When it comes to horror films, I can’t take most of them seriously enough to get frightened, however, strap on a VR headset and load up any horror game and I turn to a sweating nervous wreck of emotions. Reviewing AFFECTED: The Manor took some courage to first boot it up to bring you this review. The things I do for you guys!
I don’t know who would want to go through such an experience as these horror games in VR but, if you like jump scares and small frightening dolls appearing around darkly lit corridors and rooms, then AFFECTED: The Manor will be right up your dark alley.
The game begins outside the manor. You are slowly eased into your 20 minutes of ‘spooky time’ as you wander through the front garden of the manor, through gravestones, spooky trees, creaking metal gates, all whilst the ere music plays out and thunder and lightning strikes in the clouds around you. As you approach the front steps of the manor the front door creaks open, welcoming you into what will certainly be a nerve-wracking experience.
The manor contains 2 routes that lead to different experiences. You must first choose to enter one of two doors in the living room of the manor and from here and beyond are corridors, rooms and many experiences that will attempt to scare you, mess with your head, your nerves and most of all, your heart rate.
Each route will last around 20 minutes, so its price of £7.99 is justified in that regard, but don’t let its price give you an impression of being an inferior game. The sound and graphics look great. I certainly got Resident Evil vibes from this game. There are lots of direction-based sound effects that never fail to lure you into looking at the direction it is coming from. Sadly though, most of the time this audio direction doesn’t lead to anything, but during your first experience, it is enough to unease you.
Graphically, the game looks great. Just like movies, you can hide a lot of technical limitations in the dark, yet visually the game looks rich and very fitting to the spooky aesthetic of the manor. Animations of the certain ‘things’ you encounter are also well executed and are super creepy to witness for the very first time.
Your controls in the game are simple and there is a short tutorial for newcomers to learn the basics of the game. You are mostly opening doors, pulling levers and picking up objects in the game. I did encounter an issue with one of the routes during my first time in the game, in which I couldn’t reach out to grab an object. This left me to only really experience one of the routes in the game, but one route was certainly enough!
The game’s main objective is to scare you, and it certainly did that for me. There are some very evil encounters that happen and there’s nothing you can do to avoid it, and it’s these moments that genuinely made me scream in fear. Mission accomplished developers, well done.
AFFECTED: The Manor is a decent experience for the low cost of entry. That is if the goal is to get scared in a game. Once you have experienced both routes, and their alternative endings, there is little else that’s fresh or different in the game to bring yourself back. But then, the game becomes the means to scare others who are willing to take on the task of exploring the manor, and the price alone will be well worth seeing them go through the same pain as you did. Enjoy sharing the fear.
