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Obscure (XBOX)

July 5, 2005 By D. Riley

Any stalwart, heterosexual man knows one truth: co-op is the foundation by which great video games are made. From the creation of Contra to the existence of Halo, co-op has served its place in the universe as a unifier of men in their passions -- and also a reason to play through certain games that would otherwise be indominatably boring. Co-op's the reason why dungeon crawlers exist and it actually makes a game like Obscure pretty playable (and occasionally fun!) Obscure is as by-the-books a survival horror game as the genre could hold and its mechanics deviate in only one place: the inclusion of that wonderful co-op.

The recent dearth of my game playing ability is due to one specific factor: the finalization of my college years, which lead to both a paucity of time and money. Now that I'm freed of at least the constraints of the former I feel that I'm ready to jump back into the ring and start writing half-assed articles about half-assed games for peccaui (Mr. Turner, should you prefer the lingua franca).

It's a strange coincidence that my past two articles on this site have involved nothing more than my incredible feeling of nostalgia at favored gaming franchises adapting to the ever changing trends in the gaming world. I worried that maybe Resident Evil 4 didn't herald the end of survival horror for just its own series, but for all series in general! The current market didn't exactly support this, where the only recent release in the scariness was Doom 3 a few months prior. "The scariness" is used loosely here, as it obviously doesn't translate exactly to John Carmac's 'Two imps ambush you in a hall fifty times in a row' definition of the term.

Well, Hydravision Studios is out to prove me wrong with Obscure. Obscure is, if I may be so bold, the literal personification of 1996 Resident Evil clones. There are jump scares, extremely limited ammo, even more limited health, and a half-assed plot that could've been penned by me in 8th grade, where I busied myself writing fanfiction about creepy shareware games involving aliens and space marines.

The word 'stereotype' doesn't seem harsh enough to describe the characters in this game. Kenny is an overbearing jock with extra pack-in Ashley, his domineering, bitchy girlfriend. Josh wears the suit of nerdy reporter with pride and spends most of his time hounding after Shannon, who's so intelligent that nobody ever notices she's also a hottie! The team is later rounded out by Stan the Stoner, a young man that refers to people as ‘dawgs' and, like all marijuana huffers of the silver screen, is an astounding technical genius.

Stan reminds me a bit TOO much of the potheads I went to highschool with: "Dude, this guy told me pot -totally- increases brain functions... or something..."

In a story that might as well been cribbed from the 1998 teen horror movie The Faculty (itself a little too frankly copying from Invasion of the Body Snatchers), our intrepid group of students find themselves trapped in the halls of higher learning while trying to investigate a series of disappearances that don't seem to have the local law authorities perturbed in the slightest.

Turns out that the reason for all these disappearances is due to a rather prevalent outbreak of plant-based monsters scurrying around the halls after the janitors lock up for the night. During a brief prologue Kenny, our basketball star of indeterminate racial descent, is coerced into chasing whatever it was that stole his backpack from the locker room. In an abandoned garden, conveniently located adjacent to the gymnasium, he finds a gloomy basement stuffed to the brim with cages and other ill omens of medical practices gone awry. Kenny finds a gun and arms himself like it's standard procedure (maybe they attend a Detroit-based highschool?). Unsurprisingly, his "piece" proves mostly ineffective against the massive mutants that bar his way.

The characters of Obscure are not without hope! The monsters they face show a spurious weakness that so perfectly fits the genre Obscure is trying to ape. If the name of the game wasn't clear enough, it is revealed that evil creepy-crawlies of Obscure don't care for light.

Run that through your head. The plant monsters don't like light.

The masochist who picks up the controller has the option of choosing amongst any of the five characters to run around the surprisingly foreboding architecture of the school. Armed with various clubs and pistols, the protagonists try to escape the complex while searching for clues in the disappearance of their good friend.

Like the teen exploitation flicks it draws inspiration from, Obscure contains women more suited to 4 AM Girls Gone Wild commercials.

Obscure plays much like someone stuck it in a time capsule ten years ago and it was just recently unearthed. It is to Resident Evil as Doom 3 is to Doom 2, a fairly unadventurous copy of its predecessor's gameplay with minor quirks to keep it interesting. The only difference is, unlike Doom 3, Obscure it can actually be fun after the first hour.

That doesn't mean the cliches are any less visible, they just don't overtly detract from the entertainment value. I don't understand why it'd be so hard to escape from a high school that contains both a first floor and easily destructible windows on said first floor, but maybe it's not my place to question. I suppose it's not much stranger than needing four crests to open the backdoor of your mansion. Sometimes you just have to make these little exceptions, especially with survival horror on the table. If we can accept Samus Aran loosing all her power-ups in every new Metroid installment, why not this? Without the student's artificial predicament we wouldn't have much of a game.

And then nobody would get to play the world's first co-op survival horror game with their best buddy. What kind of man would let a situation like that pass him by? Not anyone that I'd be proud to pick up the controller with (and then demand they let me take all the ammo). Thank god for the co-op, because the AI is so braindead that often times during the game you'll find yourself wondering if it wouldn't more efficient to play the second character with your feet. Your computer partner will generally run around like a moron and throw away shotgun shells at plant monsters easier killed with the bottom of your shoe, while your humanoid buddy can generally be commanded to do whatever you want, provided he's at least marginally smaller than you. If he's bigger, like my good friend Joel, you can generally supplant your lack of size by being disproportionately loud. It's that trick that got me the double barreled shotgun!

Also like all teen exploitation flicks, Obscure somehow manages to sneak in Josh Harnett (or a very passable clone).

Further aiding your co-op efforts is the fact that you can actually CHANGE WHO CONTROLS THE CAMERA. From the dawn of time co-op 3rd person games have totally sucked because the camera locks on the first player and there's nothing you can do about it. Games like Tales of Symphonia failed the co-op test because players two through four puttered around and hit the A button off camera while the first player grabbed all the glory! Well screw the first player! Now player two can go for the gold with a simple push of a button. If you really want to have fun then all you have to do is sneak your finger up to that little "change camera" button in the middle of an intense fire fight. And then drop the controller and run away screaming… because your (erstwhile) friend will hit you. Probably multiple times.

What's really cool about the manageable camera is that it adds an element of strategy into the game that wouldn't be possible with an AI partner. With a little fancy footwork and camera swapping, one player can rope-a-dope monsters in one direction while the other picks a lock or bashes down a stone wall to beat a hasty retreat. Also with two players you can plan your attacks with the flashlights on your weapons, which are prone to overheating. The computer won't use its flashlight to save its life (literally), but, astoundingly, your best friend will with only minimal berating (or threats of impending sexuality against his younger sister)!

Obscure is an okay game transformed to ‘pretty good' by the addition of a two player mode and it's short/varied enough that you won't get bored in the 5 or 6 hours you spend with it. It's not another anal dungeon crawler that makes you kill the same orc 80 times just so you can get to the next area where you have to kill the same goblin eighty times. In Obscure you only have to kill each enemy about 40 times! And sometimes you fight different ones in the same room! If you could bear playing through a snooze-fest like Doom 3 and killing four identical guys over and over again (nuts to that), then I see no reason why you couldn't replicate the feature with Obscure. At least you won't have to go it alone!

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#1 R. LeFeuvre Jul 13, 2005 07:13am

First of all, three things that don't really have much to do with Obscure:

1) Has there ever been a more true statement than the first sentence of this wonderful article:

Quote:
Any stalwart, heterosexual man knows one truth: co-op is the foundation by which great video games are made.

DONE! Ruti wins.
2) You play co-op just like I do. Although I'm quite sure that I'm substantially smaller that you, but I do my best to have the appropriate louder voice (by proportion.) :P
3) Congrats on the done-with-schoolness. I had no idea. I myself am still in the 'gameless' zone... three months left until the finish line.

Anyway...
After reading this I'm sorta sold. I love co-op so much that perhaps I could enjoy this one - even considering it's Survival Horror (which I'm no fan of). You explain the co-op play just how I would play it, and so perhaps it's a bit of pro-Obscure propaganda, but whatever... it sounds fabulous.

And with that: You bitch! Like I mentioned above I'm still in my 'gameless' zone and so I shall likely miss this one. At least I enjoyed reading about the fun that was had. So, yeah, thanks for that.

Or perhaps should I say thanks for that! :roll:

Oh. and I've never accepted that Samus Aran looses all her power-ups in every new Metroid installment. Damn I hate that.

#2 Dark Schneider Jul 13, 2005 11:01am

R. LeFeuvre wrote:
First of all, three things that don't really have much to do with Obscure:

1) Has there ever been a more true statement than the first sentence of this wonderful article:

Quote:
Any stalwart, heterosexual man knows one truth: co-op is the foundation by which great video games are made.

DONE! Mr. Riley wins.
2) You play co-op just like I do. Although I'm quite sure that I'm substantially smaller that you, but I do my best to have the appropriate louder voice (by proportion.) :P
3) Congrats on the done-with-schoolness. I had no idea. I myself am still in the 'gameless' zone... three months left until the finish line.

Anyway...
After reading this I'm sorta sold. I love co-op so much that perhaps I could enjoy this one - even considering it's Survival Horror (which I'm no fan of). You explain the co-op play just how I would play it, and so perhaps it's a bit of pro-Obscure propaganda, but whatever... it sounds fabulous.

And with that: You bitch! Like I mentioned above I'm still in my 'gameless' zone and so I shall likely miss this one. At least I enjoyed reading about the fun that was had. So, yeah, thanks for that.

Or perhaps should I say thanks for that! :roll:

Oh. and I've never accepted that Samus Aran looses all her power-ups in every new Metroid installment. Damn I hate that.


I'm with you. I love co-op. However, I also love survival horrors. I'll be picking this up once I'm financially caught up with the complete disaster-ridden past two months.

I also agree with the way you guys play co-op. I'm a nice guy, but in a co-op game, if you take my rocket launcher, I'm a downright mean bastard. Maybe i'll take the next health whether I need it or not.

Also, sarcastic font here. Italics aren't sarcastic enough. ;)

#3 D. Riley Jul 13, 2005 12:23pm

:D

You guys are super-pals.

My heterosexual life-mate, recently returned from college, and I sat down last night to play a rousing game of Guardian Heroes (after an obligitory amount of time bitching about the lack of co-op in RCR EX). You know what we found out?

NICOLE IS FREAKING AWESOME.

If you pump that girl's luck she's unstoppable. You get the healing pool/healing sparkles every time. (Protip: For some reason the full-scree healing spells heal EVERYTHING. Even badguys!!). Also, the "big" smiley face spell gets HUGE. The thing starts as maybe wo centimeters on the screen. By the end it's at least three inches tall... but it's the SAME IMAGE! It's all pixelated. It makes me laugh!

I played Ginjirou, as always, because Hazuma Stringi is the best move the world has ever conceived. However, we decided that between Nicole's barrier and Randy's giant beam o' death spell you'd have a pretty good team! The barrier would probably do a pretty good job of running intereference while Randy's beam charged up. Certainly it'd do a better job than our previous strategy: Running interefence with Ginjirou's FACE.

Nicole is so good it's ridiculous. If you trap a guy between her barrier and a wall he's dead, no questions asked. At high levels it's basically like having an on-call version of the undead warrior's explosion move.

And I've hijacked my own thread, but that was mostly for Ronn's enjoyment/edification. Thanks for your kind words, guys! Good to know we're not alone!

Also, so DS doesn't feel left out:

"Our mitchondria will have the last laugh"

http://www.fan-service.org/wallpapers/no9.jpg

#4 Dark Schneider Jul 13, 2005 12:46pm

D. Riley wrote:
Also, so DS doesn't feel left out:

"Our mitchondria will have the last laugh"

http://www.fan-service.org/wallpapers/no9.jpg


*right-click->Use Image On Desktop*

That game would have been GREAT with a co-op option, especially with the way the real-time combat system worked. YOU HEAR THAT, SQUARE-ENIX-WHOEVERISNEXT?? PARASITE EVE 3! CO-OP! KEEP AYA IN SHORTSHORTS! GET TO WORK!

D. Riley wrote:
(Protip: For some reason the full-scree healing spells heal EVERYTHING. Even badguys!!)

I love you forever for tagging that as a Protip.

EDIT: I still feel left out. Can I get my named changed to "D. Schneider"? :D