Can the "Black Album" series, which claims to produce eight works, really persist?

As the horror game series currently being promoted by Supermassive Games, Black Photos is much more famous than I had anticipated. I thought that players would not be interested in this kind of walking simulation+QTE game after cleaning up rainstorm, Detroit Becomes Human, Until Dawn and other works. Unexpectedly, in the past few days, I have flipped through the player reviews of related works in "Heixiangji". Many people have expressed their views after experiencing them in real life, indicating that horror games with a larger viewing proportion than games still have a great market - after all, the developer initially mentioned that "Heixiangji" would release eight works, which is very confident.

Starting from 2019, the "Black Album" series began to change its pace. The first "Medan" invited actor Shawn Ashmore, who is familiar to domestic players, to play the main role, adapting the true legend of the Medan that has been passed down in history. Although the truth revealed in the later stage is relatively mediocre, and the horror points are mostly concentrated on Jump Scare, the character's acting skills are online, and the heavy taste performance is not restrained. The camera use and atmosphere are well crafted, coupled with two eye-catching horror scenes, the first part can be considered to have gained popularity.

The second installment, "Sparse Town," is a game with both obvious problems and advantages. It is scary and relies solely on the ghostly appearance of the gripper. Once used to it, I will only feel bored. However, the traditional "Silent Hill" style of storytelling has once again raised my expectations for the storytelling level of this series

As a result, in the third installment of "Grey Underworld," all the horror and storyline advantages presented in the first two installments were lost, leaving me with regret and speechlessness for wasting a weekend trying to get through the game.

*This review is a media pre evaluation based on the PS5 version (October 16th/17th version 1.000.001 and October 18th version 1.000.002), with the current version being 1.000.003. The Black Collection of the Underworld is provided by Bandai Nanmeng Palace, and the descriptions and viewpoints included in the review only represent the subjective opinions of the reviewers. The actual gaming experience varies from person to person.

The story stage of "The Underworld" is the Iraq War in the early 21st century. A elite US military team led by CIA agent Rachel King raided a factory suspected of manufacturing weapons of mass destruction. Upon arriving at the scene, they discovered intelligence errors and exchanged fire with the Iraqi army ambushed here. During the battle, a sudden earthquake struck, causing both sides to fall into the ruins of the ancient Sumerian temple, where hunters roamed and watched for the blood of the living.

Players always jokingly refer to the stories of the "Medan" and "Sparse Hope Town" as "approaching science". Behind all the things haunted by ghosts and gods, they actually scare themselves. Ghosts and monsters do not exist, and the most terrifying thing is that they no longer trust the hearts of others... Therefore, I have reminded myself more than once in the "Grey Underworld" when I saw a human being killed by a monster: according to the series's urine nature, this is all fake, and their death is just a projection of the protagonist's inner fear. Perhaps they are all experimental materials tied to the hospital bed by the CIA, repeatedly administering electric shock therapy to the brain.

But after playing for a few hours, I began to suspect that the development team might have really listened to the player's advice. "Grey Underworld" really doesn't pretend to be a god or a ghost. All the monsters and people who died tragically are real, and from the beginning of the game, there was no mention of supernatural phenomena. Instead, the story is presented very intuitively using B-level film routines.

The game only temporarily hides the true face of the monster in the opening plot of over two thousand BC. When the protagonist and his team encounter the monster, they generously display its appearance without even rendering the monster's oppression from the atmosphere. Instead, they rush out and chase the protagonist, occasionally engaging in one or two hand to hand combat, which is not terrifying at all.

Even the appearance of the monster has been fully exposed by the physical models included in the official collection version.

Since we are not approaching science and these monsters are all real beings, we need to come up with a reason to explain their origin -; Since players don't like to approach science, it's better to approach science fiction this time. The production team used the concept that has been heavily abused in Hollywood science fiction films in recent years to explain why monsters were buried deep underground thousands of years ago, so pale that I had already guessed everything halfway through the game and didn't feel surprised during the decryption phase.

As a typical B-level monster movie, "Grey Underworld" also includes something even more vulgar - a love triangle. It has to be said that the CIA and Marine Corps engaged in extramarital affairs without any concealment. The infidelity between men and women and the green male chief can still be intimate and affectionate while fighting underground. The male chief, like a child, constantly questions why the woman chose a mistress - you are all on the brink of death and still remember to mess with that kind of relationship, giving off a feeling of teenage jealousy and intense fighting between men and women.

If you want to say what this is, it's okay for college students to join a group in distress and not forget to fight for love, but the protagonists of the "Grey Underworld" are all soldiers. Although I don't understand the internal style of the US military, being jealous at the critical moment of life and death is truly surprising. Not only in terms of immature performance in interpersonal communication, the protagonist of "Grey Underworld" also has some problems in intelligence and combat ability:

When you first fall into the cave, you can see the entrance four or five meters above you. Climbing out will bring you back to the ground, but you have to continue looking for an exit deep inside the cave. I thought they couldn't climb up, but in the middle of it, I found that they had a large number of stable and reliable hooks and claws in their hands, which could grab the ground with just one throw. In the end, they also climbed out of the hole two or three meters high with this prop. So why don't you use it earlier

Faced with the surging monster, the five person team can calmly face the battle, and Salim is a strong iron pipe to directly form a team. The survivors of the US military had sufficient firepower and had enough grenades and explosives available in their hands. However, facing an Iraqi soldier charging alone with an AK-47, the three US soldiers were hit with no fighting force, no tactics or cooperation.

Roast about so many plot design problems, if there was no military combat background, it would not be so interesting. Personally, I am not so disgusted with the sagacious plot of this B-level bad film, but "Grey Hell" made a huge loophole in game design.

From "Until Dawn" to "Black Collection", Supermassive Games has always attached great importance to the butterfly effect of the game. The decisions made by players at a certain node will affect the development of the plot, and their attitude towards someone will affect the relationship between the two, thus having a greater impact on the subsequent plot. The development of the butterfly effect in the "Medan" is relatively reasonable, while the influence of the options is slightly diluted in "Xiwang Town", and the "Grey Underworld" is completely ridiculous. Here are a few examples:

• The US military and the Iraqi army exchanged fire on the ground, and US military A released the fleeing shepherd, which was witnessed by Iraqi army B. After the confrontation between A and B, they did not fire. When they met in the temple, they completely forgot their previous meeting and fought fiercely with swords and crossbows. In the end, they became good brothers who lived and died together. A broke into the monster's lair alone to save B;
• Iraqi Army B and American Army C encountered each other, and the two cooperated to escape. Before encountering American Army D, they manipulated B to say to C, "I will directly raise my hand to surrender as a gesture of goodwill." When they saw D, B immediately raised his pistol and said, "Don't suffer me, I will never surrender to you Americans." They manipulated D with a strong attitude, "If you don't surrender, I won't spare you." B immediately raised his hand to surrender.

The phenomenon of completely reversing and confusing the butterfly effect is common in games, and the rationality and sensibility that represent the tendency of options are even more absurd. Especially in the same conversation, the previous emotional option is "Help me!". After saying a sentence that does not affect attitude change, the next emotional option becomes "Kill me!", and I am almost schizophrenic.

In theory, the butterfly effect will subtly affect the outcome of the game, and different choices and the death of characters will affect the direction of the outcome. Whether Connor successfully stole the speedboat and whether the people on board could successfully contact the rescue team in the Medan will change the outcome; The ammunition count of Andrew's pistol and his relationship with other characters in "Xiwang Town" will determine whether he will commit suicide, surrender, or awaken in the ending. What I am looking forward to is a step-by-step path towards the outcome I have chosen, but in the "Grey Underworld", no matter how I choose, even if I completely destroy the character, the final outcome is still similar, it's just about returning to reality whether it's a living person or a corpse.

I have posted so many complaints about the plot, but I don't have much to say about the system. Apart from adding a large number of free perspectives, "Grey Underworld" has not changed much. It still walks slowly to pick up things and view, with QTE+options to develop the plot, secrets and photos as collectibles. The relationships, likes, and character traits of the characters can be viewed in the system. I think this system will continue until the eighth game, after all, it's a Chinese New Year game that costs less than 200 yuan. It's hard to expect it to innovate and shine every year. Even if its plot is so mediocre, it's acceptable to lower your expectations and watch it as a bad movie.

But what I cannot accept is the various bugs in the game that I have been unable to ignore from start to finish

Originally, I had already summarized a thousand words in my mind, criticizing the developer's behavior of selling semi-finished products. But on the second day after I completed this part of the content, the official pushed a new patch that fixed a large number of existing bugs. The repair part I found was:

• There are significant issues with HDR performance, such as misaligned lighting positions and facial reflections of characters. All the gravel in the cave flashes, and some blood directly reverses color;
• The character model's actions are distorted and uncoordinated, firearms and other objects are misaligned, and bullet casings can float and collide in gunfight scenes;
• Lack of combat and interactive sound effects.

The above issues run through the actual gameplay before patching, making me deeply doubt whether I did QA work for the production team. Thanks to the Day One patch fixing most of the basic bugs, at least it won't be as painful to play.

Before repairing

After repairing

At the same time, the patch has also optimized the storyline connections between a small number of scenes, such as the scene where Nick drops blood after being injured. Originally, he suddenly reached out and dripped a white, unidentified liquid from his finger, and the game will prompt his blood to attract the attention of monsters. After patching, the scene became focused on Nick's injured shoulder, and he could clearly see the wound above. Nick covered the wound, and red blood flowed out and dripped from his fingertips, making it noticeably smoother.

Although many bugs have been fixed, there are still many issues with the performance of the game itself (which may be fixed later):

• The character's eye movement is abnormal, often strabismus and spinning while speaking;
• The physical movements of the characters are stiff, and motion capture is used during the game production stage. However, in many real-time calculations, some of the character's movements may have problems;
• Translation error, is the most dramatic A: left or right? (Left or right?), B: Okay! （Right！）

It's impolite to always look away when talking face-to-face with someone, isn't it

When I received the game in advance, I had planned to write a serious review article for "Grey Underworld", but there were too many game problems. It would be better to list the problems like now and let everyone know before making a decision whether to purchase.

If I were to give direct advice, it would only be "don't buy".

If you feel that there are still highlights in this series due to the story of the previous installment, then the story of "Grey Underworld" will definitely make you shout for a refund; I want to find the feeling of being scared (even the cheap Jump Scare in the Medan), but the Grey Underworld cannot provide it. It has no intention of scaring you. As for whether to patch or not, in my opinion, it's just a transition from a "semi-finished product" to a "poor game".

Contrary to normal, there was no preview of the new game after completing the game "Grey Underworld" (the latest version added the preview). A few months ago, overseas rating agencies leaked that the subtitle of the new work of "The Devil In Me" was "The Devil In Me", which is expected to tell the story of demon possession. When playing this game, as always, I can still find a preview of the next installment, indicating that Supermassive Games still plans to release new works. However, if the quality of the next installment is still of the "Grey Underworld", I may not be able to accompany you anymore.