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Original, terrifying, exciting, excellent!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 12 / 12
Date: January 14, 2008
Author: Amazon User

I just got done playing this game for the first time and I must say that I am more than satisfied with the gaming experience! I had heard a lot of good things about this game, but I was unable to find it (in new condition) for a very long time. I finally got a copy and could not put it down until it was finished!

Any survival horror fan would tell you that this game offers everything necessary to fulfill an excellent experience. There are a variety of options such as characters and weapons, amazing graphics with beautiful cutscenes, eerie and captivating environments, many scares that are completely unexpected including a wide range of freakish and terrifying monsters, an original and fascinating storyline and a motivating music score!

The gameplay is truly unique in that it is the only survival horror game on the PS2 console (to my knowledge) in which two players may co-op or one player may play alone with the assistance of the computer. I found this feature to be not only helpful, but also rewarding to be able to play as a team with a friend. The rest of the gaming experience holds true to the expectations that exist in the survival horror genre; health items, a variety of flashlights, puzzle items, keys and the vast amount of weaponry available to the player. These items become increasingly essential as you progress throughout the game due to the escalating ferocity of the monsters. One of the aspects of gameplay that can work both for and against you and your teammate is the on-screen options menu. No longer can you exit and pause gameplay to equip weapons, regain health or even grab important puzzle items from your inventory even while you are being pursued by a monster or boss!

The graphics displayed in Obscure are spectacular and provide a beautiful gaming experience! I was pleasantly surprised by the attention to detail and realism found in the renderings. The cutscenes were amazing, beautiful and perfectly interwoven into gameplay. Not only do they motivate the plot, but they definitely draw the player(s) into the enticing story right from the very beginning!

The environments encountered were extremely detailed and perfectly rendered! I was delighted to find a wide range of surroundings with a multitude of rooms to explore. Although the main story does take place in a high school, many other locations aside from classrooms lead the player(s) to more dark and unsettling areas. Locations such as jail cells, laboratories, boiler rooms, labyrinth-style gardens, dark basements and even infested sewers aid in creating the horrifying experience. The characters can even completely interact with these environments and move nonessential items such as boxes, carts, table equipment, etc.

Obscure definitely contains many scares! I have played many survival horror games and this title does an excellent job startling even a veteran player! You will not be disappointed with the extensive amount of monstrous creatures spread throughout the game. They are very freakish, very disturbing and add very much to the overall mood and feel of the game.

The story is captivating and does an excellent job drawing the player deeper and deeper into the game. Every detail uncovered throughout gameplay is vital to understanding the events which have taken place and the characters involved. This is accomplished by immense amount of cutscenes, notebooks, posters, journals and more. I wish I could be more specific, but I do not want to ruin your experience of uncovering the truths behind the fear-provoking tale of Obscure.

The music score accentuates the events and the story and set the uneasy tone for the game. Great orchestrations and contemporary rock music add an appropriate flavor to the overall experience and aptly define the characters in their setting.

I highly recommend this game for any survival horror fan or any gamer who desires a challenging and rewarding experience. You will not be left unsatisfied and will greatly appreciate the efforts put into your journey which creates an experience unlike any other. Also make sure to check out Obscure: Aftermath soon to be released on PS2!

Excellent Sleeper Hit

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 14 / 16
Date: May 14, 2005
Author: Amazon User

This was released in Europe some six months ago so I've had ample time to go through the game many times, and exhaust all the possibilities. I think this is a fairly definitive review :-)

"Obscure" ("Mortfilia" in Japan) follows the age-old story of a gang of unruly teenagers as they attempt to uncover the mystery behind several disappearances of students in their high school (what is it about U.S. high schools that make the creatures of darkness want to kill, kill kill? Answers on a postcard to.... etc).

So far, so unexceptional.

What really sets this game apart is the absolute self-confidence with which it plaigirises not only classic teen slasher movies, but also several other Survival Horror peers, and the aplomb with which it presents itself as a totally new game.

It's not.

But that lack of originality certainly doesn't mean it's not a fun game to play. Read on!

GRAPHICS: 4/5
Smooth, gorgeous protagonists and really wonderful poly backdrops are complimented by a super-high frame rate and truly disturbing monster design. Cut scenes blend seamlessly with the action and may be skipped at any time, and the whole visual impression is one of top-class excellence. This is no 'Silent Hill 4' or 'Resident Evil 4' in terms of visuals, mind (the facial expressions are fairly nondescript and the overall level of detail is somewhat lower), but all in all it's a very high-class affair.

SOUND: 5/5
That's right, top marks here. Excellent voice acting and truly chilling sound effect are coupled with some really atmospheric in-game tunes to produce the same degree of aural atmosphere as heard in Obscure's more heavyweight peers like Fatal Frame and Silent Hill. The school anthem heard in the opening sequence will raise the hairs on your arms and it just gets better from there. There are one or two translation flaws (the script was originally french) but these are few and far between (I only counted three in the entire game) and don't have any impact at all - bar being unintentionally comical - and don;t take from the game's atmosphere in the slightest.

PLAYABILITY: 3/5
And here's where it goes a little wrong. Superb audio-visuals creating an atmosphere reminiscent of Jamie Lee Curtis in the original 'Hallowe'en' cannot mask the fact that this game is, in places, a trial to play. Two-player mode is very cool in theory, and in practise is good fun at times, but overall comes across as frustrating, and the controls and cameras angles work in direct opposition sometimes. Like SH 4, menu selections are in real-time (which is a nice touch, no break in the action here!) but there is an overall feeling of "Oh, dammit, come ON!" that another month or so in development could have really sorted out. On the plus side, the controls for the most part do exactly what they're supposed to do, and any true-blue survival horrorist won't mind the small quibbles.

The real issue with the playability is the extreme difficulty level, even on Normal mode. Now, games like 'Devil May Cry 3' and 'Resident Evil Outbreak: File 2' may appear to be unfairly difficult at first play, but that's toughness with a point - or at least, toughness with a viable means of progression. 'Obscure' seems to lack this, and while it's perfectly logical that a bunch of sixteen-year-old kids wouldn't have the physical reserves of strength and endurance as, say, Dante or a member of S.T.A.R.S., the developers simply haven't included enough medical items or ammunition to make direct confrontation a viable option.

And, when you consider the fact that there are areas of the game where the bigger, tougher enemies simply HAVE TO be tackled, this becomes a real negative point.

LASTING VALUE: 3/5
Once around the park is enough in the very short world of 'Obscure'. There are costumes and extras to be unlocked, but since the game presents itself as a once-off there's no impetus to replay the thing, once you're finished. Mind you, the extraordinary difficulty of the second half sort of makes up for this.

OVERALL: 3.5/5
Unoriginal, frustrating, and, at times, amateurish, the most part of 'Obscure' is a solid, scary and all-round entertaining Survival Horror game. 'Silent Hill' it is not, but then again, neither is 'Silent Hill' anymore. If you can get it cheap it's well worth the ride, though the more dedicated amongst us will get it anyway. Recommended.

Great Idea - Not Great Implementation

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: August 22, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Obscure is a Mature horror title for the PS2 that lets you play one of five teens trapped in a demon-filled high school.

The first thing that hits you in this game is the graphics. They are, well, obscure. They are reasonably good quality for a PS2 release and, starting in the basketball court, you can kick the ball around relatively realistically. If you "touch" it you automatically shoot into the hoop - a skill most basketball players would love to have :) From there you start exploring the school and realizing the horrors that lay within.

The problem here is that the graphics are TOO obscure. I agree that I like the underground scenes where the flashlight only gives you glimpses of what you can see. It adds to the moody, scary feeling. However, when you're running around outside the school, you can barely see what is right in front of you. Is that a window? A door? We spent 20 minutes hunting for "what to do next" because it was so hard to distinguish the screen elements. We have a high definition, large TV too.

Which brings me to the next point, plot. Yes, we've all seen horror movies about teens screaming and running around a high school. It's amazing that human beings only spend 4 years in a high school yet so many plots are centered around those institutions. In any case, while the school is relatively detailed, it is FULL of "locked doors". You have to try every one to see which you can get through. You have the ability to pick locks, but for some reason you can't even try most of the doors. You run up and down, left and right, searching for that one clue to let you move forward.

I was concerned at first that this was a mature horror story and that, playing it at midnight, I would be scared silly. Instead, I was frustrated to no end, running around the map countless times trying to figure out what to do next. The puzzles were pretty simple, but tracking down the items was maddingly awful. You had to hug every wall pressing the "action" button to see if anything would react.

I was enthused about the team play aspect, but despite our best efforts, team play was annoying at best and extremely frustrating at worst. Many of the rooms you end up in are very tiny, so you get "stuck" on each other. If one person leaves a room (perhaps by accident) they drag the other person along so you end up going in and out of a room several times while you investigate it.

The sound / voice acting was relatively good, you got a sense that these were real teens stuck in a real, dingy, dark high school preparing to be slain by monsters :). But when you hear the same line over, and over, and over again, it gets wearying. Add in awful camera angles where you can't even see what you're facing half the time, and it's just not a game I enjoyed playing.

I really wanted the game to play well. It had an interesting theme different from a lot of the other games we own. However, I think the game needed another few months in quality testing to work out these problems to really shine well.

Could have given us more

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: June 30, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Obscure came out without any particular fanfare (it's always the case when a game is of either non-Japanese or non-US origin!), so it took a while before I decided to give it a go. I was mostly impressed, but with a few disappointments.

The story involving monsters running amok in a US high school. and and you play one of a band of 5 teenagers who are locked in the school overnight, and determined to solve the mystery. My first impressions were that this was a very smooth and polished looking adventure, rivalling any of the big survival horror titles in terms of graphics. The school is well presented, complete with some exterior grounds and extensive cellars. The characters you play all look realistic and animate well. Lots of dialogue has been recorded for the characters to say in many situations. But the selling point of that game is that you can be any of the five characters you choose, and switch beteween them at any time. I have to say that this works very well, and if you have played Resident Evil Zero on the Gamecube, you''ll find it very similar. You can even plug in a second controller and have a friend independently control your team mate when you are exploring as a pair. Although in practise, it's not much more than a gimmick, as the characters are not all that different and you'll probably stick to pairing up the best fighter (a girl - nice touch) with the one that can open locked doors, and leave the rest behind. It's fun to experiment with two characters in this game, and you'll find times when you really need the pair of you shooting together, and other times when the AI controlled team mate ends up getting in the way or taking far more damage by not avoiding getting hit smartly enough. I eventually realised it was sometimes better to ditch them just outside the door of any particularly tricky monster-filled room, and only invite them in after I had cleared the place out!

There is no menu for items and weapons that you collect, it's all organised on the play screen, which means switching weapons or searching through your items inventory during battle leaves you wide open to a swift death, but I guess that adds a type of realism. Interestingly, if any of your team die, you can go back to the waiting area and select another one...I suppose this means you could still beat the game with all but one of your characters dead, but I didn't fancy risking that! The monsters look good, and can make short work of your team.

However, for all this good stuff, there have to be some drawbacks, and the major one is that this game is amazingly short. My final save clocked up a total progress time of under four hours, which is pretty paltry even by most survival horror standards. It's a shame that the school does not offer up more locations for you to explore, and there aren't really any puzzles as such...if you fight and kill everything, you will always find whatever you need to make further progress. I think you are expected to play more than once, as after your final save you get several new options, and it's hinted at in the closing movie that there may be a further ending that is only revealed after a replay. I might give it another go, but probably only because I want my money's worth, not because I'm desperately keen to do it all again.

Still it's an impressive looking game and fun to play, so overall, I'd call it a success. I only wish the creators had extended the experience somewhat.

Relive High School... All Over Again

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: January 22, 2006
Author: Amazon User

When you first start the game it shows you a little video and it will have Sum 41's music playing to it. That just really sets the mood. It gives you the whole feel of High School all over again. After that you start the game as Kenny who then goes missing. When his sister and girlfriend start talking they both realize that he never came home last night. They decide to lock themselves in after school when everyone has gone home to look for him.

When I frist saw this game I thought it would be a really good game to play. I wasn't completely wrong. This game tends to resemble the Resident Evil and Haunting Ground series. It resembles these games in the aspect that the enviroments tend to go back on their selves. What I mean is you have all these doors most are locked but when you find a key to one of the locked doors and go inside there is usually a few more doors in that room but one of the doors leads back to a area of the shcool you have already visited. I really like that aspect because it cuts down on all the long back tracking most games have you go through just to get back from point B to point A. Another aspect it takes on from those games is that it has a map which shows which building you're currently in. But this game has a neat little feature added to its mapping system. Oh yes I like this little feature. =) In this game, at some point in the game anyway, you will look at your map and it will show you the room you're currently in and all the rooms around it, BUT the map will have either a red check or some kind of red mark at the doors you have already enterd and a red X at the doors you haven't enter or that or locked. I haven't figure out if the x means you haven't enter it yet or its locked 'cause all the doors I haven't enter yet or locked so who knows.

This game also has a lot of cut scenes. I would have to say that within the first few mins of playing this game you will have been exposed to 7 cut scenes. The cut scenes are really great. They just make this game seem to take on a life of its own.

The only two things I really didn't like about this game were the controls and the health system. There were so many different controls that did so many different things. It takes a while to get used to them so I would suggest you play around with the contorls and get familiar with them before you find a monster. The health system. Aww yes. Now how much health does my person have again. I don't know O_o. This game pretty much leaves you flying blind when it comes to your characters health. It doesn't show you on the screen how much health your person has but you will get little hints that your person is near death almost. If your person has lost a good amount of health the controller will vibrate and your character will do what the characters in the Resident Evil Series did, they will start limping, holding their side and walk/run slowly. I did learn a neat little trick to figure out how bad my person is hurt. If you go to the screen where you have your map at the top it will have some other tabs like I think one was documents and another one was characters. Go the characters tab and whoever your current character is, the character you're currently controling, look at their picture and it will give you a pretty good idea of how bad they're hurt. When they have not had any damage done to them they're picture is nice and clean, whenever they take on damage they're picture slowly starts getting bloody.

Over all I really liked this game. This game is like in a class by itself in the whole horror games listing. The majority of the other horror games I've played have been set in some kind of town except for a few. This is the first horror game that makes going to High School terrifying and makes you thankful you don't go to High School any more.

What Potential, and yet a Failure

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 3 / 6
Date: May 16, 2005
Author: Amazon User

The storyline in and of itself is an interesting, Silent Hill-ish, storyline. I have no problems with the storyline. What gets me is the fact that it has terrible physics. First. It had much to offer, but the very fact that the camera angles are naught, well then, you get the idea. Camera angle manipulation is very important, at least for me, because by using camera angles, you can see and do things (like examining clues, studying hallways, combat, etc.). But when you can't, like this game, it is hard to work the game. Second, the use of tools, healing potions, etc. is also very complicated. You have to do hit buttons while trying not to get killed. But usually you do end up getting killed simply because you can't do two things very well at once. That's why I have a problem with this game. Maybe you yourself could work these problems, but I have a hard time doing so.

IF YOU LIKE CHEEZY TEEN HORROR MOVIES YOU'LL LOVE THIS!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 2
Date: May 28, 2006
Author: Amazon User

When I first got this game I was really drawn in by the graphics and the sorta go where you want and do what you want aspect.

You've got the sereotypical kids from a horror movie staying the night in the high school looking for the stereotypical JOCK who disapeared in the first of the game..

You've got an ungodly creepy high school that should have raised suspicion earlier (I mean couldn't they see that the lockers were all rusty and the windows were blacked out in the daylight?

but I fell in love..I played it non stop for about four or five days until it got really hard and I gave up?

but I absolutely loved the game, and when I went back to it recently I had forgotten how to play it.. but it was still hard and I still gave up

but I still loved it!

but yeah :)

I'm out!

I Loved it !

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: March 03, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Since I like the Resident Evil Series and I'm a Fan of Horror Movies, I decided to give it a Try ... and I loved it !

The Fact that you can play this in Co-op Mode is also a Plus for me and I've missed it on a lot of good Games.

The Controls are easy, the Gameplay a blast, the Interaction between the Characters is Fun and I liked the Fact that you can choose between the Characters when the Need arises ... although I stuck with one the whole Game through.

I liked the Graphics and the "scary" Factor is not bad at all ... gets your Adrenalin pumping. Yes, it is Somewhat of a "Slasher Movie" type Game, but that's just another Part that makes it so much Fun, because it's done well.

It's hard enough to be challenging, but not so hard that you get frustrated. It was well worth the Try ... you won't be disappointed !

what happens at school after dark?;)

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: October 18, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I dont understand why some people keep bashing this game.Ok, maybe they stole some idea\character from the Faculty movie, but that movie was good and the game is too.How many times I was dreaming to stay in my school for a night,just to wander in the dark scary corridors.How many times I was dreaming that city will be envaded with zombies...wait,I got carried away,its not about this game;)Anyways,Obscure gives an oppotunity to come back to school and see what happens there at night.With a nice original music score;) Also I like the idea of 2 players option, and that you can switch characters (in whole there are 6 of them in the game).
Now what I dont like... I think the game is a bit too short/easy, and theres not much value in replaying,no hidden scanerions, secrets or anything.
Overall I still would suggest this game to all survival horror lovers.

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