When you're first introduced to fighting, it's in a hand-to-hand battle, and it's so shallow that you might assume it expands into something more exciting as you come to grips with the basics. Afterfall: Insanity makes good use of lighting, along with its slowly unraveling story and creepy sound design, to immerse you in its world.īut for all the good the atmospheric touches do to bring you into this world, the combat continually hinders your enjoyment.

When an outbreak begins to mutate the residents into horrible beasts, you begin the hunt for the culprit, and the flashes of ghostly apparitions that momentarily haunt you make you press on to see what secrets this game hides.

Tokaj has a troubled relationship with his superior, and when the protagonist is sent on a deadly mission, their back-and-forth tension makes you appreciate how strict and limiting life is under the surface. However, if you stick with Afterfall beyond the woeful early moments, you begin to appreciate the subtle touches that bring this horrible world to life. With perfunctory introductions, it's hard to care about anyone you meet, and the controls are so clumsy that you get stuck on every corner as you walk through the blinding-white halls. In the early moments of Afterfall: Insanity, the most notable aspect is the uneven attention given to the characters and action. It's a rough start to this postapocalyptic adventure, and the stilted voice acting fails to engender much enthusiasm. And when he's confronted by armed guards intent on apprehending him for an unnamed crime, you play because the game tells you to play, not because you have an emotional investment. This scene happens minutes into the game, and at this point, there is so little characterization of the world that it's hard to care about the good doctor's problems. One day, he falls asleep in the middle of a session, only to be rudely awakened when he is caught with his eyes closed. His clouded thoughts circle through his mind in a continuous loop, forcing him to dwell on the twisted ideas being spouted by his utterly hopeless patients. Now Playing: Video Review - Afterfall: Insanityĭr. But Afterfall: Insanity provides enough atmospheric touches to make it worth pushing through the multitude of problems.īy clicking 'enter', you agree to GameSpot's Tedious combat serves as your main means of interaction, and the early going is so linear and trite that it's easy to lose focus. Sadly, the act of playing is rife with problems. Afterfall: Insanity uses this bleak setup to draw you into this world-to feel the prisonlike restrictions of your domicile-and makes you want to see how this haunted tale plays out. Now imagine being the psychiatrist who has to listen to everyone's problems, day in and day out, until your own thoughts have been tainted by the crazed mutterings of everyone around you. In this claustrophobic state, people's sanity begins to slowly unravel. The tight community of survivors is clawing at the walls to break free, desperate to return to the happier times that everyone still so clearly remembers. Imagine being trapped in a fallout shelter after a nuclear bomb transforms the outside world into an unrecognizable wasteland.

Metacritic afterfall instanity