Obscure: The Aftermath

"Graduation... When you move on to another nightmare."

Having played through the first ObsCure a couple years ago, and really enjoying it, I was completely stoked at the thought of a sequel.

The first ObsCure combined two of my favorite things: Bad B-grade teen-slasher movies, and survival horror. AND! It had the bonus of cooperative gameplay. Cheesy one liners, creepy atmosphere, weird monsters, and a familiar setting... Made for quite the excellent little romp, especially if you had a friend to putz around with. That, and it was all of about 20 bucks brand new.

In the first game, you play as a group of high-school students caught in the middle of some weird science experiment. You Scooby-Doo your way through the game, solve some puzzles, find clues to solve the mystery, and get your pants scared off by light-sensitive plant monsters. ZOINKS!

There were also consequences to death that were more than just GAME OVER. If one of the characters dies, they stay dead. For instance, if your bruiser character gets into a tough battle, and dies because you're a bad overlord that forgot to heal him... He's gone. For good. (Unless you reload, of course) Of course, the best ending was seen if everybody lives, but that just makes sense.

The combat was standard fare. Melee weapons, some fire-arms, and flashlights. Remember: The beasties are light sensitive, so flashlights are a hot commodity. All the critters emitted a "dark aura" that was weakened by flashlights, making the critter weaker and more susceptible to damage. That's where the strategy came in. You had to pick which of you got the better flashlight, and which one got the better weapon. One person weakens with light, the other blasts with gun/hacks with weapon.

Why state all of this? We're talking about a sequel. It's going to obviously be compared to the game that came before it.

GRAPHICS -
For a PS2 game, the severely understaffed and under-budgeted makers did a fine job. The environments look good, the characters look good, the monsters look bad (in a good way)... Everything looks perfectly acceptable. For a $20 game, I'm not going to bag on the way it looks. Not that there's really anything BAD to say about it. Sure, it's not PS3/Xbox360 High-def content, but it gets the job done.

SOUND & MUSIC -

Creepy. That was one thing the first one did exceptionally well. The eerie choir-singing and ominous tones that rang out when you went into unfamiliar territory, or when something really bad was about to happen... Sometimes, though, the silence was enough to rattle me. Go through a door, hear nothing (no tunes, no growling, nothing), weapons came RIGHT up and ready to creep into a death-trap. This time around, the music is about the same. Downright creepy. Maybe not to the same degree as the first, but does a good job of setting the mood.

Sounds are done decently enough, save for the voice acting (but that was the best part, for me). Foot-steps sound like foot-steps, hitting something with a melee weapon produces a satisfying THUMP!, monsters made awful roars and screeches.... But the voices... Those are terrible. In the so-terrible-it's-funny manner, much like you'd see in a *gasp* bad b-grade horror flick. The script is hokey and the one-liners are real groaners. At first listen, the voices suck hard... But, soon, you'll be doing MST3K to it and having fun.

GAMEPLAY - *Disclaimer* I blow this part out of proportion, really. It's not as bad as my complaining makes it out to be. I promise.

This is where things get frustrating. The game looks good, and sounds good... But, how does it play? Well, you control with the left analog stick. Simple enough. Depending on the camera-angle, you can move it around with the right stick. Sometimes you're able to move the camera all the way around, giving you a great view of the room you're in. Other times, the camera is in a fixed position and you can only turn it side-to-side in a limited fashion. Can be quite annoying. If playing co-op, you can hit R2 to "take" the camera. THAT crap gets frustrating if your partner mistakenly hits the cam button when you're getting bum-rushed by nasties and you're left to panic because you can't see your rear end getting munched.

Combat and combat strategy are good and disappointing (for the most part), respectively. There's a good amount of melee weapons and a select few fire-arms, as well as a couple miscellaneous weapons like flare-guns, tazers, a chainsaw, flash grenades, and dynamite. All of which have their perks. I found ammo to be pretty limited, so it was mostly melee until boss battles. The strategy in battle was sorely lacking. The monsters aren't affected by light, so you don't have that mechanic of "I flash, you blast/hack" the first one did. Although, this one has a tazer, and that KINDA takes the place of the flash-lights, it's just not the same. Had to divvy out the stronger melee weapons, and have one person keep the stun-gun so they could stun while the other one whacks. There are no stun-gun upgrades like there were flash-light upgrades. I felt really let-down with this. The flashlight combat was one of my favorite parts of the first game. This time, it feels more like "go in, guns a-blazing and bats a swinging, hope you come out alive."

Puzzles range from dumb to "how the hell did they expect me to put THAT together?" Picking locks is especially annoying. Not that worst aspect in the game, but it definitely can be a buzz kill when you're ready for blood and you have to stop to put a picture together or pick a lock.

One thing that REALLY bothered me was where death was concerned. In the first, if Josh dies, Josh dies and you go on without him. In this game, if Kenny dies, it's game over. What made the first special was that you had to protect some characters because they were useful, and if they died you had to alter your strategy to continue on without them. In Aftermath, you get munched, you have to reload. And that got old, especially with how spread-out some of the save points are.

Which brings me to saving. One real crappy idea was having a one-time save point. Once you activate one of the save-points and use it, you can't save there ever again. Part of that is kinda cool, because you get to debate with yourself or co-player... "Should we save now? Or check out that other room and THEN save? I mean, we're not too banged up, and we got plenty of med-kits..." But, at the same time, it's really aggravating having to go ALL the way back to a certain point because you saved and then came across a really tough segment. It screams, "Play better, nimrod." And I scream obscenities at the game and plead with it for more save points.

Health, to me, seems a bit inconsistent. I can understand certain enemy attacks having a range of power, but man. Some of the simple swipe attacks ranged from "just a scratch" to "holycrapIneedtohealnow!" even if you had full health to begin with. In that same token, when you take a BRUTAL attack from a boss (like it jumps on you, really gives you a good clobbering...) you come out virtually unscathed. Just something that annoyed me.

In the vein of Resident Evil, it does have a sort of Scooby-Doo effect. By that, as you should already know, I mean that pick-up-able items will be flashing, have a slight flicker, or be a brighter color than its surrounding area. However, this game does a good job of confusing you unless you pay good attention to your characters. I don't know HOW many times I found myself trying to pick up what looks to be a box of ammo, or a readable book, but ultimately just mashed X in vain. Your characters head will look at items that you can use or pick-up. Kinda cool, albeit misleading from time to time.

About a third of the game is played from a "hub" sense where you can swap characters, whereas you're forced to play as 2 others for the rest of the game. The hub parts are a guessing game, because you can go through an area with two of our heroes only to find out you need one of the other schmucks to get past a puzzle or the meat-head to move a box... So, in essence, it kinda forces you to play as certain people almost every point in the game. Not that that's really bad, as the differences in the characters are minute, save for everyones "special ability." I just would've liked to play as the character I liked the most for most of the game, much like the first.

If you skipped past that... The gameplay is...OK. It's got a lot of minor annoyances that I dwelled too much on, and probably made it seem like the game is utterly unplayable. Not the case. I just got really anxious to play the sequel thinking it'd be just as joyous as the first. Was it? Not as much, but it didn't stop us from enjoying it.

STORY -

2 years after the horrors of high-school, we catch up with a couple of our old friends while they're off to college. And they've made new friends. Rather than there being some really weird science experiment where the students are guinea pigs... Shaggy, Scooby, and the gang must get to the bottom of these weird flowers and why these strange monsters appeared and ate everyone.

There really isn't much to say about the story. It's simple, mostly silly, and has a nice little tie-in to the first story. It's really about as good as a *shock!* B-grade horror flick you'd see on the Sci-Fi channel. The ending, though, may leave you disappointed. I know I was.

REPLAY VALUE -

None, unless I completely missed the New Game+ option. No alternate costumes... No bonus weapons to unlock... No making-of galleries... Just the game itself. Maybe if you have a CodeBreaker, you could give yourself infinite ammo and go trigger-happy through the game again just to have a little fun. Otherwise, it's kind of a one-and-done affair.

OVERALL -

I know, I know. I slammed it pretty hard in the gameplay department. But, it's really not as bad as I make it out to be. I guess I would've been nicer to it if I weren't such a fan of the first.

That being said, I still think this game is good. It's much better if you have a second person to play with you, because the AI can really be about as sharp as a beach ball. If you can get past the few gameplay annoyances, and have a general love of B-flicks, I feel confident you'll have a good time playing through the Aftermath.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 04/21/08

Game Release: Obscure: The Aftermath (US, 03/25/08)