The Medium

An impressive ghost horror game that sadly does not fulfill its ambitions. It's mostly a linear interactive movie with some light exploration, light puzzles, and light action sequences. But that gameplay loop is more annoying than immersive. The meat of this game is obviously its story, which is in itself alright, but unfortunately is not very well written and not very well acted. So, at the end of the day, there's just not enough to this game for me to recommend it.

Let's start by pointing out that it's a technical mess on PC. Achieving a stable frame rate will be a challenge, if not entirely impossible, even on a high-end rig. Still, assuming you're able to accept sudden frame drops, pop-ins, or very low settings, you will enjoy some wonderful design, art, and sound direction.

But it won't be fun to traverse. First off, this is locked-camera perspective, so controlling your character is confusing and unpleasant. But the real issue is level design: invisible walls everywhere, with missing story elements if you choose the wrong path. I absolutely hate this design pattern: innocently turn left instead of right and you'll move the story along without being able to go back. This encourages a paranoid exploration style in which you try each direction cautiously in order to not progress too much, then try the other direction, etc. It's amazing that such an awful mechanic is found in so many adventure games.

If you can get over my pet peeves, you will be rewarded with a very immersive, very atmospheric presentation. There's even an original "gimmick" of being able to exist in the real world and the "spirit" world simultaneously. It's neat. (And makes the performance issues worse.)

But strip all the problems and gimmicks away and it's just ... OK. It seems that whenever there is an opportunity to delve deeper into the story and its suggestive themes, the writing just ... refuses to go the distance. The glossy veneer has been mostly wasted.