➤ The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, the game review that does Tobe Hooper's film justice 🕹

The review of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, a game that finally manages to do justice to the 1974 horror film classic, despite being online.

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, "Don't open that door" in Italy, is a 1974 film that set a precedent in the horror genre. Directed by an almost newcomer Tobe Hooper, who until then had only made one other very low-budget film, Eggshells, it tells the story of a family of murderers serial cannibals, the Sawyers, who kill a group of naive boys, with an almost documentary style, in its filmic objectification of horror and its visionary brutality. Needless to say, it was enormously successful, despite stirring up a lot of controversy that led to several bans, naturally due to its content considered too violent.

Despite everything, it became a cult film and set a precedent, giving life to a series of films, still active today, and making the character of Leatherface, better known as Leatherface, who, like his name, iconic indicates, he always wore a leather mask. and he loved to dissect his victims with an electric saw. It is no coincidence that Dead by Daylight, the most famous asymmetrical horror video game on the market, references The Texas Chainsaw Massacre in several ways, including hooks on which to hang the survivors and a hunter, called the Cannibal who, guess what, He has his face covered by a leather mask and kills using an electric saw (it is no coincidence that he is nicknamed Leatherface... who knows why). The success of the Behavior Interactive title must have pushed the publisher Gun Interactive and the development studio Sumo Digital to work on an official game of Hooper's film, which conceptually adapts perfectly to the asymmetrical horror genre. So, with the Review of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre We want to know if Leatherface has a chance against the Cannibal.

Scary

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, the game review that does Tobe Hooper's film justice — The environments are adequate

Despite being an online game, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre does not fear. Considering the genre, it is not as trivial a statement as it seems. In fact, for some time now Dead by Daylight has given up taking care of this aspect, with the remodulation of the mechanics, which was carried out patch after patch, which significantly lowered the tension, in favor of what we can define as horror folklore. . . Here the designers at Sumo Digital seem to have worked very carefully on how to arouse tension in the five players who take on the role of victims, those who have to try to escape from the Saywer house where they went to look for a girl. So, when you find yourself alone in the house looking for lockpicks and trying not to be discovered by the three family murderers, the tension is truly palpable, also because in many cases one shot is enough for them to kill us and escape. It is a viable solution, considering the imbalance of forces on the field. In short, find leather face behind you as you desperately try to reach the exit, only to be cut in two, is the most cinematic thing the genre has offered yet and, in some ways, manages to be a truly disturbing experience, precisely because of the measures taken. so that it is so. Thus, emphasis was placed on the stealth elements, with the survivors having to try not to make the slightest noise and remain in the shadows, avoiding open confrontations at all costs, which lead to a single ending.

One already exists!

The Sumo Digital title is not the first video game transposition of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. In 1983 Wizard Video released a video game of the same name for the Atari 2600 with the official license of the film, in which the player assumed the role of Leatherface and had to kill victims while avoiding some obstacles. As you can imagine, it was very simple graphically, it had very dull gameplay and the truth is that the murders and the final scene were also a bit fun (a girl arrived, let's imagine Sally from the movie, to kick the man's butt. serial killer). , eliminating it), but it was still boycotted by many stores that refused to put it on sale, which caused its commercial failure.

The victims

As mentioned, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre works hard to modify the Dead by Daylight formula and present itself as a title with its own personality. Meanwhile I murderer There are three on the field and not just one (chosen from a list of five: Leatherface, the Cook, the Hitchhiker, Johnny and Sissy, the latter being the new addition to the family), for a total of eight players in the match. . In reality, there is also a fourth murderer, the Nonno, which however has a particular function. He is essentially immobile and wants the victims' blood. When it is full it produces a loud sound that reveals the position of the survivors of the killers, forcing the first to remain perfectly still so as not to be detected. Of course, standing still for too long can prove equally deadly, considering the danger ahead. You have to adapt to the situation and choose for the lesser evil; In this way the tension is always kept high and overly static tactics are avoided. You have to be calm, but you also have to keep moving. The main objective of the victims, who by the way are Ana Flores, Connie Taylor, Julie Crawford, Leland McKinney and Sonny Williams, is obviously the escape. However, to achieve this, they must clear the path to safety, for example by finding a spare fuse for an electric door, lockpicks to open a locked door, or performing other similar actions.

There are many escape routes and exploring also offers a better chance of survival as, for example, you can find shovels with which to temporarily knock down the assassins or you can discover hidden passages that allow you to escape without being seen.

Overall, when portraying the victims, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre favorssingle action to collaboration between players. In fact, perhaps the best form of collaboration is not to collaborate at all. As mentioned, players cannot stop the assassins, only slow them down. Grouping together means becoming easy targets, either because in groups it is more difficult to hide or because murderers tend to converge on those who are discovered. Therefore, keeping your distance from others also means dispersing the assassins, to give yourself more room to maneuver in case you are not discovered immediately. In this way, the player can concentrate on his own strategies, without worrying too much about following the team's tactics or the orders of any player who feels particularly inclined to give them.

I murder

As already mentioned, I murderer There are five playable. At first we thought they were all identical to each other, with only a few minor differences justifying their existence. However, as we played, we discovered that is not the case. Sumo Digital has put enormous care into creating a well-characterized team of assassins, not only in which each member has unique abilities, but in which they invite collaboration (unlike what happens with survivors). For example, Sissy has a small frame that allows her to chase players on impromptu passes, while she continues to swing her deadly knife. She can also use her poison directly on players or healing vials, making them particularly treacherous to drink. The hitchhiker, on the other hand, can set traps to make it difficult to access certain key locations. Disarming traps, picking locks, and performing other similar actions takes survivors time, and killers can coordinate to create treacherous paths for their victims. In this sense, Leatherface is the most direct of the group, since he limits himself to being the classic burly and somewhat slow brute, despite being the most lethal of all. He often kills more thanks to the help of other assassins than to his own abilities.

Technique at the service of gameplay

The Texas Massacre is also very interesting from a technical point of view. It is not a question of quality. graphics, which is generally good. What is most attractive is the soundtrack and how the action is full of visual suggestions and exploits the different elements in an intelligent way. Speaking of sound, the so-called "Apprehension Engine" does an excellent job of adapting the music to each situation, increasing the tension until it explodes when you are the last survivors on the map. Additionally, each sound serves its own function, including unique noises made by killers that signal their presence to hidden victims. There are also ambient sounds that serve to confuse the killers, making it more difficult for them to find their prey. Even from a graphical point of view, a lot has been done to foster tension. For example, the game sends visual information to victims when they are near a killer. This is both a form of help and a way to raise tension, because sometimes you receive feedback without having identified the enemy and you are left scared at the prospect of doing something. It is also worth noting how some graphic elements work really well as game mechanics. For example, in some places the shadow is so thick that it actually hides the players, in the same way that the grass outside manages to make them practically invisible. They are small measures that increase the depth of the experience, whose capacity for involvement also lives on these details.

Some problems

In general we prefer The Texas Chainsaw Massacre to Dead by Daylight with which the comparison is inevitable, despite not being Sumo Digital's flawless title. For example, there are only three maps, with related night variants. They are well designed and interesting to explore, as they offer different ways to develop unique strategies, game after game, but in general they are few, considering also that on a stylistic level they are decidedly uniform. A little more variety wouldn't have gone amiss from this point of view. Another problem is the entrance to the game, starting with the terrible thing. Tutorials, composed of long videos that repeat the same information several times, always adding new information. Keep in mind that we are not talking about a very complex game, but there are still some mechanics to explain, otherwise you will spend the first few games making mistakes, even very trivial ones, and frustration can reach the stars, without any other reason other than the lack of a good tutorial. Many could be forced to abandon the game due to simple misunderstandings, which would be a real shame, considering everything the Sumo Digital title has to offer. Another flaw is the basement: this is the initial area where a single assassin, Leather Face, appears. It is very complex, but small, and it can happen that the killer finds a player very quickly, especially if he knows the area well. Well, finishing a game in a few seconds is not exactly pleasant. It must be said that we tested the game with a very small user base, that is, with all the difficulties that this entails in finding a match. So you can imagine how we felt when, after spending several minutes waiting to play, we were killed in a matter of seconds. Probably, with the game available and the servers populated, the problem will be reduced considerably.

Conclusions

Tested version PC with Windows digital delivery Steam, epic games store, playstation store, Xbox Store Price 38,99 € Holygamerz.com 8.0 Readers (26) 7.5 your vote

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is the best the asymmetrical horror genre has to offer, despite not having the same amount of content as any Dead by Daylight: the killers are few, but cleverly done and satisfying to use, the victims They really live the tension. of such an extreme situation and each mechanic is designed to awaken that fear that elsewhere seems to have been declassified as useless. It's a shame it doesn't have more content and wasn't treated better going into the game, but it's still an excellent title, for playing strictly with the lights off.