CONSCRIPT - PC Review

CONSCRIPT by developers Jordan Mochi and Catchweight Studio and publisher Team17—PC (Steam) review written by Robert with a copy provided by the publisher.

Estimated Reading Time: 5 minutes 

CONSCRIPT is developed by Jordan Mochi and Catchweight Studio and published by Team17. We at Chalgyr's Game Room would like to thank them for the free software key for the purpose of this review. Set during the First World War, you play as a lone French soldier and need to traverse the twisted trenches of the Great War, scavenge for limited supplies, and solve complex puzzles. The catch? You have to do all of this while fighting for your very survival through humanity's most brutal and horrifying conflict.

CONSCRIPT was an interesting ask for me, as I don't typically stray towards anything remotely horror-esque. I'm a wee bit of a baby regarding horror games/media so when I was able to cover it for us here at CGR, it raised an eyebrow or two, but that's the allure of CONSCRIPT... Even for folks like me that aren't fans of the genre, there's something interesting, intriguing, and more appropriately, "pulling" about CONSCRIPT that really drew me in and continues to hold on to me to this day...

CONSCRIPT is beautifully forlorn.

In all of the fear, adrenaline, shock, awe, and tension, the single most powerful emotion that CONSCRIPT exudes, is sadness.

Left to survive the attack on Souville in the First World War you're thrust into deeper, darker Hells ... that are oddly beautiful. CONSCRIPT's pixel-art-ish approach is the perfect throwback so the second generation of Survival Horror games (Silent Hill and Resident Evil-era). Gas attacks are grotesque yet hauntingly enchanting; the slight shadowing that appears before a bomb drops gives just enough warning to dive out of the way of the muted and brutal-looking explosive effect. The details aren't lost due to the art style, either. In fact, I think the style enhances the models in ways that keep both friendly and enemy models looking appropriately haggard and war-torn.

There are times where you'll be slowly moving along the corridor of trenches when an explosion will rock the world in front of you. Then out come pouring Germans and they are thirsty for your blood ... Their shovels, their helmets, even the shine (or lack thereof) on their boots is disturbing. Just as disturbing as watching them rush past the crawling French soldier ... crawling because he's missing his legs. Even if it's a few pixels, the detail is immaculate on the models. Where I struggled the most, though, was in the backgrounds. While they are serviceable, there are parts of the backgrounds/levels that were extremely difficult to identify as passable/impassable terrain. 

While I'm used to dragging my character's face along a wall in search of goodies to help me survive, it was frustrating to be constantly blocked by ill-defined hunks of rubble or detritus. While it's not game-breaking, in a survival title with limited items and resources in it (a staple of the genre and one followed well here), well, every move counts, especially given how tough some of these enemies are.

Where the audio puts the "horror" in CONSCRIPT's "survival horror" genre tag, the enemies put the "survival" in it. Some of these bastards are tough and require significant kiting. In fact, just get used to kiting. I found running around central sandbags whenever I could would keep me alive a wee bit longer than had I stood my ground. Pro tip ... rarely stand your ground; you'll get clobbered into three-weeks-from-yesterday. Maybe I just suck (I do) but I found that in most cases, when I stood there, ready with my entrenching tool ("shovel") for a nice swing ... and I'd whiff it hard.

While that's not all that concerning in most games, in CONSCRIPT it's stressful as every single pixel counts. At times I felt it was as demanding as a Soulsbourne or Metroidvania. The survival elements, managing inventory, and wonderfully-simple and elegant save system to take a bit of the bite away from what I feel is the the true masterpiece of CONSCRIPT ... the audio. Thankfully, the dev didn't retain the old tape-style save method from its inspirational titles.

I'm very sensitive to audio and the tension it can build and there's a subtle terror that's built throughout CONSCRIPT that sits oddly well with me. It may just be the current mood and state of things, but the quiet ambience of the haunting music is countered by the rough, painful, and often pitiful cries for help or mercy in sharp but not in a jump-scare-like fashion. To match the stunning art (though the mismatched fonts between in-game menus is jarring and off-putting), the audio needs to be punchy and subtle. The best way I can describe it is that the background effects, those very screams and cries I mentioned before, feel like they're being filtered through a foggy nightmare. I'm not sure if that was the effect, but that unsettling "aural uncanny valley" hit hard a few times throughout my time with CONSCRIPT. Swinging between that and the pregnant pauses in background noise or chatter can give something akin to aural whiplash, which sounds bad but the way it plays out in CONSCRIPT simply *works*. 

That's where CONSCRIPT succeeds the most, in my mind ... "it simply works." As someone not accustomed to, nor typically interested-in the Horror-end of the Survival Horror genre, CONSCRIPT was an interesting choice for me. It could be that my middle-aged sensitivities are getting the better of me as I begin to embrace military history as an interest. Or it could be that with all the over-stimulation that happens in the real world, finding a title that brings understated horror and an odd, gritty realism to life in a setting not-often taught here in the West (World War One) unless you attend higher education. With nothing more than your entrenching tool, the scraps of notes left by others, and the hope of finding the brother you were separated from at the very start of the game, you will set off into the trenches of Souville during World War One ... but will you survive?

I sure didn't. 

 

Score: 9/10