White Night Reviews
A great looking game, but its beauty is only skin deep.
The distinctive visuals of White Night bring plenty of atmosphere but also some significant and frustrating problems.
Possibly the scariest 12-rated game ever made, although the attractive visuals are better designed than the poorly balanced difficulty.
Delivers scares with style even if it doesn't satisfy in all areas
White Night hints at a horror story of quality, but it's hidden in the shadows of tedium and visual ambiguity.
It would be more accurate to say that White Night is an exploration adventure, an interactive story in the "weird tale" tradition. Just enough obstacles exist to make that story feel as though it was earned, that the player participated in the telling, but conveying the story is the priority. From clever exploitation of gameplay mechanics to the pages and pages of rich exposition which carefully unravel and the moody jazz soundtrack, everything exists in service to the fiction. In that, it succeeds, and it's a story worth experiencing and deserving of praise.
White Night is another game which has remained stubbornly devoted to its art style to the detriment of the actual game tucked away beneath it. It remains faithful to its influences and loyal to its theme, but when its misgivings contribute to make it such an irritating experience, it's impossible to overlook them.
A noir art style, terrifying atmosphere, and an enjoyable narrative lead White Night towards success only marred by a few irritating mechanics here and there.
White Night is a pretty well crafted survival horror game. You'll get scared. Unfortunately for it, a few niggling mechanical issues linger through to the released version of the game and dampens the experience somewhat. Otherwise, it is a thoroughly enjoyable game, at a very minimal cost, for fans of the genre.
Had White Night been more of a ride, dragging you through rather than slowing things down, its subtly unsettling tone and at times nerve-shredding moments would have had a much greater impact.
White Night is a cacophony of ideas, simultaneously atypical and ambitious
Apart from the splendid graphics, there's nothing particularly outstanding about White Night, but it's a decent horror-mystery game. It'd fit beautifully under the Alone in the Dark banner and seems like a much more obvious successor than…well…
White Night does a lot right, delivering a great story which only dips slightly in the run up to its conclusion. The art style is fantastic, and while it hurts other things – like the visibility of the title's many collectibles – the trade-off is honestly worth it. Unfortunately, the release's biggest issues sit in the gameplay department, as it's exceedingly frustrating on far too many occasions. The end result is interesting, then, and worth experiencing – but perhaps not recommended for everyone.
The survival horror genre has struggled to find a place in recent years, but titles such as The Evil Within have attempted to breathe new life into it. With White Night, OSome Studio has managed to invigorate the genre by taking us back to the methodical and tense gameplay that kept us on edge so many times in the past. When playing the game for subsequent playthroughs, you will undeniably blaze through it, but hasn't that always been the case with survival horror games? The art style is beautifully unique, the gameplay is simple yet highly enjoyable and the soundtrack is superb. The reason you'll want to stay inside this mansion, though, is because of the history behind it. A compelling story is waiting to be unearthed and the more you learn, the deeper you'll want to go. The ID@Xbox lineup continues to get stronger and its latest addition is unquestionably worth checking out.
While being in possession of some clever ideas, a good story and a superbly-realised black and white world, White Night doesn't do enough scares to be a good horror or have inventive enough puzzles to be a decent adventure.
White Night isn't the most riveting survival horror game I have played in recent memory but it isn't the worst either. If not for the unique film noir storytelling combined with a stylized black and white look, White Night could have been one of the more forgettable survival horror games of 2015. Unfair enemies and camera issues dampens an experience which otherwise should have been much better than the sum of its parts.
If you ignore the insipid faux-noir dialogue, you'll find that White Night is a pleasing old-school survival horror gameplay experience with a sharp visual style and an intriguing story.
Once I started I couldn't stop playing. It had me by the throat with its mystery, its atmosphere and finally the ending. This is an instant classic in my eyes.
White Night has plenty going for it when it comes to artistic essence, but it comes up short in scares, cohesion, puzzle solving, and camera selection. Way short. OSome should've taken the time to make this darkness worth exploring. Instead, you'll simply feel better spending your Night elsewhere.
Despite a gorgeous monochromatic art style and an intriguing mix of noir and survival horror elements, White Night allows its artistic ambition to overreach its clunky, frustrating combat.