by There are walking simulators and then there are walking simulators. The Town of Light is an exploration of a mid-century sanitarium. It might have been an interesting, contemplative experience except for one thing – the thing that can be the downfall of any walking simulator: a slow walking speed.
I don’t think I’ve ever gotten out of my chair after playing a video game and thought “Wow! I walk so fast! It’s great!”. Certainly, I do like my DOOM “walking faster than Usain Bolt running” speed, but this is the first time I’ve actually felt like my brain was moving in slow motion because getting from point A to point B was so
painfully,
tediously,
laboriously,
ponderously,
excrutiatingly
slow!
Beyond that, there are even times that the limited control a walking simulator is taken away – you can’t actually turn around, you can’t even look away from the 20 degrees in front of you – which makes me wonder why it wasn’t just a cutscene. I do understand that this is meant to be an exploration of deep psychological issues, but the way to represent that would be to make your choices meaningless (turning around doing the dream-like running thing), not to pretend you still have control. And so I add another game to Tier Four – for reasons that were entirely preventable.