In Hollowbodya third-person survival horror game from the early 2000s by Nathan Hamley (the sole developer behind Headware Games), the real fear comes not from the monstrous monsters, but from living in a world where ordinary people fail the plan and give up.
Hollowbody it’s an homage to the PlayStation 2-era classics that help define the genre. And it adds a “tech-noir” spin; consider the first few Silent Hill games, ie Silent Hill 2and the touch of Blade Runner. It becomes heavy in space, relying almost entirely on the build-up of pressure rather than the act of creating a palpable sense of discomfort. And while the game evokes PS2 graphics, it does not below you in the tank controls (unless you want them, then there’s a change to that, ickos).
It is set in the not-too-distant future in a ruined city somewhere in the British Isles, decades after the region was hit by an attack that was thought to be alive and later bombed while under siege. The short presentation tells of corruption and conspiracy about the real events of the disaster. The first attacks were aimed at cities “suffering from economic hardship and decay,” and the affected areas were surrounded by walls to contain the spread of any infection – but not before people who were considered high-value citizens were allowed to flee to an artificial island. suspicious name (Aeonis).
The game opens with a group of explorers meeting at the entrance to one of the unincorporated areas, where they plan to go in search of answers. After one of them, Sasha, goes missing, her partner Mica gets in a car to find her at any cost.
It is in this early sequence that we see the tech-noir element HollowbodyMica’s description appears: Mica is staring out the large glass window of the apartment overlooking the bustling city à la Blade Runner 2049; zipping between buildings in a flying passenger car; having a cheeky conversation with a smart navigation system. As expected, Mica crashes on the way, loses the one person who can help her and has to go to Sasha on foot.
From then on, the tech-noir bit slips more and more out of focus until it flips back towards the end of the game, and Hollowbody takes the usual survivalist mold of a ‘scientific experiment turned extinction event.’ There are some touches of that different perspective technically put in — at one point, Mica passes a broken-down mech the size of an apartment building, and there’s a glowing children’s toy in one room that looks vaguely robotic — but it’s not exactly pervasive. Mica’s personal gadget and inventive menu style serve as literal reminders of that angle for much of the game.
There are a number of puzzles to solve as you explore derelict buildings and city parks trying to figure out how to get the hell out of there. Most of the solutions to these are obvious once you’ve encountered the clues sprinkled in each area, so the fun becomes a lot more exploring.
There was the occasional head-scratcher that sent me in circles though. It didn’t help that the places I was able to interact with sometimes continued to show indicators like “Find” or “Search” even after I took everything that could be used from them. In crowded rooms, I found myself checking places over and over thinking I missed something. These notifications will pop up in other places just so Mica can make trivial observations, like commenting on dirty dishes or sheets that haven’t been washed in years, and she’ll say the same thing over and over again as she encounters the same setup in different places. apartments.
Thankfully, that doesn’t detract too much from how unnerving the setting is. The music is haunting, and incorporates ambient environmental sounds like rain, radio static and Mica’s echoing footsteps to create a truly visceral soundscape. If Mica is inside a building or underground structure, you can be sure that it will be dark and labyrinthine. It always felt like the monster was going to jump out at any second, even though it usually wasn’t. (It was sometimes, though.) Outside, Mica is revealed, and it doesn’t take long for the monsters to notice her and start gathering around her.
The monsters themselves are incredibly disgusting. There are bipedal abominations, some slender while others are heavy and headless, with large tendrils coming out of their upper part. Hollowbody it has some demon dogs, too, and a few insectoid creatures that don’t seem to pose much of a threat other than taking you out. Cat-sized worm critters will run right past you, and their hilarious animations might be the most PS2 thing in the entire game.
It’s not very combat oriented – usually, you can just run past enemies – but there are guns to get by, and a few makeshift weapons. Using the latter felt stiff and slow at times, especially when facing a group of monsters, but I was still able to perform the popular bludgeoning tools to conserve ammunition. And I was amused by the apron of my road sign ax connecting with monster flesh. I also loved that Mica can grab an electric guitar from a wall and use it as a weapon. It may not be the most logical approach considering the difficulty, but the screeching sound upon contact with its target is very satisfying.
There are corpses in various states of decomposition all the time, and Mica’s scanner will give you a quick read on the deceased to find out who they were and how they died. In most cases, the cause is not unusual: dehydration, hunger, murder, etc. The backstory form through the use of texts and sounds made at certain sites, talking about the financial problems and the development of the city long before the biological disaster, and finally the devastation endured by the people in the isolated area later, who could not live as long as their dwindling resources allowed them.
Mica receives a notice of an upcoming rent increase, a letter about construction disruptions that happen every night and a past due notice of unpaid bills showing that the monthly rates have quadrupled. He finds a note left by a dying man, wishing his family and mankind a better future. In one post-closure recording, hungry citizens begging to leave the city are shot by armed forces. It’s all incredibly bleak, and I didn’t have to suspend my disbelief to imagine a reality where things would get this bad.
But the explanation for why there are monstrous, human-flesh monsters roaming the streets doesn’t fully reveal itself. (At least, not with the conclusion I reached and all the things I collected.) The most important hint in that front comes from a single newspaper clipping, the content of which I would like not to spoil here. The article plants the seed of an idea, but it’s mostly up to the player to fill in the blanks beyond that.
There are touching glimpses of Mica and Sasha’s story, but the duo’s connection to this scene and the obvious importance to what’s happening now never quite got the nice wrap I was hoping for. While the ending was a beautiful, emotional scene that felt like it brought the story full circle, it also left me with the feeling that, Wait, what just happened? There seem to be other endings, however, that may have desirable effects on subsequent playthroughs. Beating the game also unlocks a hard difficulty option and a first-person dungeon crawl mode, which makes the whole thing feel a little more terrifying when I turn it on.
Even with its faults, Hollowbody is a solid survival horror title that sounds impressive especially when you consider the fact that it was made by a solo indie developer. Vibes is part of what made its predecessors memorable, too HollowbodyThe stressful situation hits all the right notes.
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