I'm obsessed with Anthology Of The Killer even days after finishing it. highly recommended
some things I love about this game I don't see talked about as much:
- it gets so much out of some very simple building blocks; constructs a whole world with tons of characters using only a few sprites and models, without getting bogged down in "cutscenes", and with each character only needing a couple of frames to communicate their whole deal
- feels the most like "playing a comic book" I've ever seen, using the language of comics in its storytelling in a way most games use the language of film. this part alone feels unlike anything I've played before
- the chase scenes resolve in different ways depending on if you get caught or escape; either way, the chase ends at that point, which is good because it avoids a problem sso many horror games have where "being caught" merely results in going back to the last checkpoint and doing it again.
- the chases can be absolutely terrifying and the atmosphere this game manages to get through clever lighting and art is incredible. the chases can range from you dreading them, to looking forward to them. they're the main form of "action" in the game and, again, does a lot with a little
- I'm on the cusp of replaying every episode more than once, which is how you know it's good
the comic comparison always makes me glad because that's where a lot of the inspiration for the games came from.. i probably would not have gotten into "horror" if it wasn't for horror comics. i want to write up a list of reference points at some point, but something i think abt for vgame people looking to comics is that it can make the pacing a lot tighter - compare the volume of stuff that happens in a tintin book with how long it'd take for a film to cover the same territory - and also makes it easier to flip between different levels of abstraction. vgames have always done this but i think esp for 3d engines it's good to remember that you can treat the screen itself as a decorated image instead of always as a camera pointing at some other thing!!
