Tormenture Review – Retro scares in your bedroom upstairs

thesixthaxis.com:

I’ve played and reviewed a lot of retro-themed horror games over the past few years, with many choosing to revisit the feel and aesthetic of the early 3D era and using the associated nostalgia to either subvert or honour the player’s expectations. Earlier influences are more uncommon, in part perhaps to the strength of titles like Resident Evil in popular culture. Horror games can be traced back to the very beginnings of home entertainment though, with movie tie-ins based on classic scares from Texas Chainsaw to Alien. Both of these appeared on the Atari 2600 and it is this generation of consoles that has inspired Tormenture, or at least the game within the game here.

Given the power of visuals and sound design to achieve the kind of spooky atmosphere needed for a good horror game it may seem counter-intuitive to go so far back, but Croxel Studios manage to square this circle by embedding the retro game within a far more modern 3D setting that adds greatly to the feel and tone of things. You play as a young boy who has picked up a copy of Tormenture, a supposedly cursed game for the Limbo-2800, to see what the fuss is all about. As you make your way through the initially simplistic game you’ll slowly uncover extra depth and complexity, not to mention be haunted in the real world of your 80s bedroom. Some of this is diagetic within the game itself, whilst at other times you’ll be unlocking new items or clues in the 3D world.

The aesthetic here is perfectly judged for its influences and has a real charm of its own. Whilst clearly paying homage to the simplistic blocky pixels of Atari games there is obviously more scope and memory to provide character models and effects that are a little out of place on the hardware of the era. Stepping out of the game gives you a fixed perspective view of your bedroom and I worried at first that this mode would be a Five Nights at Freddy clone with constant annoying distractions and resource management mechanics. Fortunately this isn’t