Since it’s Halloween, I decided to try out the newly released survival horror, Organ Quarter. I’ve stated this many times before – I severely dislike horror games. But as a gaming journalist I, guess I just have to write them off as one of the cons of my job. So with that out of the way, let’s just dive into this mess of mucus and entrails, shall we?
Created by Outer Brain Studios, a team of two people, Organ Quarter recently released on Steam for Oculus Rift and HTC Vive (I played it on the Vive). It goes for $24.99, though, it is part of the Steam Halloween sale, putting it at $19.99 until November 1st. So you better hurry if you want to get it for the discounted price.
As for my experience in Organ Quarter – I found it to be a polished, well-designed maze of horrors. There were some interesting puzzles in the game and the gameplay was delectably terrifying if a little predictable at times. One small boon was that there weren’t any jump scares in this game, though that doesn’t mean that I didn’t keep swinging my head around wildly every minute, out of fear for what’s behind my back.
Check out the trailer below:
In Organ Quarter, part of a city has been reduced to a mass of abandoned buildings full of gooey piles of moving gore and honeycomb-like mutilated bipedal creatures. Called the Organ Quarter, a strange experimentation gone wrong seems to have turned the inhabitants either into decaying pieces of flesh or strange shuffling creatures. Organ Quarter offers both teleportation and smooth locomotion, though the smooth locomotion does have that ‘horse blinder’ effect going for increased comfort. Besides the movement, it also has a few other game options, and a difficulty setting. However, once you choose the difficulty you can’t go back. There’s the option to go casual or full-on survival horror.
My Tactic is to Shoot Then Run Away Screaming
Starting off, I found myself in a dilapidated apartment building, with no idea what’s going on other than this place is strange as hell. One of the first puzzles in the game is to actually find a gun, which is none too easy because it meant sneaking past one of the aforementioned creatures to get a voodoo doll to unlock the case with the gun in it. Yup, it was as messed up as it sounds. And let me tell you, having to sneak past that thing while I was already scared out of my wits without any weapon was one of the hardest things I’ve had to do in VR so far.
Luckily monsters didn’t follow me out of rooms, which I found both strange and a blessing. I guess due to their zombie-like nature they can’t open doors. The other upside here is when that I could escape the creatures when I ran out of ammo, which was usually after facing two or three of them. Ammo isn’t that scarce in the game, though it’s scarce enough to be careful with it. Inventory space isn’t limitless either and there are some other stuff I had to carry too, like syringes and first aid kits for health, and various gross stuff like a bottle of human hair or toenails.
Hours of Terrifying Gameplay
Organ Quarter offers around 6-8 hours of gameplay and during that time you’ll find yourself walking around a lot, finding various enemies, weird things, and strange puzzles to solve within a maze-like environment. The game first takes place inside an apartment building, but soon I found myself in the street, and things didn’t get better from there. Though what did keep me going were the few sparse clues to the story and the intriguing characters that played it. I just hope you don’t mind forsaking your skin to your date after you die.
Visually, Organ Quarter was both terrifying (sometimes it even reminded me a little bit of Silent Hill) and at times a little underwhelming. Because even though it isn’t supposed to be a visually appealing experience, it still feels like the developers took shortcuts in some areas. Other than that though, I couldn’t find much fault with the game, other than some minor stuff like not being able to look over railings or climb stairs. Whenever I wanted to make use of stairs, I just had to touch the railing and I would then be transported via fade-out to the top or bottom of said stairs.
So, if you’re looking for an engaging horror game that offers something a little different than all of the other VR titles out there, then make sure to visit the Organ Quarter. I’m sure you’ll be in for a gory good time!
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