Horror scenes weaved from the circuits of analog technology, such as VHS tapes, old cameras and FM radios, are often presented as if they weren’t meant to be discovered. They’re the likes of snuff films and lost-and-found video footage, their brand of gurgled speech and degraded images as unsettling as it is illicit. Then there’s the recent surge of PS1 horror games. These can be just as disconcerting, given their cast of characters’ uncannily angular faces, distorted environments and cracking textures – almost as if these are bootleg or unreleased games warped by an unknown, malevolent force.
The Tartarus Key wants to conjure the same dreadful eeriness of these games, but without resorting to cheap jump scares. To that effect it’s cloaked in the coarse, aliased graphics of a PS1 game, while its story is delivered within a tantalisingly spooky setting and a hefty dose of puzzles to crack. As a gig worker named Alex Young, you have woken up in an excessively baroque mansion, furnished with musky books and dusty furniture, rather than the familiar comforts of home. You spy a radio on a table, a postcard tucked away in the crevices of a sofa, a locked safe, and a door that’s jammed shut. Amidst the radio static, a disembodied voice would tell you that they are in the same predicament, and your first step is to find a way out of the room. A security camera watches your every move, its lens fixed on you as you gather scraps and clues, unravel their meaning, and unlock the door.
Only when you do, you’ll find yourself in yet another locked room. And another. And another.
Source – eurogamer.net
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