The only dreams this game will kill are your own from having played this incredibly boring, generic shooter.
Right from the start you know this game is going to be pig vomit due to the "picture" slide show instead of a cutscene. This is 2009, capable of amazing cut scenes and graphics. I could name numerous games that take advantage of this to great use. But even the ones that don't do so well at least did something. The intro to this game got no effort from the creators as it is just a slide show of images. It reminds me of that surgery game on the Wii. Something Trauma, trust me it's terrible. Didn't get a review from me since it was before I started reviewing, and it's on the Wii, not my 360 or computer. But the game was loaded with pictures as story elements, between every single level which disgusted me as this is the video age. This game is worse, because at least that game tried to have a story. This one doesn't even do that. But, moving on...
You play some woman, like Velvet Assassin there's no reason to know her name because no one ever says it in the game. Since it's a first person you won't even see her yourself past the opening intro. The game has no story of any kind. Like Velvet Assassin, each mission, or level, is like a simulation that has nothing to do with any other level. They don't exist prior to reaching them, don't go anywhere, and don't exist after completing them. Just like that game, it is just a mindless jump from one stage to the next. The most you get towards any kind of objective or attempt at a story is a picture of your patient and a few words about him before the mission starts. I don't get the point at all. Even Velvet Assassin offered more before each mission, attempting to get you to care about your objective. Here it just shows a single picture of a patient and you're like, "who cares?"
The story doesn't even make sense with itself. You're suppose to be fighting bad dreams, which manifest themselves in the form of monsters inside a patient's mind. So dreams are the enemy now? Wouldn't this be a problem for everyone, not just a few patients? What, is there a demon or something causing this? Are they going to kill the patient, and whatever happened to drugs? Give us more information damnit. It says next to nothing before sending you on your way, and never mentions any of it again. Why not have an interesting story with some ghost like demon doing this instead of it just somehow being a natural problem magically effecting a tiny part of the population. It makes no sense, and you soon won't care after playing the game and quitting due to how boring it is. There's probably more to it, but I can't imagine anyone enduring the game long enough to find out. Maybe if you lost a bet to a friend or something you'd have a reason to play this all the way through. I sure wouldn't take any dares to this game. I DARE you to make it to the end of this game. That's cruel, because you'll go insane long before you reach the end of it.
Where the game really dies though is in its bland, boring, repetitive gameplay. This game is nothing but a long drawn out shooting feast between you and monsters. You go to a new room, shoot X amount of monsters, then move to the next room and repeat. There is absolutely nothing to break this up. No talking, no minor puzzles, no one else, no horror; NOTHING. Look at Dead Space for example. You have friends talking in great desperate emotions at their situation, audio and text logs you come across to put you in the world, an RPG system to immerse you, minor puzzles to give you a break from constant action, environmental hazards to worry about; the list of things breaking the game up to keep it from becoming a tedious repetitive shooter is quite long. Dead Space is awesome! I wish they would learn from games like that. It's what this game, a survival horror, should have been like, except inside patient's minds. But instead this game has nothing of the sort. Every single room in the entire game is just an "enter, shoot until monsters stop spawning", then leave. Should I even mention the zombies the game threw together as enemies for the second level? Even if it isn't a survival horror, then it's action and should be like Halo or Resident Evil 5, not this mindless shooting from start to finish.
It's made worse by everything else. Most enemies look the same, they take forever to stop spawning, you get next to no combat choices, and it's a fast first person shooter. Like Halo I really hate these things, they revolve around jumping all over the place shooting like a retard in combat. But even Halo wasn't so terrible, it offered huge battle areas, many gun choices, many enemy types and even vehicles to spice things up. Despite hating the FPS genre I gave it a good review because it was a decent game.(Doubt I'll ever review another one though) Again you'll find nothing of the sort here. Pretty much all the enemies on a level look the same or fight the same. Imagine killing spawning spiders for 20 minutes straight with nothing else. Trust me, it's as boring as it sounds.
The unique gameplay elements the game offers do next to nothing to break this up. You get a gun but it only lets you carry 1 or the other. That's ok, but the guns themselves suck. What game lets you get a gatling gun with a rocket launcher attached to it on the FIRST LEVEL as a lame attempt to keep you interested in the game? This game does. Second level you get a shotgun that can fire non-stop without needing to be reloaded, nor does it even over heat like the gatling. It's all nonsense and makes an already repetitive game even more generic and boring as you hear the sound of your gun firing over and over for a 5 minute shoot out that feels like an eternity, with no reason for it to stop or for you to let go of your trigger button. Why not just run around spamming shells? The only reason to stop and let go is because the noise would drive you crazy. Long story short, the combat in this game fails badly.
To make matters worse(yes, worse), you have to figure most stuff out yourself. For example, on the second level there are giant glowing orbs you can enter to enter "another world" of sorts. While in this you are in the same area, but the world around you glowing and weird. The point is that you need to be under this effect to kill certain enemies, which you can't harm otherwise. The game tells you this, but what the game doesn't tell you is that if you stay in this effect for too long, your character dies. It's a beginners trap. The first time you use this you have no idea why your character is dying. Thanks for leaving me to figure that out. Things like this shouldn't exist, especially if you already took the time to tell me why I needed it. Would it have been too much of a hassle to add something like, "Note: Don't stay in this too long or you'll die"? I just typed it, took less than 5 seconds. To make matters worse, there isn't even a bar or timer to tell you how long you have, you just have to guess or count it yourself. What nonsense to force on a player. I have a healthbar, an energy bar, a rage bar, enemy boss's have a healthbar, so why not one for this too? Imagine playing Dead Space without an air number to tell you when you are going to die from lack of air. It's a perfect example. Sound fun? I didn't think so.
The last fail feature I can bring myself to torment myself with by talking about is the rage bar. When you kill enough enemies you go into a rage mode. No idea what it does because you don't feel any different and the game doesn't bother to tell you what it does either. Only difference is that it's harder to see and your character moves like superman. So an already speedy shooter turns into super speedy every time this thing fires. Zooming around the room like... Zoom from that boring movie, but while shooting, is what you'll feel like. But it made me feel like a retard for still playing the game. But I endured it for the sake of this review... joy joy?(Yes my life sucks)
The graphics in game and performance are the only thing the game has going for it. It runs perfect and the game world itself is quite stunning. To stand on a land or platform and look out into empty space is awesome. To enter a door but turn around and find out that the door has nothing but empty space around it, is also awesome. Too bad they couldn't use some of that design to make cutscenes to make the game worth any money. Environmental designers seems like only designers this game got attention from. Did they think this pretty environment would want to make me endure hour after hour to see? I'll admit the world around you is a beauty, especially the first spider level, but it's not worth the time sink to get to any of it.
But as if this isn't enough, it has a multiplayer! I can't imagine sharing this experience with another person. It would be like a prank, "hey, want to play a great game with me?" Then when they say, "this sucks balls dude whats wrong with you", laugh in their face at their misery. I'm left to assume that's why this is here, I can't grasp any other logical reason for it.
This game is an abomination and should be avoided. Don't play it, don't rent it, and especially don't buy it. Don't even look at it if you can help it. If someone gives it to you, throw at their face. The fact that you're here means you're curious. I'm trying to help you. I'm warning you. You've been officially warned. Game reviewers like me take one for the team by enduring garbage like this so you don't have to. I'm also not paid off like the "professionals" so you can trust me when I say it's total trash.
The 1 hour I spent on this game felt like an eternity, and I couldn't wait for that level to end so the pain would finally be over. I honestly couldn't endure anymore, I began to fear for my health.
To be honest, at least the other bad games I endured offered something, such as challenging puzzles(Braid), an interesting story(Universe at War), addicting action(The Force Unleashed), or large scale chaos(Prototype). This one offered absolutely nothing, not even a tiny "thank you" from the patient's minds I freed. Play this for too long and you'll need a Dreamkiller woman hero yourself to save your dreams from this game.
Single player:
(Experience) F (Fail)
Presentation:
(Video/Audio) A (Good)
Performance: A (Good)