Obscure

by Dreamcatcher

Product Features

• Choose from 5 playable characters - 5 lives you can live out in any way, unless one of them dies
• Imminent dangers are visible on screen through Real-time graphic changes, like the hideous Black Aura
• Dynamic camera settings allow characters total freedom of movement
• Use light as a weapon - combine conventional weapons with sunlight strategically to destroy the monsters pursuing you

Product Details

• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B000809QLQ
• Item Weight: 4.8 ounces
• Media: Video Game
• Release Date: October 31, 2003
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #11,567 in Video Games (See Top 100 in Video Games)
• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes

Product Description

Platform: PlayStation2

Obscure takes the survival-horror gaming you love and sets it in a teenage horror film. Tortured screams echo through Leafmore High's deserted corridors. Faceless creatures lurk in the shadows. Five teenagers set out to bring light into the darkness - and experience a night that will scar their souls forever.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Sleeper Hit, May 14, 2005

By 

Review Lover "ReviewLover" (At a place...) - See all my reviews

= Fun:3.0 out of 5 stars 

This review is from: Obscure (Video Game)

This was released in Europe some six months ago so I've had ample time to go through the game many times, and exhaust all the possibilities. I think this is a fairly definitive review :-)

"Obscure" ("Mortfilia" in Japan) follows the age-old story of a gang of unruly teenagers as they attempt to uncover the mystery behind several disappearances of students in their high school (what is it about U.S. high schools that make the creatures of darkness want to kill, kill kill? Answers on a postcard to.... etc).

So far, so unexceptional.

What really sets this game apart is the absolute self-confidence with which it plaigirises not only classic teen slasher movies, but also several other Survival Horror peers, and the aplomb with which it presents itself as a totally new game.

It's not.

But that lack of originality certainly doesn't mean it's not a fun game to play. Read on!

GRAPHICS: 4/5
Smooth, gorgeous protagonists and really wonderful poly backdrops are complimented by a super-high frame rate and truly disturbing monster design. Cut scenes blend seamlessly with the action and may be skipped at any time, and the whole visual impression is one of top-class excellence. This is no 'Silent Hill 4' or 'Resident Evil 4' in terms of visuals, mind (the facial expressions are fairly nondescript and the overall level of detail is somewhat lower), but all in all it's a very high-class affair.

SOUND: 5/5
That's right, top marks here. Excellent voice acting and truly chilling sound effect are coupled with some really atmospheric in-game tunes to produce the same degree of aural atmosphere as heard in Obscure's more heavyweight peers like Fatal Frame and Silent Hill. The school anthem heard in the opening sequence will raise the hairs on your arms and it just gets better from there. There are one or two translation flaws (the script was originally french) but these are few and far between (I only counted three in the entire game) and don't have any impact at all - bar being unintentionally comical - and don;t take from the game's atmosphere in the slightest.

PLAYABILITY: 3/5
And here's where it goes a little wrong. Superb audio-visuals creating an atmosphere reminiscent of Jamie Lee Curtis in the original 'Hallowe'en' cannot mask the fact that this game is, in places, a trial to play. Two-player mode is very cool in theory, and in practise is good fun at times, but overall comes across as frustrating, and the controls and cameras angles work in direct opposition sometimes. Like SH 4, menu selections are in real-time (which is a nice touch, no break in the action here!) but there is an overall feeling of "Oh, dammit, come ON!" that another month or so in development could have really sorted out. On the plus side, the controls for the most part do exactly what they're supposed to do, and any true-blue survival horrorist won't mind the small quibbles.

The real issue with the playability is the extreme difficulty level, even on Normal mode. Now, games like 'Devil May Cry 3' and 'Resident Evil Outbreak: File 2' may appear to be unfairly difficult at first play, but that's toughness with a point - or at least, toughness with a viable means of progression. 'Obscure' seems to lack this, and while it's perfectly logical that a bunch of sixteen-year-old kids wouldn't have the physical reserves of strength and endurance as, say, Dante or a member of S.T.A.R.S., the developers simply haven't included enough medical items or ammunition to make direct confrontation a viable option.

And, when you consider the fact that there are areas of the game where the bigger, tougher enemies simply HAVE TO be tackled, this becomes a real negative point.

LASTING VALUE: 3/5
Once around the park is enough in the very short world of 'Obscure'. There are costumes and extras to be unlocked, but since the game presents itself as a once-off there's no impetus to replay the thing, once you're finished. Mind you, the extraordinary difficulty of the second half sort of makes up for this.

OVERALL: 3.5/5
Unoriginal, frustrating, and, at times, amateurish, the most part of 'Obscure' is a solid, scary and all-round entertaining Survival Horror game. 'Silent Hill' it is not, but then again, neither is 'Silent Hill' anymore. If you can get it cheap it's well worth the ride, though the more dedicated amongst us will get it anyway. Recommended.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Great Idea - Not Great Implementation, August 21, 2005

By 

Lisa Shea "medieval swordfighting enthusiast" - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (TOP 50 REVIEWER)   

= Fun:3.0 out of 5 stars 

This review is from: Obscure (Video Game)

Obscure is a Mature horror title for the PS2 that lets you play one of five teens trapped in a demon-filled high school.

The first thing that hits you in this game is the graphics. They are, well, obscure. They are reasonably good quality for a PS2 release and, starting in the basketball court, you can kick the ball around relatively realistically. If you "touch" it you automatically shoot into the hoop - a skill most basketball players would love to have :) From there you start exploring the school and realizing the horrors that lay within.

The problem here is that the graphics are TOO obscure. I agree that I like the underground scenes where the flashlight only gives you glimpses of what you can see. It adds to the moody, scary feeling. However, when you're running around outside the school, you can barely see what is right in front of you. Is that a window? A door? We spent 20 minutes hunting for "what to do next" because it was so hard to distinguish the screen elements. We have a high definition, large TV too.

Which brings me to the next point, plot. Yes, we've all seen horror movies about teens screaming and running around a high school. It's amazing that human beings only spend 4 years in a high school yet so many plots are centered around those institutions. In any case, while the school is relatively detailed, it is FULL of "locked doors". You have to try every one to see which you can get through. You have the ability to pick locks, but for some reason you can't even try most of the doors. You run up and down, left and right, searching for that one clue to let you move forward.

I was concerned at first that this was a mature horror story and that, playing it at midnight, I would be scared silly. Instead, I was frustrated to no end, running around the map countless times trying to figure out what to do next. The puzzles were pretty simple, but tracking down the items was maddingly awful. You had to hug every wall pressing the "action" button to see if anything would react.

I was enthused about the team play aspect, but despite our best efforts, team play was annoying at best and extremely frustrating at worst. Many of the rooms you end up in are very tiny, so you get "stuck" on each other. If one person leaves a room (perhaps by accident) they drag the other person along so you end up going in and out of a room several times while you investigate it.

The sound / voice acting was relatively good, you got a sense that these were real teens stuck in a real, dingy, dark high school preparing to be slain by monsters :). But when you hear the same line over, and over, and over again, it gets wearying. Add in awful camera angles where you can't even see what you're facing half the time, and it's just not a game I enjoyed playing.

I really wanted the game to play well. It had an interesting theme different from a lot of the other games we own. However, I think the game needed another few months in quality testing to work out these problems to really shine well.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Relive High School... All Over Again, January 21, 2006

By 

Elizabeth "Bunny Obsessed" (USA) - See all my reviews

= Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars 

This review is from: Obscure (Video Game)

When you first start the game it shows you a little video and it will have Sum 41's music playing to it. That just really sets the mood. It gives you the whole feel of High School all over again. After that you start the game as Kenny who then goes missing. When his sister and girlfriend start talking they both realize that he never came home last night. They decide to lock themselves in after school when everyone has gone home to look for him.

When I frist saw this game I thought it would be a really good game to play. I wasn't completely wrong. This game tends to resemble the Resident Evil and Haunting Ground series. It resembles these games in the aspect that the enviroments tend to go back on their selves. What I mean is you have all these doors most are locked but when you find a key to one of the locked doors and go inside there is usually a few more doors in that room but one of the doors leads back to a area of the shcool you have already visited. I really like that aspect because it cuts down on all the long back tracking most games have you go through just to get back from point B to point A. Another aspect it takes on from those games is that it has a map which shows which building you're currently in. But this game has a neat little feature added to its mapping system. Oh yes I like this little feature. =) In this game, at some point in the game anyway, you will look at your map and it will show you the room you're currently in and all the rooms around it, BUT the map will have either a red check or some kind of red mark at the doors you have already enterd and a red X at the doors you haven't enter or that or locked. I haven't figure out if the x means you haven't enter it yet or its locked 'cause all the doors I haven't enter yet or locked so who knows.

This game also has a lot of cut scenes. I would have to say that within the first few mins of playing this game you will have been exposed to 7 cut scenes. The cut scenes are really great. They just make this game seem to take on a life of its own.

The only two things I really didn't like about this game were the controls and the health system. There were so many different controls that did so many different things. It takes a while to get used to them so I would suggest you play around with the contorls and get familiar with them before you find a monster. The health system. Aww yes. Now how much health does my person have again. I don't know O_o. This game pretty much leaves you flying blind when it comes to your characters health. It doesn't show you on the screen how much health your person has but you will get little hints that your person is near death almost. If your person has lost a good amount of health the controller will vibrate and your character will do what the characters in the Resident Evil Series did, they will start limping, holding their side and walk/run slowly. I did learn a neat little trick to figure out how bad my person is hurt. If you go to the screen where you have your map at the top it will have some other tabs like I think one was documents and another one was characters. Go the characters tab and whoever your current character is, the character you're currently controling, look at their picture and it will give you a pretty good idea of how bad they're hurt. When they have not had any damage done to them they're picture is nice and clean, whenever they take on damage they're picture slowly starts getting bloody.

Over all I really liked this game. This game is like in a class by itself in the whole horror games listing. The majority of the other horror games I've played have been set in some kind of town except for a few. This is the first horror game that makes going to High School terrifying and makes you thankful you don't go to High School any more.

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