MadCap's Game Reviews - "Erica"

There are moments where I want to go back in time and beat David Cage to death with a shovel before he creates Heavy Rain.

Oh, there I go getting off-topic already...
Erica is a game that released around his time last year. Never let it be said that I'm nothing if not timely.

...I think that was a sentence. Probably. Maybe. A bit.

Anyway, Erica tells the story of Erica Mason, a young woman grappling with nightmares from her childhood and trying to unravel the truth of her family's occult past.

That's a direct quote from the game's Wikipedia page, by the way. This game has been out for almost a year and sadly doesn't have much more than that.

Immediately, we're thrown into a flashback to Erica's childhood where her father attempts to get her psychically pick out one of three pictures after turning them over. Afterwards, Erica finds him dead with some very strange body modifications in the chest area that look suspiciously similar to a gaping chest wound that really wants to be an octopus when it grows up before a mysterious woman fires a gun at her, upon which time she wakes up screaming.

...and then gets a severed hand in the mail.

Because it is indeed that kind of game.

It is in this section that we get into the motion controls I was complaining about earlier: namely this is how the entire game is played. The entire game is full-motion video with the use of the tracking pad on the PS4 controller (unless you want to play it by mobile phone...which you can apparently do for some reason) to interact with objects and to make selections in conversations with other characters.

Ah yes, the fabled reverse LA Noire!

Bizarrely, the game wants you to use your smart phone to play saying that it's "best played with it". Kind of bizarre for a console game, but okay? This is not really some new innovation in gaming that I see catching on.

This also extends to the pause menu for maximum irritation. Also, a protip if you're going to do this in a horror/thriller game (and you shouldn't), having us arduously unsnap both clasps on a briefcase and then slowly open said briefcase isn't a substitute for actual tension.

It's fine up until you're trying to say, open a box that you can already tell contains a severed hand and the game won't let you open it because you didn't swipe your finger in exactly the right way.

Erica is played by actress Holly Earl, who those of you who have been paying attention to my Doctor Who reviews probably don't remember from The Doctor, the Widow, and the Wardrobe, because I haven't covered it yet. Needless to say, she has grown up quite a bit and does pretty well being someone who is thrown into a completely batshit situation and having to cope.

That said, in a few section she comes off as kind of a doormat, which is a bit of a problem. I suppose it's because Flavourworks wants us to project ourselves onto her. If this weren't basically a movie with several different scenes added on, maybe I'd be able to.

Now, I know those of you who are long-time readers are going to go "Madcap! Until Dawn had an interactive story experience and you thought that was great!" You'd be only partially correct. As I recall from that review, I liked it but wish there had been a bit more game in the game. Erica, sad to say, has even less than that. See also: my previous rant on the arduous processes not being a substitute for tension.

Also, having choices on a timer, especially when you aren't aware of some choices that you have is blatant asshole-ism much as it was in Until Dawn. Even then, no, your choices really don't matter until the last twenty minutes or so of gameplay, mostly because the story has to continue on to a certain point regardless.

What I will give the game, and by extension Flavourworks credit for is atmosphere. This game is dripping in it from head to toe and uses it pretty well in the scenes that just stick to the full motion video and don't bother to bring everything to a screeching halt for you to make a choice. It is amazing what good camera angles and the right kind of lighting (or lack thereof) can do for a scene.

The story revolves, as I said before, around the death of Erica's father and how that connects to another murder in the present as well as the Delphi House, a mental institution where Erica's father and mother both worked and where Erica was born.

Also, there's a mysterious cult in the mix as well as Erica being informed at one point to trust no one by a mysterious voice on the telephone.

Yeah, ironically, the comparisons to Until Dawn are fitting in that the story is throwing a bunch of horror tropes into a bucket and flinging them at you at high speed. Not that this is a bad thing, obviously. Tropes exist (mostly) because they're tried and true when used effectively and Erica definitely does use them effectively.

Most of the time, at least.

Erica's search for the Zodiac killer did not turn out well.

The story itself is pretty good, perfectly chilling and with an air rife with mystery. It feels very much in step with a sort of modern Hammer Horror feel, so much so that I probably should have saved this for October, though I had a chance to actually be topical and timely in a review, so I took. It thankfully doesn't rely on jump scares so much, something that often comes up in games of this sort, instead going for more of the psychological terror which I am totally okay with. Things that are scary should be scary because they're frightening, not because of a sudden loud noise done right in your ears.

Because that's startling, not scary. Modern horror movie creators really should take note of this.

The only real issue with the story is that, given the branching paths that lead to one of six endings, only two of them are particularly definitive or satisfying. It's a shame, really, considering all the work that clearly went into the set up of the finale. This also isn't serving well of Erica's character at any rate. Holly Earl does well, as I said, but her demeanor and attitude hardly matter seeing as you are making all of the choices in the game. The story also has to keep on despite your choices, so if something changes the game scrambles to shunt you into another path to keep things going.

They did put a lot more thought into doing this than Until Dawn did, I can give Flavourworks that.

That said, Erica is an interactive experience that provides the horror elements well. My issues with the interface aside,  and taking the "your choices matter" bit (much as I did in Until Dawn) in stride as many will be wont to do, it's fairly solid as a product. I hesitate to fully call it a game, since the game elements are very bare bones. You can't get everything on just one play through, alas, which at least gives it some replay value so you can see the alternate endings such as Erica ending up a vegetable living in Delphi House for presumably the rest of her life, or the ending where she fully assumes the mantle of madness and becomes the butterfly (it makes sense in context).

And I do enjoy even a bad story if it's well told regardless of what form it comes to me in. Erica, I'm happy to say, is not a bad story. It's just a story that would have been much better served as a film rather than a game. It's a hard thing for the interactive storytelling games to really hit that niche that blends the two mediums together. Until Dawn came close, but falls back in a few places. Erica does much the same, but again falls short. For what it is, it's very good, though.

And maybe, just maybe, that's enough.

Erica is now available on Playstation 4 from Flavourworks and Sony Interactive.

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