Silent Descent

Review

The life of Samuel Harris was an ordinary one. He had a 9 to 5 job, a nice house to live in and was happily married. His world came crashing down around him when he found out that his beautiful wife of 8 years was having an affair. Unable to go to work and hearing voices in his head, the distressed man sought revenge and inevitably murdered his wife, taking his own life soon afterwards. “Did you think it would be that easy, Samuel!? You are now stuck in Purgatory! Is it your silent descent Samuel? Is it . . .?”

Silent Descent is a first person / horror / puzzle game where you play Samuel Harris and relive the events that led him to murder his wife.



This game has 45 sections to go through and your goal is to find the door that gives access to the next section. The first interesting aspect here is that your character will re-visit the lower floor of the house several times before moving either to upper levels, or to the Purgatory level, which has a similar layout to the house but looks like some sort of prison with barrels and pipes instead of furniture. Another intriguing point is that every time Samuel pushes the door and re-enters what seems to be the exact corridor of the previous section, things are subtly different; items, blood, writing or furniture might not be there, or might have been moved ever so slightly.  That will usually mean that Samuel has to solve a puzzle in order to open the door to the next section. The puzzles are quite easy to figure out, to be totally honest with you. They vary from having to find switches or levers, to reconstructing images, to riddles. However, they provide a very good addition to the game. You can also open drawers in each section and read all the notes inside, which detail how events have unfolded for Samuel.

The atmosphere is very well portrayed, and realistic to the point of making you jump out of your chair from time to time when unexpected items drop down from nowhere, or when Samuel is been pursued by a horrible monster. What really amplifies the atmosphere is the voices Samuel hears throughout the sections. Some are slow and distorted while others sound like a tape is being constantly rewound on a recorder. In some sections flashes of the other world appear which will re-inforce the troubled mind of the character; it’s really well done!

Graphically the game looks very good and the controls, which are mouse and keyboard, work well.  There is no tutorial needed for this game but it would have been nice to have a screen showing how the controls operate. I know that I am being a bit picky here, but nonetheless it would have been nice. I think the game is a bit short too; you can finish it in around two hours if you want to take your time, and around one and a half hours if you rush it.


Positives

+ Nice graphics
+ Very immersive atmosphere
+ Puzzles
+ Alternative endings
+ Stacks of achievements

Negatives

- A bit short
- No trading cards as yet

Review Summary

A very immersive first person horror game with good visuals and a sensational atmosphere!

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Zeepond Rating: 7/10

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