Layers of Fear 2

A lackluster and tedious horror "walking simulator". Note that this is not a "sequel" and you can play 1 or 2 in whatever order. The first game is good, but this one is skippable. It's almost offensive that they added "2" to the name of the first game in order to garner unearned interest for this game.

The good: It's gorgeous. The art direction and level design and music are all detailed and atmospheric. It's mostly a pleasure to explore the linear levels and the setting is staged and presented very well.

The bad: What story? What characters? It's all very thin and it's hard to care about any of it. But worse is the storytelling: nothing much is really conveyed, not by the indulgent repetition of levels, not by the redundant and frustrating "action" sequences, not by the overacted little voice-overs, and not by the constant stream of psychobabble raining on you like a sledgehammer. Yeah, we get it: the protagonist's soul is tortured. Yeah, the lily flower symbolizes a character named Lily. Really, this is what we're dealing with here. And the game uses every horror cliché ever, including cheap and repetitive jump scares that almost always fall flat. Eventually you'll be able to piece most of the story together ... and it it adds up to nothing very profound or engaging. At the same time as I was impressed by the production, I rolled my eyes at what this game was actually trying to tell me.

To add insult to injury, it's just far too long. When I reached Act III I was wishing for it to be the last. But no, it dragged on and on... sigh. If someone wants to give me a medal for finishing this snooze-fest, I promise that I will display it with pride.

95% window dressing, 5% substance.