House of Fear – Review
Escape rooms have been a trend for quite a few years now. It is a really fun opportunity to test your skills and wits, alone or with friends. Due to there being many different styles of escape rooms, there will always be one that you will like. House of Fear is a VR game that puts you inside an escape room with the objective to escape in time. You get 50 minutes to solve the many puzzles and escape from this hell.
Story
As this is just an escape room scenario, there isn’t a real background to the story. You just get dropped inside a haunted house and you will have to solve the puzzles on your path in order to escape the place. Set in a dark and spooky theme, it will surely make you feel uncomfortable. The house can remind you of Resident Evil 7, as it feels like a really old place with strange mannequins and completely made out of wood. As you can fly pretty fast through the game, you won’t really miss a story. It is more fun to just let you and your friends experience an escape room from the comfort of your own home.
Graphics
House of Fear has been created in that way so you feel uncomfortable the whole nine yards. The overall graphics are pretty simple, yet you will find many details from adaptive lighting and many pictures hanging from the wall. For the price, don’t expect a large masterpiece, but it is just spooky enough to startle you and decent enough to keep you playing until the end. Unlike most puzzle games, items do not tend to stand out from the rest, so the game won’t hold your hand in that way.
Sound
In an ominous setting, it is essential to have a creepy place to work on your emotions. In the dark, you will notice that the slightest of sounds will startle you. The house is filled with various audio cues to make you uncomfortable. The wood creaks, there will be banging on the doors and windows, the thicking of the clock in the hallway, these small details make for some true immersion. The sound effects will surely keep you in check, yet there are luckily no sudden jump-scares to make you flee the scene.
Gameplay
House of Fear is a VR game where you have to solve puzzles in order to get out of a haunted house. As this game is inspired by escape rooms and if you always wanted to do this, but never had any friends or spare time to do so, then this can be a fun title for you. You get 50 minutes to escape the place, but if you are a person that loves solving puzzles and has a slightly raised perception, then you can easily blast through this game in around twenty minutes. There are only a handful of puzzles and they all are in the same room, so no backtracking or complicated, high intelligence riddles.
As you begin the adventure, you get dropped inside the hallway of the house. There is barely any light, only a few placed candles and your light source (lantern or flashlight). The flashlight gives a bright light in a small area but can be too bright, while the lantern gives a nice wide light but won’t go that far. You don’t have an inventory, so you’ll have to hold stuff in your hands. Luckily you won’t have to hold much or go far for the puzzles, so this is just a minor inconvenience. Throughout the puzzles you will find pamphlets with clues, these will lead you to the puzzles. All the puzzles are really straightforward and you solving all of these will be pretty easy.
You will move around the place by teleporting, some people might prefer motion but it feels that the teleportation works the best for all kinds of players. As the easy puzzles and simple controls mean that every one of your friends and family can enjoy the experience, it is understandable that the developers chose this option. Interacting with the items is pretty straightforward, yet due to the nature of VR, it can sometimes be a bit finicky.
The gameplay is pretty short, as the maximum time is only 50 minutes. As mentioned earlier, you can go through the puzzles pretty fast, as you don’t have to move far between puzzles to unlock the next section. It would have been cool if the puzzles were randomized, yet for the price, you can’t really complain.
Conclusion
House of Fear is a short yet interesting experience, as it gives you the gameplay of an escape room from the comfort of your own couch. All the puzzles are really easy and straightforward, which can be a bit boring for veteran puzzlers, yet it allows everyone to enjoy the title without needing a college degree. Controls can be a bit finicky but that’s normal for VR games. If you plan on only playing it once, then it isn’t really advised, yet if you have a few friends or family members that are interested in the experience, then it is a cool game to have in your Steam library.
House of Fear - Review,
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