Review: Man of Medan

"It's all about decisions, isn't it? Decisions made in a hurry, in a panic. Made with the heart instead of the head... or vice-versa. Sometimes those decisions take a long time to have repercussions. But there are repercussions. There are always repercussions." - The Curator

I cannot even begin to explain how excited I was to play Man of Medan. Until Dawn is one of my favorite games of all time (and I have to admit, I will be comparing both games several times throughout this post) and I couldn't wait to see what this game had to offer. I really didn't know much about it before playing, I usually go into games pretty blind. All I really knew is that it's part of The Dark Pictures horror anthology series of games and there's online and local co-op available (neither of which I have played yet, but I do have a couple friends I plan to play through the game with).

So, what is Man of Medan about? A group of friends charter a boat to go on a wreck diving excursion. One of them provokes a trio of pirates who crashes into their boat and as you can probably imagine...It kind of pisses them off. The pirates return that night while the friends are asleep and they decide to rob them (and most likely hold them for ransom, since they ask how much money their parents have). While snooping through their belongings, the pirates find mention of "Manchurian gold" and head for an abandoned military freighter where this supposed treasure is located. Once on board, you not only have to fight to escape the pirates, but also the dangers lurking inside.

I have to say, I loved the opening credits. A lot. The Dark Pictures anthology looks like it will be similar to shows like Night Gallery and The Twilight Zone, with the Curator leading us on our journey through each story, which he finds in one of the many books lining his shelves. I was really hoping the curator would play "mini games" with us like the therapist did in Until Dawn, but he offers little more than spoilers. And even when you tell him you don't want spoilers, he still can't seem to completely help himself.

Man of Medan is a very cinematic experience, it's like a choose your own adventure film. On more than one occasion, I forgot what kind of game I was playing and wasn't ready for the QTEs. I got someone killed that way. Oops. The button prompts happen extremely fast and on my second playthrough, I turned on "hold to complete button mash" and "disable QTE timeout" because I didn't want to accidentally kill anyone by being too slow to respond.

Let's spend some time talking about how the game compares to Until Dawn.

1. The controls are the same. You use the R stick to make choices, R2 to pick up items and examine them, etc.
2. Traits still exist and depending on the decisions you make throughout the game, they'll update to reflect them. The same goes for relationships and you can click on each character's name to see what exactly affected the relationship, and how.
3. Like the totems in Until Dawn, you'll receive death or future premonitions when you find framed photos while exploring.
4. Bearings, like butterfly effects, affect the outcome of the game. Every action you take will affect something that happens later on.
5. In Until Dawn, there were "don't move" segments where you could not move the controller at all. That's changed a bit in Man of Medan. Now, you'll receive a "keep calm" prompt and you have to press X in time with the heart monitor shown on screen, similar to a rhythm game.
6. One of my favorite things about Until Dawn was how, depending on the choices you made, one of the "nicest" characters (Ashley) can do one of the worst things in the game. You won't see anything as drastic as that in Man of Medan.

I played through the game twice because I really wanted to have a good understanding of the characters and the story. My first playthrough was the Theatrical Cut. Early on, I didn't really care for some of the characters, specifically Alex and Julia, but they got better as the game continued. If you find yourself annoyed by them, give it a little time, they'll grow on you. My first time through the game was how I would naturally play, making the "nicest" decisions. I also spent a significant amount of time exploring every area and trying to collect as many "secrets" as possible. (I still managed to miss some and as of right now, I only have 46/50.)

For my second playthrough, I decided to play the Curator's Cut (currently only a pre-order bonus, but I believe it will be available to everyone by the end of this year) and make everyone as rude and selfish as possible, so I could compare it to what happened with Ashley in Until Dawn (as I've already said, mistreating the characters in Man of Medan doesn't result in anything quite that bad). In the Curator's Cut, you get to play as different characters and see what they did while the events of the Theatrical Cut were happening. What I noticed with this mode is that it takes some of the really big decisions out of your hands, which kind of sucks because it can completely ruin your run, depending on which ending you're going for. It's to be expected though because you're not playing as the "main" character of each chapter. I do wonder if the choices the other characters make are randomized or if they have set responses to everything.

After completing your first run of the game, you're shown a trailer for the next game in the series, Little Hope. (I really thought the next game would be about Salem because while exploring, you're able to find a book about the Salem Witch Trials and Conrad also sleeps in a Salem shirt.) You also unlock Scene Selection, so you can go back and pick up any collectibles you missed.

There's one thing in the game that I'm still wondering about and I wasn't sure where to include it in this post, so I guess now is as good a time as any to address Fliss' ID card.

This could be nothing. But there are a couple typos here, her name is in Comic Sans and as soon as I saw this, it screamed "FAKE" to me. When you play as Fliss, if you examine the ID card, she looks around like she's checking to make sure no one is watching and then she hides it away in the drawer. It's extremely shady. I really want to play again and not examine it with Fliss, just to see if anyone else ever comments on it if it's left out.

I want to wrap up with some of the negatives and positives of Man of Medan. I'll start with the negatives because I'd like to end on a positive note. The game freezes up during some cutscenes. It happened at least three times during the Theatrical Cut (I didn't notice anything during the Curator's Cut). Movement isn't fluid. The controls while walking feel kind of stiff, which I attribute, in part, to not having full control over the camera. Some of the camera angles are really strange and again, this is a cinematic game, so I get it, but it made it difficult to control the characters, especially in narrow corridors. Speaking of...If you're claustrophobic, this game will be a nightmare for you. (I didn't enjoy the underwater part near the beginning of the game either, but that's a personal issue and I don't hold it against the game.) The ending feels rather abrupt once it arrives. And finally, the only thing that really bothers me is that to platinum the game, you'll need to complete a playthrough online and there is no matchmaking, it has to be with someone on your friends list. I hate when games include multiplayer trophies. There's also a trophy for completing Movie Night, which is Man of Medan's local co-op mode, however, you don't actually need another person to play this with. Each "player" is assigned a character and you pass the controller back and forth between everyone, so you could technically play this one alone.

Personally, I happen to really enjoy games like this. It has a strong story that unfolds through your actions and exploration. Horror games are my favorite kind of video games, but with a lot of them, I find myself having to take a break every ten minutes or so because I have to psych myself up to keep playing, they stress me out too much. With games like Man of Medan, I'm not too scared to play. Sure, the jump scares got me (at least ten times), but that's different. Because I'm not really in control of the action, I don't have as much to fear. I don't feel like I'm in the game, I just get to participate in a different, fun way without the stress.

Man of Medan is not going to be for everyone. If you like action, this is probably not the game for you. If you don't like jump scares, you will absolutely hate it, it's littered with them. But if you like story driven games, if you like horror, if you like choose your own adventure novels, Man of Medan is a really fun, enjoyable experience.