[ratingbox]
I thoroughly enjoy a good horror game. I’ve never been one of the guys who stands in line for the latest war title or those turn-based fantasy games. They bore me to tears and leave me craving thrills and chills. The graphics on games keep getting better, and the stories, while sometimes lacking, still offer depth. But where are the jumps? Where are the goose bumps? Where is the sudden skip of the heartbeat?
Five Nights At Freddy’s promises more than great graphics and an okay story, it promises a chill up your spine, if you believe the hype. I haven’t had a good scare from a game since F.E.A.R. dropped back in 2006. With any luck, that will have changed by the end of this review.
First off, I’ll let you know what hardware I’m running this creepy game on:
- AMD FX-4170 4.2Ghz Quad Core
- 8GB Corsair DDR3 1600Mhz
- EVGA GTX 750 TI, 2GB DDR5
- 320GB Western Digital Caviar SATA HDD
I can tell you, the power of my rig is gross overkill for this game. The minimum specs for the game are:
- Processor: 2 GHz Intel Pentium 4 or AMD Athlon or equivalent
- Memory: 1 GB RAM
- Graphics: 1 GB
- DirectX: Version 9.0
- Hard Drive: 250 MB available space
The game starts with a freaky start screen featuring static-rolling footage of an animatronic bear’s face. The gist of the game is that you are hired to monitor the security cameras during the night to make sure nothing happens to the restaurant, which is called Freddy’s. It’s a lot like Chuck E. Cheese, which I assume is just as frigging creepy at night. And after playing this game, I feel sorry for the people who have to work nights in a place like this. I know a lot of them are teens who will probably play this game.
During the first night, you listen to an answering machine message from the guy who had the job before you. He reads a lame welcome message from the company, then lets you in on the fact that the animatronic animals are all rigged with free-roaming servos.
The room that you are based out of is fairly bare, aside from two heavy doors that close on either side of you with the push of a button and a light to check your blind spots on the cameras. The thing is, you are limited on power, and it runs out quick, as I found out on the first night. It’s freaky, watching them on the cameras when they are standing still. But when you switch to a camera and see one missing, or see a figure standing off to one side where nothing was before, it gets a little real. I’m telling you, the first time one appeared in front of the camera, all smiles, a blind person could have read the goose bumps on my arms like braille.
Getting through that first night isn’t hard, but it’s enough to keep you on the edge of your seat. And I felt a rush of relief when 6am hit and I was still alive. And then I remembered I still had four days to go. Four days of watching the cameras, trying to conserve power, listening to messages left on the answering machine while insane robotic animals appeared in different places, getting closer and closer to my doors, and all the while I’m hoping the power holds out.
It’s a point-and-click game with very basic controls, but it’s so immersive that you forget it’s just a game. You can only look back and forth, click on camera feed buttons, open and close the doors, and turn on and off two lights. That’s it. You feel absolutely helpless.
Why is there such limited movement inside your office? It’s because you’re in one of the animatronic suits as well. The animals see you as a frameless robot, and since that’s against the rules, you have to wear the suit. It makes no sense to me, being stuffed inside an animatronic forest creature, but that’s the game. And it makes it even creepier.
I didn’t make it through to the fifth night. They got me. And let me tell you, it’s unnerving when the get to you. There’s a good chance I’ll have nightmares when I go to bed tonight, and that makes me happy.
Five Nights At Freddy’s lives up to its reputation. I was scared, and had shivers run through my body each time something was different on one of the monitors. If you like horror games, this is one to try. At $4.99 on Steam, it’s well worth the money.