The bridge between Resident Evil and Silent Hill.

User Rating: 8 | Obscure II PS2
Survival horror... the term instantly conjures up thoughts of low ammo and health supplies, avoiding enemies, jump-scares ... and some bad dialogue (cough, Resident Evil, cough). Obscure: The Aftermath has all of these elements, making it a great horror game that can be described as the bridge between Resident Evil and Silent Hill.

What's Resident Evil about it? Combat. Over-the-shoulder aiming is here, and in some places the game borrows the fixed camera from the older Resident Evil games. There are some jump-scares and the monsters are well designed. You will run very low on health and ammo in this game, so there will be places where you'll be forced to run from enemies instead of taking them on. Health items are precious. The psychological horror in this game constitutes the Silent Hill side of it.

The game is the sequel to Obscure, but there are some changes - most notably that while in the original Obscure you could keep on playing as long as you had at least one character left, in this game all the characters' skills will be used, so even if one character dies it's game over. The game is quite challenging, especially compared to its predecessor.

The game features a few characters from the original Obscure as well as new characters. Shannon, Stan and Kenny from the original game are back, and the new characters are Corey, Mei, Sven and Amy. All these characters will be used at one point or another in the game so none of them are useless - Corey, for example, is skilled in acrobatics so he can jump to places others can't reach and then lift his partner up. Amy and Mei are used mostly for solving puzzles, while Sven and Kenny are strong and can push heavy objects. None of the puzzles in this game are very hard, but they are clever.

The graphics are excellent. The characters and enemies are extremely well-detailed and so is the environment. Combat is a bit slow but it's not the focus except in boss fights. The soundtrack is excellent, but the voice acting and dialogue are average at best. There are sometimes screw-ups in the AI, but none of them mar what is a great horror game. If you liked Resident Evil and Silent Hill, you'll like Obscure: The Aftermath.