward. Triangle cycles your inventory while the circle button on the left controller causes you to crouch or stand up (when it works). The move button on either controller allows you to interact with your currently held item, and the T button allows you to put it back in your inventory or drop them depending on what the game decides you should do with it, push buttons with your finger, and interact with objects like door handles. Have you been taking notes? Because these controls are not intuitive and you're going to have to remember them. Trying to remember which button does what constantly distracts you from what's going on in the world.

    And there isn't much going on in the world. As I already mentioned, most of the doors are locked, and you'll never open them. There is very little in the world you can interact with. Where Resident Evil would let you open any drawer you could see, Paranormal Activity shows you furniture with drawers and doesn't give you the option to open them, except for the drawers that you have to open to progress the game. There are little pieces of paper and mail and sticky notes strewn about, but they're so blurry on PSVR that you can't read them. I've watched youtube videos of people playing this game on PC and they were able to read the notes (albeit slowly putting the words together like a mini puzzle) so it must be the lower resolution of the PSVR that is the problem. There is no backstory when you start the game; you're just thrown into the yard of this house and you decide to walk through it because that's the only option you have, not because there is some compelling mystery to solve or story motivating you. That was also true of The Bellows, but there you walked through a linear path and got good scares along the way. Here, most of your time will be spent "gaming", that is to say you'll be looking for batteries to your flashlight and keys for a door, then the door to match your new key, and most of the doors have keyholes so it's a matter of backtracking to figure out where the game wants you to go. It's all very boring gameplay to get to the scares, which are pretty standard stuff. A loud sound will happen when you interact with an object. A creepy person will walk across the screen at the other end of the hallway. You'll see a video on a short gif loop of something moving on its own. I only gave this game 3 stars because it did cause me to jump a couple of times due to VERY loud noises, and there were a couple of creepy moments. I let my wife play, and she LOVED the scares and HATED the controls. She gave up before completion, scoring it 1/10. I spent $30 on this game, and I'm wishing I had waited until it was on sale for $7. Even then, I don't know if it's worth it.    … Full Review »
  2. Xenon1313
    Aug 20, 2017
    10
    Awesome game. Very fun and move controllers make the game immersive. Graphics are good as well. Lots of scars and not just cheap jump scares.Awesome game. Very fun and move controllers make the game immersive. Graphics are good as well. Lots of scars and not just cheap jump scares. Very recomended… Full Review »
  3. AmrKassem
    Sep 26, 2017
    10
    Honestly, I don't understand why this game is getting low scores. This is one of the best VR games I tried since I got my PSVR. The visualsHonestly, I don't understand why this game is getting low scores. This is one of the best VR games I tried since I got my PSVR. The visuals are top notch, the story is interesting and the control scheme is brilliant (However, it will take you a while to get used to it). Before this game, I had lost hope for VR. But if a small indie game can have this level of quality and immersion, then there hope for VR after all. I enjoyed every second of this game. The only down side is the price. I think it's a bit expensive for a 3 hours game with no real replay value.… Full Review »
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