Monday, December 18

Home » , » Hello Neighbor Review

Hello Neighbor Review

By  December 18, 2017  No comments

Hello Neighbor appeared on my radar a few months ago, when his pc output, resulted in a whole stream of videos from popular Youtubers, that managed to give him some notoriety. His departure on Xbox One was delayed until Christmas and today, i can analyze this debut of the Russian studio Dynamic Pixels, which lead to unsuspected points the fabulous concept of nuisance to the neighbor.

Duration


Hello Neighbor consists of three very different narrative acts. Explain what the second and third consist, is incurring in the field of the spoiler, but i can freely say that it's duration varies between the hour, hour and a half per act, always depending on the skill of the player at the controls and their ability to solve the puzzles that the title raises.

Due to it's multiple endings, it's advisable, in case you liked it, to replay it in order to unlock them.

Gameplay


And here is the thorny section of this whole affair. Hello Neighbor has sold itself as a video game of stealth and puzzles, where the AI ​​learns your movements and acts according to them. Neither so much nor so little. In Hello Neighbor, the premise will be as follows: enter the house of your neighbor to open the door that leads to the basement. To do this, you must explore the house to find keys, picks and different devices that allow you to open locked doors and different areas of the house. The drawback is that your adorable neighbor will also be there, and he doesn't like intruders. Every time he see you, he will approach to take you, and return you to the principal house, from where you will have to start over and over again until you get ahead in the puzzles.

Hello Neighbor has reminded me of those flash games, that were so fashionable in the 2000s where you had to escape from a room or a house using the elements you could find in your environment. Here the mechanics are the same, with the addition of an enemy from which you must flee, if you don't want to start over. To confuse your neighbor, you can hide in the few closets that the house offers, but if he see you, enter them the result will be the same. To help, you will have a stealth button that will allow to duck and not make as much noise, although the eye contact will be equally fatal to your intentions.

In your task, you can help each other from the different objects that populate the environment: from boxes to keys to levers or intricate magnetic instruments. Almost everything is sensitive to being caught, and you decide if you want to use it, throw it or leave it on the ground. These objects can be used to interact with the environment, in the case of keys or tools; or to throw them, both at windows and at the neighbor, who will stop him in his attempt to catch you, and throw you from his home.

Now, none of these mechanics is applied in a fluid or easy to understand way for the player. The manipulation of the objects is rough, and more than once, you will find fighting with them so that the action develops as you want. Also, there are some other bug that, for example, forced me to restart one of the acts, since the object i needed to advance in the plot, was stuck at a point where it was impossible for me to reach it. In addition, the AI ​​doesn't have the kindness with which they have sold: it's not adaptive beyond the anecdotal or really feel smart, if not, it is all a "pain in the ass" that doesn't stop being cheating.

Hello Neighbor is not a video game made for those who don't like puzzles or oppression, because it takes a lot of patience and expertise to be able to advance in a plot that will not give a single clue to continue. There is not a single graphic tutorial in the whole game, something that i always value, but in this case it is counterproductive since the title is not designed well enough so that me, as player, can learn gradually with it. Still, the dark of the plot and how it is basted will be a profound attraction for all those who enjoy the beautiful with this type of video game. But, no doubt, it's not suitable for beginners who want to make their first generic incursion.

Graphics & Design


One of the great strengths in favor of Hello Neighbor, is it's style of animation, atypical and unique, that make his graphic commitment, very different if you take into account the standard of style that has been implemented in the industry. Thanks to the indie, you can see proposals that move away from photorealism but that bring the videogame to experience much more in the field of animation, the one with which it has always felt comfortable. By looking at the world from the perspective of a child, all the objects and locations around you, will be distorted, they will be larger than they really are or they will be a total alteration of what you might perceive in the reality. This aspect gives it a quasi-Timburtonian touch of wide enjoyment for all those who love a different type of animation.

As you move forward in the plot, you will see how the world around you, changes slightly, entering fully into the terrain of surrealism, as if you immerse in that basement and in the mind of your neighbor, you enter little by little in his disturbed psyche, with scenarios that are direct winks to films like The shrinking man. In this sense, Hello Neighbor stands out for it's inventiveness and variety, able to offer a large number of stages without leaving the sinister house of your friend and neighbor, which will be mutating to unsuspected limits.

Conclusion



After his success in pc, i expected a lot from Hello Neighbor, but unfortunately the expectations have been swept away by reality. There are good ideas behind the work of the Russian studio Dynamic Pixels, but lack of expertise to execute them. A rough gameplay hinders the development of the plot, and many will end up desperate to bring the puzzles to the success. Without a doubt, his personality in design, is one of his great strengths, something that gives hope for future titles of the developer, who knows how to polish their mistakes, can achieve great things. In Hello Neighbor has not been that occasion.

*Game was provided by the developer/publisher for this review. 


Categories: ,

0 comments:

Post a Comment

Please be respectful and no spam.