White Night Reviews
White Night is a unique blend of noir horror, with a very bold visual style, offering an experience that is both familiar and unique to fans of the genre.
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.
White Night's distinctive visual style make it immediately identifiable; artistically, this game's a success. Its few shortcomings aren't to be overlooked, however, as its sluggish, frequently directionless, and deliberately archaic in its design. Don't come in expecting jump scares and big gore; this is a slow-burning experience with an emphasis on style and atmosphere.
White Night's biggest achievement though is clearly the terrifying atmosphere that pervades throughout its duration. Though certainly not absolving the game of its other flaws, the sense of dread and fear is palpable and in a genre which has largely neglected the finer aspects of its craft, White Night stands out as an exceptional, yet mechanically imperfect proposition.
White Night is a cacophony of ideas, simultaneously atypical and ambitious
This is not the game survival horror purists have been waiting for and not one I can recommend even with its positives. Developer Osome Studios does have the chance to clean up White Night's fundamental design structures and make it more accessible instead of down right annoying in a potential sequel I doubt we will see come to fruition.
A great looking game, but its beauty is only skin deep.
White Night doesn't try to reinvent the genre or toy with gaming conventions to come out as a gem of the generation. What it does, though, is provide a unique and satisfying visual theme that surrounds an exciting and mysterious plot where you will find yourself getting more and more immersed in
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 is a beautiful mix of noir and old-school survival horror and adventure.
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.
Lack of control options and questionable direction in the visuals, compounded by the uninteresting story and low replayability, hold back White Night from being a recommendation. Only those who truly crave an old school survival horror might get some enjoyment from this title. Other than that, White Night is mostly forgettable.
For as much as 'White Night' brings to the table on an innovative standpoint, it equally misses the mark by failing to ensure gameplay isn't hampered by wonky camera angles and de-evolved save mechanics. Still, the noir setting, visuals, and clever puzzles to solve, coupled with a generally creepy back-story, makes 'White Night' at least a minor point of interest to genre fans (both those of survival horror and the 1930s hardboiled detective).
The heroes in film noir aren't flawless—they stumble through the story, rarely win a fight, and often pay a heavy price in the end. At least they try, though, and the same can be said for White Night.
White Night never reaches the possibility of there being a middle ground, in any respect. That's the issue with chiaroscuro, and it's why accusing someone of seeing in black and white is rarely a compliment.
The game brings something we haven't seen all that much, but it doesn't bring it in a way that makes you want to play the game hour after hour. When taken in small doses, White Night can actually bring a couple of scares and jumps but not enough of it to be among the best on the market.
White Night is a curious game, even if it's a bit predictable. With its references to two distinct genres, where unexpected twists and turns are welcome and interesting, it instead plays it safe. The game's big redeeming qualities are its style and presentation but without much in the way of story and gameplay to complete the package. If nothing else, your morbid curiosity may help you to see this one through to the end.
It's more intriguing as a game mechanic than an actual game, and scarier and more atmospheric in the shadows than the light.
In horror, we confront monsters, and survival is the only operational term. The resolving state is trauma rather than malaise. Forgiveness is a non sequitur. For a game whose design dwells so deeply and strikingly in darkness, it is unhappily ironic that the story prefers at the end to turn toward an illusory light.
White Night stands as one of the best executed and most emotional games in the past few years, with outstanding game-character-player relation and a disturbing and frightening setting