Cole Still Wakes the Deep Review

This isn't going to be a very impressive or in-depth review, because I'm currently suffering from Gets Light-Headed When I So Much As Inhale Disease, but I did want to throw a quick something out. Still Wakes the Deep isn't quite the kind of horror I really like to dig into - when friends were recommending this to me, telling me it was a horror game, I went into it mostly blind and anticipating some sort of twisty, psychological stuff, which is my usual thing. This is less that and more tense chase sequences and body horror. That said, I can't really find it in myself to care. It's so nice - so fun - to finally have a big, well-received game like this populated by Scottish voices. I don't know if the entire cast was Scottish - the accents did sound slightly exaggerated sometimes, but that could just be Scottish VAs getting told to lean into it like you often see with Irish characters - but I hear most of them are, and if any weren't I certainly didn't notice, significant because it's almost always instantly obvious to me. The slang terms and oft-used phrases here were accurate and natural, and I know that likely doesn't matter to anyone aside from... Scottish people, but oh well, I'm Scottish people and I like hearing a Scottish guy saying "lecky" in my video game. The atmosphere is great, and the concept is intriguing - the inspiration taken from The Thing is clear, but I've seen people making comparisons to SOMA, as well, to which I definitely concur. The supporting cast are all fairly likeable for their brief time on-screen, except when they're not supposed to be likeable, and while Caz is very much just your Average Scotsman his voice acting, courage, and connections to the other characters really lend themselves to moments of emotion and investment in what happens to him and those around him. I haven't quite settled on how I feel about the ending - cautiously, I think I'm fine with it, though it's not what I would have preferred, and I expected more from how people were discussing it - but it doesn't particularly affect my enjoyment of the game as a whole. Incidentally, I have no idea why oil rigs aren't a more common setting for horror. Total isolation, trapped in the middle of the ocean, surrounded by creaking metal pipes and freezing-cold wind and nowhere to go?