From a film in 1999 to a change in the way TV and movies were made and produced, The Blair Witch Project has influenced whole genres of movie making, down to how they are recorded and produced. Now, it has even influenced books, college courses, and video games.
The game Blair witch is a new approach to a movie that is rich in substance and an already existing plotline. So, how can a game be created in the context of the Blair witch without the loss of an already harmonious story? Much like Hollywood, when it comes to a movie being turned into a game there is a loss in plotline flow and continuity at times from the original story.
in the game, Blair witch we play as an ex-army vet Ellis Lynch who is searching for a little boy by the name of Peter. Right, when entering the game we have a dog companion, an officer hinting that our character has a destructive mental illness, and a camcorder that we get upon going into the first campsite. Now, first things first...Our lovely companion Bullet, the dog that takes my heart away will be with you during 90% of the game, don't get ahead of me. I am of two minds when devs put a dog into a horror game or any game for that matter. On the one hand, it emotionally tears me because I know I will get attached to said the dog, but on the other hand, we have to be real about this. This is an AI, a character made up of ones and zeros, it is not a REAL dog. Yet we feel this sort of emotional attachment because it's a dog.
when first going into the first campsite, I felt like I was in outlast to an extent, you can't fight enemies you can either hide or run and you have a really crappy camcorder. There are a lot of things in this game that we will be covering, psychological underpinnings, adapting a film from 1999 to a game in 2019, and the themes of loss and becoming the thing we fought the MOST. There will be spoilers, you will have things ruined for you, and no I'm not sorry since this is a comprehensive review of the game as a whole.
This game doesn't rush into the horror, in fact, it takes its time with every move. It's a calculated effort to get from point A to point B. While yes it reminds me of a combination of Layers Of Fear, and outlast it creates this undeniable atmosphere that pulls you into its gravity with no apologies. Now I admit, I am very biased towards this game since it's based on a movie that I love with my whole person, but be that as it may, there were things about the game that I wish were more thoroughly thought through.
Since the creators of Layers of fear made this game I am not shocked at all that there is a repetitive nature to it. Layers of Fear is a classic, both the first and second games were masterpieces that gave a new meaning to the word horror. With The Blair Witch, there was the looping mechanism that we all know and love from Layers of fear but there are some good and bad parts to it. on the good side, with each campsite you go into, that same camp will loop throughout the game and is actually one of the markers that the game gets more intense, more decayed, and more decrepit. With every chapter that goes on you slowly become more integrated with the monster that is the Blair Witch, or in this case the main antagonist, Carver.
Once you get to a certain point in the game it moves from being slightly creepy, to "ok this just got real" you find out that Ellis is an ex-military vet, and that he has a crippling form of PTSD where he has full-on auditory and visual hallucinations to the form of where it becomes crippling paranoia. Ellis gets to a point where his delusions bleed over into his reality and he has to make the choice. "Do I go crazy? or do I survive?" throughout the game, there are several times where we encountered a woman whispering to us, and different psychological notes where it discusses Carver's inpatient documents that his psychiatrist wrote out. At one point I thought it could have been either carver or Ellis in-patient notes since they are very similar in their traits.
Let's dive into the changes that were made when creating this game and adapting it from a movie to a game. the film originally came out in 1999, with a documentary, and another film afterward. And what not a lot of people know is that there are three Blair Witch games that came out from the dev company terminal reality, which is also known for the game BloodRayne. from the perspective of someone who is a fan of the movies, I feel like the developers managed to do something that was really difficult. They incorporated a new plotline into an already existing storyline, which usually never works but with this game, I feel like it did.
Now, let's dive into the topic that is the least fun part of the article. CRITIQUES. Yes, the ever so lovely, but harsh critiques. When I got to a certain part of the game it got...Buggy...To say the least. when you are in the abandoned mining area your mode of transportation is a train car. during a certain point when you try to get back on to the train car, the train car itself disappears. It vanishes, gone into thin air. this happened not just once, but twice which had me restart the game mid recording two times. When it comes to a game I pre-ordered, and waited for, a month i feel it appropriate that the game should work in its entirety. now, there will always be bugs when you are developing a game there are such minor ones that they are not even noticeable by the player. but when you are playing a game and YOUR MODE OF TRANSPORTATION JUST VANISHES, it has me questioning things.
at the end of the game depending on how you treat your dog and depending on how you interact with Carver you will get one of four endings. I got the ending where you become Carver, which makes sense for Ellis and how his past intertwined with his present. He became the very thing he hated and it crossed into living his delusions. Now there are other things that are just the icing on the cake where we encounter the Blair Witch symbol, and the same house as was in the first movie. (insert girly noises here). Overall it was an amazing game, and if you like the movie I believe you will enjoy the game. It has suspense, horror, and psychological references.
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