Played and finished The Medium on XSX (also pn PC)
What can I say? Typical Bloober Team offering: style over substance, a wasted opportunity made by some of the most talented environmental artists in the business and some of the most stubborn (in a bad way) designers out there.
For the uninitiated: The Medium is a horror walking simulator with some very light gameplay (i.e. the focus is on the story and atmosphere instead of the challenge).
Problem is:
- the story is not particularly gripping (subjective of course, but feels like a "Hollywood 101: How To Write a Supernatural Psychological Thriller" -- Silent Hill, this is not.),
- the atmosphere is surprisingly one-note (semi-spoiler: there is a normal world and there is an evil world -- Alan Wake, this is not.),
- the production values are misplaced (if you want celebrity power, please hire Clive Barker for the story instead of Akira Yamaoka of Silent Hill fame for the music, and we'll be more than happy)
I'm sad, because there's considerable effort on display, the game starts very promising, but it could have been soooo much more than a glorified Unreal tech demo.