Virtual reality is here! So what do we do with it? Scare ourselves silly of course! There are plenty of horror games out there for the Oculus Rift, but The Mental Torment is arguably the most talked about one! With reviewers and lets players (jacksepticeye, PewDiePie) screaming this games praises (literally), I knew that I had to review this!
“Be warned, this is the scariest game yet for the Oculus Rift.”
The aim of this game is to simply explore the labyrinth, supposedly to find an exit out of this hauntingly cut-off world thats only purpose is to make you face your fears!
What makes The Mental Torment scary? Firstly, the darkness. You are given the most feeble excuse for a torch to help you navigate around your pitch-black surroundings. This is apparent in pretty much every horror game, it’s nothing new.
But when you feel like you’re actually inside the game, surrounded by enclosed spaces and following a trail of trickling blood that quickly fades out of sight at an arm’s-length, leaving the beyond in pure darkness; you quickly forget that you’re in the safety of your own home and easily succumb to the quivering fear of the unknown! The developers of the game, The Andronauts, used this to their advantage, making sure that the flash light given to players is weak enough to always keep their paths shrouded in mysterious darkness.
But what’s even more unnerving than not being able to see what horrors await you at the end of a claustrophobically thin corridor are the noises, or more accurately, the lack of them! If you’re like me and get easily tired of games with overly done jump scares and loud screeches that end up hurting your ear drums more than giving you a good scare, then this game should pleasantly surprise you. Jump scares are still on the agenda, but only after a gruelingly long tension-building silence, or even worse; when you least expect it! There’s nothing worse than when you start to ‘get used’ to seeing the blood and witchcraft markings on the walls of winding corridors; the silence starts to feel normal, you might even wonder if you’re perhaps just wondering in the wrong direction – BOOM! JUMP SCARE!
My advice: Don’t let your guard down.
This game will have you trembling through pools of blood, stumbling through endlessly winding corridors and screaming when your flashlight mysteriously goes out and all becomes silent…
I only have one criticism for this game: the maze can be quite difficult to navigate. The blood-stained walls easily start to blend together, becoming indistinguishable. Having a map or even some items to leave a trail would have been a great help and saved a lot of time spent confused, returning to the same places, instead of immersing myself in more of the eerie atmosphere!
Top tip on how to survive: Be brave. The only way that you can ‘lose’ this game is to chicken out. With around half an hours worth of gameplay there’s no excuse for not completing it unless you can’t handle the unnerving cries that never seem to lead anywhere, the door that knocks from the other side when you step too close or the woman who lulls you into a false sense of security…
“In our game you will not die. The only thing which you will have to beat are your fears.”
-The Andronauts
When I originally read this fact before playing the game I felt strangely safe. But with a horror game that runs smoothly, has great graphics and uses all the best features of the Oculus Rift DK2 (both head and positional tracking) to its advantage to create a more immersive and horrific experience for the player, you must be warned: it’s still not safe!
Feeling brave? You can download The Mental Torment: Episode 1 online for free! Or if you just can’t stomach such horror at the moment (maybe you ate a dodgy curry earlier, I won’t judge!) then watch my attempt with the comfort of your eyes being able to avert the screen when it all gets too much!
The Andronauts are now gaining funding on Indiegogo for the second episode of The Mental Torment. If horror immersion sounds oddly appealing to you then perhaps your generous gesture for the day could be fulfilled by helping them on their mission to create the most horrific VR experience of 2015!
