Madison VR Review

thesixthaxis.com:

Madison VR is, as you might expect, the virtual reality version of Madison, a psychological horror game that originally launched in the summer of 2022. We did try and review the game back then but due to a bug that deleted our save file we could not, so it’s nice to have a second – ahem – stab at it.

The game opens with our protagonist, Luca, waking up covered in blood with his father banging on his door, seemingly in a rage because Luca has gone all Masterchef on the rest of the family and butchered them in to steaks. A couple of photos seem to back up this idea, but is that what is really going on? It’s up to you to work out the true story as you explore a house and other areas over the course of around seven hours.

What this actually entails is puzzles – lots and lots of puzzles – some of them fairly obvious, some very obscure that will have you scratching your head. Pictures need to placed, candlesticks moved, and so many, many things need unlocking with keys or other items. The twist here is that Luca has an old Polaroid style camera and this is used extensively to solve the mysteries. For example, what might look like a blank wall can be photographed and the picture will show it is not blank but has a number, part of a code for a padlock.

Madison has been acclaimed as “The scariest horror game ever” and a lot of those scares come from using the camera. Taking a picture may just take a picture as you would expect, but less expected is when you take a picture and the flash reveals a horrific demon that screams at you from behind a door. Fortunately the developers have teased out these scares really well. In an early section of the game has you in a flooded basement and must to use a radio signal to work out where to take a photo. I honestly thought I was making a hash of the puzzle as I had the right spot, took a photo and nothing, the signal just moved somewhere else. Eventually I was getting bored and frustrated so lined up one more photo and casually took the