A new game from Dark Day Interactive and Hann Designs called The Final Take takes on the concept of the found footage sub-genre in horror and attempts to apply it to a video game design. The results is a game that seems to be a mix of a few horror classics to make up something somewhat original.
Siliconera spotted the latest promotional trailer for the game in conjunction with it seeking votes over on Steam Greenlight. You can check out the trailer below.
Players take on the role of a young girl investigating some mysterious VHS footage she's uncovered from the 1980s, which tells the tale of three distinct individuals attempting to figure out some mysterious happenings at a haunted location. Each of the individuals are connected in some way and the girl must discover how.
Not unlike the V/H/S/ movies, The Final Take sees players scouring through horror-filled scenarios in first-person while attempting to escape from various otherworldly creatures to avoid certain death.
The game relies on using a camera to spot out the ghosts, similar to the Fatal Frame games. Players will only be able to use the camera as a way to find out where the ghosts are and how to avoid them, otherwise they'll come and bite your ankles off. As they mention on the game's description page, there are hidden items and locations that can be discovered as well, along with various secrets that must be revealed to find out what's really going on in each scenario.
Some might be wondering what the point of playing through the different character scenarios is. A lot of it has to do with the completely new stages each character encounters as well as how their story unfolds. I get the feeling it's like a crude version of Resident Evil 6 in a way.
One of the key selling points for The Final Take is that it uses a 1980s style visual filter aimed at replicating how old VHS movies looked. The thing is... it looks a bit too filtered. You can still go back and watch VHS tapes from the 1980s and they don't look that fuzzy. The scanlines, color distortion, chromatic aberration and tracking static are all a little over the top.
Some users in the comment section of the Greenlight page also noted that the visual filter was a bit extreme and asked if it would be possible to turn it off. I think games like Kung Fury, Retro City Rampage and other titles like Hotline Miami managed to capture the retro feel with various distortion filters, but did so without making the user feel visually impaired.
Maybe they need to tone down the filter just a bit so that it's not visually obtrusive to the gameplay experience. However, The Final Take is still seeking votes and isn't finished yet, so there's time for them to better refine the experience or at least add in some options to give gamers a way to turn off the filters.
You can download an alpha demo for The Final Take to play-test the game yourself. You can grab the demo from over on the Facebook page right now.
