{"id":165,"date":"2021-03-07T00:03:04","date_gmt":"2021-03-07T00:03:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.gatecitygaming.com\/?p=165"},"modified":"2021-03-07T00:03:04","modified_gmt":"2021-03-07T00:03:04","slug":"savior-or-false-shephard-lone-survivor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.gatecitygaming.com\/index.php\/2021\/03\/07\/savior-or-false-shephard-lone-survivor\/","title":{"rendered":"Savior or False Shephard: Lone Survivor"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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This article originally ran under a different banner\/website in October of 2018 and is now being here re-uploaded for purposes of convenience and consolidation. Please enjoy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN!!!\u00a0 BOYS AND GIRLS!!!\u00a0 IT IS OCTOBER!!!\u00a0 THE SEASON OF SPOOKS AND I HAVE NO NEW HORROR GAMES TO SPEAK ABOUT!!! There are plenty of horror games set to come out this year, but they all have gone into hiding.\u00a0 Scorn <\/em>delayed until next year.\u00a0 Call of Cthulhu <\/em>on track for its October 30th release date.\u00a0 Infliction <\/em>an October 18th release date.\u00a0 Visage <\/em>sits comfortably in early access, more content to be a demo rather than a finished product.\u00a0 Finally, the last chapter of Bendy and the Ink Machine <\/em>comes out on October 26.\u00a0 HOW MUCH POLISH DO YOUR MONSTERS REQUIRE?!?!\u00a0 I am sure some of you would like me to review Baldi\u2019s Basics<\/em>, but I loathe games built on random chance.\u00a0 To stand here before you, not discussing a horror game, should be a crime.\u00a0 I have no choice but to return to my backlog and find a finished horror game.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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On a dark and stormy night, I turned to my trusty cauldron known as my Steam library and began the dark incantations.\u00a0 Knowing I was looking for a more atmospheric story than one that had monsters screaming at you, I threw in a copy of The Shining <\/em>into the cauldron.\u00a0 The green goo began to furiously bubble.\u00a0 The cauldron violently rocked back and forth.\u00a0 Lightning crashed across the sky, despite the lack of a storm.\u00a0 I was overcome with the need to laugh at the top of my lungs.\u00a0 Just as the cauldron began to settle, the game known as Lone Survivor<\/em> bubbled to the top.\u00a0 I had heard whispers of this game being a better Silent Hill <\/em>game than Silent Hill Origins, Homecoming, Shattered Dimension, <\/em>and Downpour <\/em>combined.\u00a0 No turning back now, I thought.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The game opens with the main character saying the city has been ravaged by a terrible plague, you might be the only remaining survivor, and your name is not important.\u00a0 With your supplies dwindling, you must venture out to answer the one remaining question: are you the lone survivor?\u00a0 Upon exiting your apartment, an uncomfortable atmosphere engulfs you.\u00a0 The feeling that things aren\u2019t as they should be, settles in like a thick ominous fog rolling in on a pitch-black night.\u00a0 It could stem from the two-dimensional pixel art that makes the environment and monsters hard to make out.\u00a0 As you exit your apartment, you are greeted by a monster the main character describes as being inside out.\u00a0 It appears to be a humanoid completely covered head to toe in some fleshy substance.\u00a0 The pixel art succeeds in creating an unsettling loom over these creatures, and in combinations with their twitchy movement, makes them a frightening enemy without having to resort to jump scare.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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It is not only the enemies that give a sense of unease.\u00a0 In true Silent Hill <\/em>fashion, you do meet other people, but they seem to be disconnected from reality helping that uncomfortable feeling fall over you.\u00a0 After making your way through a hallway full of monsters, you find yourself at a party with people who don\u2019t seem to grasp the dangers lurking outside.\u00a0 They tell you to relax, calm down and dance the night away as the monsters patrol outside.\u00a0 After stepping out onto a balcony to retrieve a gun, you return to the party only to find all the guests have turned into the same monsters in the hallway.\u00a0 You start to question whether the party was actually happening or if it was all in the main character\u2019s head.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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You continue to question who\u2019s real and who\u2019s in your head, especially when you start taking pills.\u00a0 As you adventure through the apartment building and ruined city, you will occasionally find pills to take before you go to sleep.\u00a0 These pills will cause you to dream up characters such as The Man with the Box on his Head and the Seated Man.\u00a0 After a brief conversation with these figures, you will awake with more supplies in your bag, causing you to continue questioning what\u2019s real.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Despite these scenes, I found myself frequently taking these pills, because resources were few and far between.\u00a0 Staying true to the \u201csurvival\u201d part of survival horror, your limited resources only add fuel to the fire that is the nervous tension blanketing you.\u00a0 Lone Survivor<\/em> gives you two options to survive the onslaught from the lumbering monsters blocking your path: sneak around them or gun them down.\u00a0 While the game is in a two-dimensional setting, there are backdrops that will allow you to sneak past the fleshy creatures.\u00a0 You can even lure them to specific spots with some rotten meat; unfortunately, you can only carry 6 slabs of rotten meat, and the meat only temporarily distracts the monsters.\u00a0 I found it much easier to kill the monsters with my gun, even with almost sticky gun controls similar to Silent Hill\u2019s <\/em>combat.\u00a0 It also allowed me to backtrack without previous monsters slowing me down or requiring me to run back to my room to stock up on rotten meat.\u00a0 I would have to scrounge around for extra ammo, but I had unlimited space for ammo and could receive more from one of the pills.\u00a0 Killing enemies ultimately saved more time, than trying to sneak past everyone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Along with scrounging around for ammo, you will have to scrounge around for food as well.\u00a0 Every so often, the main character will feel hungry or tired and constantly nag you about it, like a character in an early access survival sandbox game.\u00a0 It feels like it is designed to do nothing but slow down your progress.\u00a0 Just as I feel like I am getting far in the story, I would have to turn around due to my character\u2019s fatigue.\u00a0 Luckily, mirrors are smartly placed all throughout the buildings and city that allow you to teleport back to your room.\u00a0 Yes, the whining does get annoying, but the smart level design consisting of well-placed supplies and ways back home doesn\u2019t make it deal-breaking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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While I have only experienced Silent Hill 2<\/em> through Let\u2019s Plays, I have always admired the arresting atmosphere the games employ.\u00a0 Many people associate horror with jump scares and are often turned off from horror by that fact.\u00a0 While I find games like Dead Space <\/em>utilize the jump scare effectively, I can see why games like Five Nights at Freddy\u2019s<\/em>, a game that is nothing but jump scares, would turn people off from the genre.\u00a0 If you have been burned by jump scares in the past, I urge you to give Lone Survivor <\/em>a chance.\u00a0 You will find there is more to horror than just robots jumping at you from off-screen.\u00a0 It\u2019s the unsettling feeling lurking behind you.\u00a0 The feeling of the monster is just outside of eyesight.\u00a0 The feeling that all they need to do is place one finger on your shoulder just to get you to scream in terror.\u00a0 That\u2019s always been the type of horror Silent Hill <\/em>has used to capture the imagination of its fans, including Lone Survivor\u2019s <\/em>developer, Jasper Byrne.\u00a0 So as you wait for the final chapter of Bendy and the Ink Machine<\/em>, the release of Call of Cthulhu<\/em> or the full version of Baldi\u2019s Basics<\/em> to be developed, I highly recommend you experience the terror this game has to offer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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This article originally ran under a different banner\/website in October of 2018 and is now being here re-uploaded for purposes of convenience and consolidation. Please enjoy. LADIES AND GENTLEMEN!!!\u00a0 BOYS AND GIRLS!!!\u00a0 IT IS OCTOBER!!!\u00a0 THE SEASON OF SPOOKS AND I HAVE NO NEW HORROR GAMES TO SPEAK ABOUT!!! There are plenty of horror games… Continue reading Savior or False Shephard: Lone Survivor<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":166,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-165","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-game-reviews","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gatecitygaming.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gatecitygaming.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gatecitygaming.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gatecitygaming.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gatecitygaming.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=165"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.gatecitygaming.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":175,"href":"https:\/\/www.gatecitygaming.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165\/revisions\/175"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gatecitygaming.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/166"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gatecitygaming.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=165"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gatecitygaming.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=165"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gatecitygaming.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=165"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}