Perception

Innovative, but quite repetitive scary adventure. The blindness mechanism is fascinating, but its gameplay doesn't really shine.

As far as narrative-driven exploration-based horror games go, Perception isn’t the worst out there, but it also can’t really stand alongside games like those in the Amnesia series or Gone Home. It still warrants a playthrough if you’re looking for a game with a unique hook or if you’re just desperate for any new horror game to play, though considering its length and lack of varied gameplay, you might be better off waiting until it’s on sale.

With only four chapters, Perception is a short game that doesn't justify its launch price. However, its unique gameplay mechanics are genuinely smart and imaginative and its quartet of narratives are morbidly engaging. After having been a little put off by its initial negative reception, I was pleasantly surprised to find that it's actually pretty good.

There're some great ideas in Perception, and with an interesting protagonist and some great voice acting, there's a lot to enjoy, even if it is a bit too easy.

Perception is a fun game full of unique concepts and ideas, but for a horror game it isn’t particularly frightening.

Perception builds upon one unique gameplay element throughout its entire brief run but fails to see what makes a horror game memorable.

Perception isn’t really doing a whole lot gameplay wise that the majority of these types of games haven’t done before. If players are a fan of narrative driven, creepy experiences, Perception offers that, and even if the game can be completed in a few hours, it’s entertaining. Where I really appreciated Perception is in the ability to make me consider how much my life would be different if I myself was blind, and that thought alone is scary. Perception gave me an even greater appreciation and understanding of potentially how a blind person goes through daily life, and while I may never know how that truly feels, even a glimpse of that life, experienced through a videogame, has touched my heart in a way I never expected.

Having Cassie's blindness as the defining game play mechanic results in a visually repetitive experience where again, one can appreciate the developer's sincerity in tackling a significant subject, but not necessarily enjoy the aesthetic results. Perception is not a long game but becomes repetitive early on. In the end, the gameplay implications of a character with a significant handicap are folded into an intriguing premise that is simply not executed very well.

An imaginative horror game, Perception is coming at a well trodden genre from a new angle, but despite its good ideas, it doesn't quite live up to its own potential.

There are some great ideas in Perception, but the execution is somewhat lacking. Wandering around a haunted house with no vision should be a tense, methodical, creepy experience, but this game has a sprint button. You are given a lot of help to navigate and solve puzzles because if you did not have your sight and were trapped in a mansion with moving walls and keys to find you would be utterly helpless. This means the whole premise to the game quickly becomes pointless, which is a real shame.

It is because of the more interesting innovations, and promisingly atmospheric ghost stories, that Perception's issues render it so disappointing. After its initial scares and exciting concept, it all begins to fall flat. The big reveal for how the stories were all connected felt muddled and underwhelming. The game seems to sacrifice vital narrative development in favour of inconsistent and misplaced atmosphere building. With as much thought put into the execution, as was clearly put into its concept, this game may have been something special, instead it haunts the realm of mediocre.

Play Perception if you’re in need of a quick horror fix, and not for what could be perceived as something larger.

Quotation forthcoming.

By Perception’s conclusion, I’d witnessed several generations of families who’d lived in this mysterious estate, how they meshed together and found Cassie’s link to them. Some were more interesting than others, but Perception ends up dragging on for too long with too little intrigue to carry it through. Had it been half as long and experimented more with the applications of Cassie’s blindness, Perception could’ve been a fascinating experience. What I actually got was the chance to stumble around in the dark for six hours, which is about as enjoyable as it sounds.

Strip away the game's echolocation feature and you're left with a rather lackluster ghost story adventure game. The path through the game is extremely linear, there's little in the way of interaction, and what puzzles there are in the game are simple and far and few between, For the dark to be scary, you have to believe that there is something lurking in it somewhere, but in Perception the darkness felt about as scary as my bedroom does at night.

If your big point of difference is that you’re playing a blind girl, but the way you’ve structured the gameplay means that she doesn’t behave blind at all, then you’ve shot your game’s credibility in the foot before it even starts.

Perception is miles better than the myriad “me too” horror games saturating Steam, but it’s certainly not exceptional. Underneath the visual style – and it’s ultimately just an aesthetic choice – is regular ol’ walk-and-talk horror game that manages a little panache but contains no material of substantial value, be it narratively or interactively.

Perception is as much a disappointment for the clever and inherently frightening idea it wastes as it is for the mistakes it makes. At its heart, there’s the promise of playing something genuinely new, from a perspective that could help teach and thrill simultaneously. It’s unfortunate that, like its echolocation mechanic, the more I saw of Perception, the more there was to worry about.

We applaud the idea, but despair at the delivery. Not enough bump in the night, too much bump into stuff. [Aug 2017, p.81]

Perception's attractive thesis—a blind woman should be capable of investigating the menacing house from her nightmares—creates space for an original protagonist inside of an extraordinary circumstance. A premise isn't a promise, however, as Perception quickly abandons novelty in favor of rote objectives, aimless antagonism, and a narrative set adrift in a sea of platitudes.

Perception is a game of wasted opportunities and poor execution. It presents a unique mechanic only for it turn stale as it lingers without any evolution, it introduces a character that the player has empathy for only to make her unrealistic and unlikable, and its inconsistent design decisions turn a promising adventure into a frustrating one.

Perception is a prime example of a wasted innovative ideas. Developers of Perception did almost everything wrong and the final product is a broken and shallow game.