Bendy and the Dark Revival - Part 1

00:00:11 - Prologue 00:36:12 - Chapter 1 - Drawn to Darkness 01:44:38 - Chapter 2 - The Demon's Domain 03:26:50 - Chapter 3 - The Eternal Machine Knowing nothing about any of Joey Drew Studios and the popular Bendy franchise, I found myself about to enter the world of “cartoon survival horror” with KimbergardenCop’s New Year Free for All nomination. Bendy & The Dark Revival is the follow up to Bendy and The Ink Machine. You play in the first person as Audrey, an animator who suddenly finds herself dragged into a dark cartoon world devoid of colour, with an animation style straight out of the 30s and 40s. Audrey must go through 5 chapters in order to escape back to the real world, along the way learning of the battle between the ominous Ink Demon and sinister Wilson (the janitor responsible for pulling you into the world to begin with). Along the way you will be pursued by ink monsters whilst you have to solve puzzles in order to proceed. The instant impression is the homage to games like Borderlands, Cuphead and most obviously Bioshock. In fact, it’s verging on plagiarism when it comes to Bioshock, with glaring similarities to the city of Rapture – from the 1930’s New York architecture and the rust, decay, ink-coloured water and overall claustrophobic corridors and hallways - to the menu layouts and pipe weapon or switch puzzles. The game starts with some hide and seek from the ink monsters that dwell in the studio, and as soon as the Ink demon appears then you will need to rely on stealth and quickly hiding in boxes so that he doesn’t catch you and send you to the Game Over screen – he appears sporadically throughout the game. However, any other enemy will send you to a respawn point in the form of a pool of ink, which cheapens the experience as there are no real consequences to your demise. It starts off unnerving, and the first jumpscares are effective but once the first few have occurred, then it just becomes an overused annoyance rather than terrifying as the atmosphere disappears as soon as you have your fighty-pipe. Gameplay can also verge on frustrating, as there is a massive imbalance on moving and looking around. I had to adjust the sensitivity as looking around was chaotic, whereas your movement makes you horrendously ineffective at dodging attacks, which really makes felling bosses or dealing with swarms a chore. Upgrades aren’t really worth it either as the stamina or health improvements basically does very little – This includes to your sole weapon, which is only worth upgrading once to hold charge to open doors. I love the concept of this game, and the voice acting was a particular highlight – but sadly (aside from some story highlights) it runs out of steam before the mid-section of the game due to fetch quests dominating the game. I’d love to see some more variety in enemies, more variety in puzzles and a genuine uneasiness created by real consequences to failure. It’s not a bad game, but it’s not worth it whilst Bioshock or Alien Isolation both exist. #ps4 #bendyandthedarkrevival #survivalhorror #joeydrew #nukeboxharris #twitch #bendy #fullplaythrough Broadcasted live on Twitch -- Watch live at   / nukeboxharris