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Madison review: entertaining horror that’s a bit too clever for its own goodBuddy, I wish this camera lied
Buddy, I wish this camera lied
MADiSON — Official Trailer — GamescomWatch on YouTube
MADiSON — Official Trailer — Gamescom
A chunk of Madison is what you’d expect: a creepy building that plays thunder or thuds every 60-300 seconds to keep you on your toes, a hidden diary descending into barely-legible scribbles, and statues that suddenly appear or move when your back is turned. Like many horror games, there’s a bunch of perversions of Catholic-ish imagery knocking about, which can be used to frighten both CatholicsandProtestants.
Camera shakeIt’s worth mentioning that the camera sways a whole lot. Luca walks like a teenager getting kicked out of a Hungerford Wetherspoons after downing three snakebites without anyone noticing. If you’re one of those people who gets motion sickness from first-person games then hoooooo mamma, watch out for this one. It’s worse if you run, too.
The biggest and most unique part of the game is the camera. Much credit to the developers for using it in a way that feels far more transformative and interesting than in something likeOutlast, where your little handycam is mostly a pair of night vision goggles, orMartha Is Dead, where your camera is mostly a camera. In Madison, as well as the flash illuminating dark corners, the is both a scare machine and key to solving many mysteries. Taking photos of things will reveal creepy scrawlings on the film where the wall in front of you is blank, which is an efficient and cool way to induce the creeps. Sometimes taking a snap will make a frame crack, a door open, or a demon appear. If you’re stuck in Madison then, usually, something will shake loose if you take enough photos.
The puzzles are the bit I have more of a bone to pick with. Some rooms in the house become gateways to hallucinations that blur time and space. The attic, for example, opens up a doorway to a cathedral that exists in several different time periods. I was really enjoying this (albeit unexpectedly taking confession for a woman who murdered her Nazi husband, an inclusion whose purpose I’m still not clear on) until I ran into another of what are a few frustrating puzzles in the game. The cathedral has weird art mazes of different colours, requiring you to put colour coded candles on the right pedestals in the right bits and aaarghhhh.
In that sense, Madison is a little too clever for its own good. For all that it can be a bit ridiculous (in an endearing way, at that) it does some genuinely great things, and really takes advantage of everything the in-game camera can offer. But at least an hour of your six-ish in the hell-house will be you swaggering back and forth angrily interacting with things you already found, until you stumble on the solution you need. This massively undercuts the pacing, to the point that the well-crafted scares and monstrous monsters stop being as effective. I’d still recommend it to a horrorficionado, but the rec isn’t as full-throated as it could have been. If the puzzle bits were a little easier, the horror bits of Madison would be able to properly shine.
