I’ve swallowed enough horror movies to appreciate among the great classics of the genre and the infamies that resort to the most inopportune jump scare -a guilty pleasure, everything must be said-. I have also lived all my life in Galicia, so any detail that reminds me of my beloved land is a weakness in me.
With these two experiences in mind, it has been shaped Tape: Unveil the Memories, the first title from BlackChiliGoat Studio. A proposal that has its ideas very clear and continually puts them on the table. Under the seal of PlayStation Talents, it is shown once again that not everything is a matter of unlimited resources and that talent knows how to flourish when given the necessary space.
A terror movie
Decade of the 90s of the last century. Galicia. a young call Iria is located in the fictional town of Antumbria., alone at home, when she receives a VHS tape from her father. An absent figure for most of her life and that appears in this format so of the time. After viewing the content of the video, the protagonist will begin to recall her past.
A past unknown to him due to memory gaps. Little by little, Iria will go through scenes and passages from her childhood that are really murky, which make it clear to us why her mind has decided to forget everything. She does not leave a puppet with a head Tape: Unveil the Memoriesbecause it touches on rough topics and that not many games dare.
So much so, that just before starting the game we have a clear warning of the sensitive material that we can find. Violence, racism, pedophilia, discrimination… the lowest of the human being is going to make an appearance. However, the work promises a lot and delivers very little when it comes to frightening.
It is not that the title is not explicit, it is that it is far from causing real fear or even tension. The rooms, bizarre on many occasions, do not generate great concern, since practically all the time we have great lighting.
The only moments of defenselessness that we can feel are against the only enemy that appears, who searches for us with patrol routines that are easy to overcome. Tape: Unveil the Memories invites us to hide and be stealthy, but it’s much easier to run and block the creature.
It is a clear must for a game that is framed within terror and to which some macabre scene would have felt great to cause greater impact. However, the weight of the work goes in other directions.
My little star
the attention of Tape: Unveil the Memories the camcorder takes it. It is the object that we will not detach ourselves from at any time and includes a fantastic mechanics to which a lot of juice is extracted from it during the crossing of Iría for his troubled past.
Focusing on different objects, we can rewind or speed up the movement of what we are pointing at, resulting in being able to advance to new areas or solve puzzles. Move stretchers in a hospital, place pieces of a statue or even rotate the entire stage so that we can move on.
In fact, we will not be able to move the objects as we see fitbut it will have to be done in a specific order so that they do not block each other reaching their original position. The sections in which you have to take pieces of a door to the frame of a wall are excellent, while the being from the underworld in question watches every corner of the place where we find ourselves.
The truth is that the dynamics of using the camera shines with its own light, since it also allows us to defend ourselves from the horrifying creature that chases us everywhere, and leave it knocked out for a few seconds that we can take advantage of to escape.
The BlackChiliGoat Studio team has never run out of ways to innovate with this concept throughout the five hours of game time. In turn, between recording shots, we will find an enormous variety of documents, drawings and, above all, films and magazines.
Horror, the horror genre is the leitmotif of Tape: Unveil the Memories. All these films, whose synopses we can read, make clear reference to The seed of the devil, The glow either Halloween, among many others. Not only to the biggest internationally, but there are nods to some of the great jewels that we can find in the long history of Spanish cinema. And it is that Iria’s father, Anxo Vega, has been one of the most prolific horror directors in the history of Spain.
The same can be said for print publications, landlines, soda cans, and a host of other items. Everything has a slight change to obviously not conflict with the actual markings, but gives it great realism for those who have been in contact with all of them.
If you have seen the series farinayou know the atmosphere that was breathed along the Galician coast between the end of the 80s and the beginning of the 90s. That language, that way of acting, those organizations acting in broad daylight without hesitation… part of that black spirit of Galicia is also reflected in Tape: Unveil the Memories. In addition, there is room for the occasional well-used script twist that makes us even more interested in what is happening.
VidaExtra’s opinion
BlackChiliGoat Studio has played it with a genre as saturated as horror, in which we find ourselves kicking titles that are still a hobby for some streamer. far from that idea Tape: Unveil the Memories makes clear their ideas and precepts to build their own vision.
It pays a continuous tribute to the main source from which it drinks, squeezes its main mechanics to the maximum during its short duration and provides a not inconsiderable experience. You will find aspects that are not up to the level of larger projects, such as the graphic section or the interpretations of the characters. Despite this, it is not a stone on the road to be carried away towards its darkness, and the comparison based on the budgets of one and the other is not fair either.
Tape: Unveil the Memories
| PS4 (reviewed version), PS5 and Steam |
| BlackChiliGoat Studio |
| Gammera Nest |
| April 14, 2022 |
The best
- He knows how to squeeze his resources very well
- All camcorder mechanics
- Its wonderful mix between Galicia and terror
Worst
- It is far from causing tension or terror