4/17/2023 0 Comments Layers of fear rating![]() ![]() All Flair, No FearĪll of this high praise makes Layers of Fear 2 a marvelously designed game in some respects, but it fails to make it a scary one. The art department deserves the highest praise. There were simply so many sights and sounds worth stopping and appreciating. I took more screenshots with this game than any other during a review period. Combined, the audiovisual experience in Layers of Fear 2 is nearly in a league of its own. The audio complements the game's stunning visual style thanks to Bloober Team's spatial, binaural audio that puts players directly in the room (seriously, use headphones). Back in the developer's repertoire is a clever use of hallways that change when you look away, but this time their tricks go well beyond that to include other mind-bending effects like regularly rinsing the world of all colors, distorting your view to look like you're living in an old film, flipping your world completely upside-down, and using some supremely effective color palettes that make every room, every hallway, and every scene feel unique. The visuals are unceasingly stunning as the game toys with your perception of reality in more ways than the already bizarre original did. ![]() The disembodied voice of Tony Todd of Candyman fame serves as the untrustworthy narrator in your head as players are left to solve puzzles and fall deeper into one of gaming's most gloriously twisted rabbit holes, all the while seeking to "build the character." Whereas the original Layers of Fear focused on an artist exploring an ever-shifting mansion, Bloober Team's sequel puts players aboard a huge cruise liner where they play the role of an unknown actor. It’s a small victory, but at this point, I’ll take what I can get.This ends up really hurting Layers of Fear 2 as a true horror title, though it does leave it as a memorably dark and psychedelic story worth unraveling. There is one catch though: the game does run at 60fps most of the time. Your field of view is quite limited, meaning that larger rooms feature Nintendo 64-esque fog and the textural quality leaves a lot to be desired. It’s brighter and more detailed than the Switch version, but uglier than any other version released thus far, Oculus Rift included. The limited horsepower also took a toll on the game’s visuals. And given how slowly your character moves through the mansion’s corridors, you won’t feel motion sickness at all. ![]() It feels more natural than teleporting your body around. It is not very easy to get used to and it’s stupidly cumbersome, but hey, it is immersive. But Layers of Fear VR actually features a free roaming movement system which uses one of the main Move buttons from one the sticks, as well as most of the face buttons in order to strafe and move the camera around. The Move controllers do not have analog sticks, which is why most PSVR games feature a “teleportation” mechanism (you aim at a place and you’re transported there). I will give Bloober Team kudos for one thing: trying very hard to make this game work under so many limitations. But most of its issues just stem from the fact that at the end of the day, Layers of Fear just isn’t very good. Some of its main issues are derived from the fact this is being played on the PSVR, a VR system that just cannot handle fancy graphics and free roaming controls very well. Everything you love (or didn’t) about the original Layers of Fear is back, but with a few tweaks that do make the game slightly more immersive, but in no way scarier. The same plot progression, the same puzzles, the same excruciatingly irritating jumpscares. Layers of Fear VR is exactly the same game as before, just with a new perspective and control scheme. I tried it out on the PS4, and while it looked remarkably better in terms of visuals, it still ended up being a boring walking simulator with a predictable plot, bland corridor-esque level design, and cheap jumpscares. I thought to myself that maybe there was hope for the base game, that if played on a beefier console it would actually be quite good. This meant I was playing a version with significantly inferior visuals and some audio glitches. When I first checked out Layers of Fear, I made the mistake of starting off by playing the Switch version. That was what I wanted to tell the devs before starting Layers of Fear VR. ![]()
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