Narcosis

I love survival horror, but constantly find myself being letdown by a lot of the modern entries. Too many of them recycle the same spooky settings, the same dull enemies and the same boring characters. As far as I'm concerned, developers who are still making survival horror should sit down and study Narcosis, a slickly-produced thriller that doesn't need a haunted mansion or undead monsters to deliver effective scares. I want to see more horror games like this.

Released more than a year ago on PC and Xbox One, Narcosis is finally making its debut on the PlayStation 4, and it was worth the wait. This tells the harrowing story of what happens to a small research team after a nearby earthquake destroys their underwater facility and leaves everybody stranded. You play one of the lucky survivors who is suddenly forced to fight against the odds in order to escape the depths and make it back up to the surface. This turns out to be a tense and often terrifying ordeal that will make you never want to work 3,500 meters under the ocean's surface.

The good news, if there is any, is that our survivor was in his underwater diving gear when the earthquake hit. This is a heavy suit specially designed for working underwater, so it should be good enough to keep our hero safe as long as he doesn't run out of oxygen. Unfortunately, breathing won't be the only concern, as there are all kinds of angry squids and sea spiders waiting to crack open his protective helmet. With only flares and a knife for protection, it's safe to say that Narcosis is not an action game.

One thing that really sells the experience is the way the suit handles. Your movement is slow and lacks any kind of finesse. You basically use one analog stick to control all of the movement, while using the other stick to look around the helmet. This feels noticeably different from your typical first-person games, and I like what they've done with the controls here. It's easy to get a hang of, but still limiting in a way that ratchets up the tension. And when you actually do need to make a quick getaway or "jump" to a tiny platform, we have a handy thrust move that will propel you forward for a brief moment.

Of course, the real star here is the underwater location, which is simultaneously haunting and gorgeous. Between the limited light and limitations of the helmet, we're often prevented from seeing a lot of the surroundings. This only adds to the atmosphere, giving you a sense that there's something bad lurking just around the next rock or, worse, right behind you. Best of all, the setting doesn't get boring, since the game is good about letting us explore completely different locations. Even when we are forced to explore the thoroughly destroyed facilities, the developers have found ways to make each bit stand out in memorable ways.

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Unfortunately, there are two things about Narcosis that left me all wet. I think the biggest complaint you can level against this game is that it's entirely too linear, to the point where it sometimes feels like you're doing little more than following a narrow path. This improves as the game goes along, but I was never able to shake the idea that I was being pulled in one direction every time. I wanted to really explore these gorgeous settings and not be stuck on a linear path.

My other complaint is that some of the scares become a bit too predictable after a while. A lot of it is in the character's head, which allowed the developer to create some truly twisted and imaginative moments. But it also kneecaps some of the horror, since you know it's probably just a hallucination or something psychological. When it's not trying to trick you, Narcosis will revert back to using cheap jump scares to get its point across. Honestly, I think the situation is frightening enough to not need the jump scares, and I wish the developers would have had more confidence in the story to ditch cheap gimmicks. Being stuck underwater is plenty scary on its own.

Minor complaints aside, Narcosis is an incredibly effective horror game with a great setting and premise. It also gives us great voice acting, a killer presentation and a few twists I didn't see coming. Best of all, it's nice to see a survival horror game with a unique setting and fresh ideas. It's definitely on the short side and often a little too linear for its own good, but Narcosis is a frighteningly fun horror game that helps shake up the genre.