Is it possible to judge a game that has been in development for so long that, when it was announced, the most current console was the PlayStation 4? Guess not, but then again, while dev history should be factored in when reviewing a game, ultimately it’s all about how much the game gives us. In the case of Asylum, unfortunately, I walked away pretty much empty-handed.
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before. There is an abandoned asylum, there is a person with amnesia, looking for his lost memories among inmates and doctors… what? Sanitarium? Nah, this is rather supposed to be a spiritual sequel to Scratches, the classic cult horror adventure from 2006. But where that game used subtlety and slow build-up to great moments, Asylum prefers to let the player wander empty rooms and corridors, between flashbacks and meandering puzzles.
Indeed, our protagonist is looking for answers to what happened to a particular therapy group years ago, those answers are hidden inside long and not very interesting conversations with characters, puzzles of the “trek all around to find the item you need” variety and, most of all, empty rooms and corridors. If you are looking for the videogame equivalent of a YouTube video called “7 hours of abandoned ambient asylum sounds for sleep and relaxation”, you are in the right place, especially considering the score is quite atmospheric.
What’s missing is an overall sense of dread. The game makes it quite clear that you are never in danger of dying or even of being captured, so it feels a lot like going around an old amusement park where nothing works anymore. Sure, it never goes for shock value or gratuitous gore, but then again, it doesn’t really do much new or interesting with its premise of “abandoned mental hospital”. If you are looking to learn something about mental treatment, you’d do much better by playing the obscure 1997 adventure Blackstone Chronicles.
Unfortunately, most of Asylum’s puzzles do revolve around trekking around the empty hospital, trying to find keys, opening doors and safes, and all the usual fare. There isn’t much that strays from the common adventure game playbook, with a particularly bad example after the mid-point. Which could be forgivable if the narrative mechanics were as gripping as those of Scratches. Unfortunately, Asylum fails to deliver on that front.
While the story itself is fine, with a vaguely satisfying conclusion that doesn’t leave much to the player’s imagination, the delivery isn’t satisfying at all, with okay voice acting but stilted characters delivering it. Considering Scratches managed to do much more with lesser production values, there is little in Asylum that can be considered worth remembering. The dev team definitely worked hard on Asylum, and they are big fans of horror for sure. But I was left asking myself, several times, why this story was worth telling in the first place.
The overall look of the game is indeed very much stuck in the past, both in how the mechanics work and the graphics look. You move around in first person, going through nodes instead of real-time movement. So click on the interactive object, or on the next node to move on, that’s it. Sure, at least interactive objects are highlighted, so you will never be stuck trying everything with everything. Graphics are, well, fine, but they look like they were going for a kind of photorealistic look, which, considering the dated look, makes one feel like playing an adventure game from 2012.
And well, I guess that makes sense, since when the game was announced, Barack was in his first year of presidency. Thanks Obama!
Ultimately, Asylum is an okayish adventure, neither bad nor good enough, which makes it all the harder to recommend with so many better adventures around. If you are a fan of horror-like adventure games that are big on atmosphere and small on gore and thrills, sure, this would do the trick for its 8-10 hours of length. But if you were enthralled by Scratches and how it handled its thrills and chills, along with the imaginative story and its open-ended conclusion, Asylum will leave you scratching your head.
Asylum is available on Steam. Our review was made possible with a key provided by the developers.
Asylum: Asylum is an okayish adventure game that does little outside of the box, squandering its potential and feeling like an abandoned vessel of a better time. – Damiano Gerli
