![]() ![]() The technical implementation of this game is well below the usual standards of Wales Interactive’s titles. Which brings me to the biggest issue with I Saw Black Clouds. ![]() The player has to slog through a lot of quiet conversations and blank stares from characters to get to them, but they are there. Tucked among the scenes of characters wandering abandoned asylums and exploring creepy basements are a few well-designed moments that actually create suspense and surprise. Though the game is never super graphic, there are a few sequences that are legitimately harrowing.Īlso surprising is the I Saw Dark Clouds’ ability to offer legitimate chills. Images and themes of suicide, sexual misconduct, and violence against women abound. This game is practically constructed from triggers. I Saw Dark Clouds comes with a trigger warning at the beginning, and it is one that should be taken seriously. Not pictured: The main character's utterly awesome platform Doc Martins. These games often promise this experience, but this is the first time that I’ve actually seen it done. Almost everything I learned in my first playthrough was completely disregarded in my second one as the story went careening off in an entirely different direction. Though I ended up in a similar place, the routes that I took to get there might as well have been on different planets. I often say about games that offer narrative “choice” that you can follow the highway or the side roads, but you still end up in the same destination. Though I Saw Black Clouds reuses sets, actors, and certain sequences during various story paths, the context is so different that you simply can’t make the same choices you made the first time and expect to succeed. The entire theme of the game changed different bad guys, different characters, different outcome. For the first time in one of these games, I made some choices that truly led me down a very different path. I’m not going to bother going into the story, simply because I experienced several wildly different films while playing this game. "I'm sorry, Charlotte! But you smell terrible."Īnd many of I Saw Black Clouds story moments are disturbing indeed. I was playing the game at night with headphones on, and I was surprised to look up and see my wife staring down at me with an expression that was half amused, half disturbed. “What the hell are you doing? You so stupid, girl! Wait, what in the hell just happened?” Stuff like that. But the sheer nuttiness of the various storylines – along with some absolutely righteous creep-out moments – still won me over.Īs a fan of low budget horror, I quickly shifted modes while playing I Saw Black Clouds, and started hollering at it like I was a 17-year-old in a dark room with my friends. And production value-wise, this is the barest of efforts, most of which looks like it was filmed in an abandoned medical complex. ![]() I have a long list of grievances with the technical implementation of this game, which I will get to in due time. There is very little in I Saw Black Clouds that could actually be considered “good” by film standards. She never went full zombie during my time with the game, but it sure looks like she wants to eat some flesh, doesn't it? And with I Saw Black Clouds, I realized that yes, the people making Wales Interactive’s FMV games have to be at least a little crazy. Regardless of their Metacritic scores, there has to be a loyal audience for these things, because they just keep coming. Here is a company that continuously serves up interactive films – often the subject of critical disdain – and every time a new one gets announced, I get all excited. I realized while playing through Wales Interactive’s latest FMV adventure title I Saw Dark Clouds that my relationship with these periodic video-based adventure games is similar to my relationship with Full Moon Features. Though the films were rarely satisfying on a cinematic level, it was clear to us that the people making them were slightly crazy, so we gobbled them up as soon as they dropped, hooting and throwing popcorn around our parents’ living rooms. With series like Puppet Master, Demonic Toys, and Trancers, Full Moon quickly gained the loyalty of me and my buddies. In the late 1980s, when the VHS home video boom was in full swing, a little production company called Full Moon Features started producing low budget horror films and dumping them onto Blockbuster shelves across the nation. ![]()
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