Review: OxenFree - Enemy Slime

Review: OxenFree

Fuck the Radio.

PC

80’s Teen movies and spooky ghost stories. Oxenfree is basically a Jay-tailored game through and through. You take the reigns of Alex, a girl going through changes. Preparing to transition from middle school to high school, thinking about college, getting over the loss of a family member and getting used to the idea of having a step brother. What better way to get over the stresses of being an American teenager then a night of listening to music, getting tore up, shooting the shit with your friends, and opening a portal to the world of the dead. Wait, what?

Early on the game most reminded me of Silent Hill 0, the online production Marble Hornets and films such as Paranormal Activity. The player is given a really clear and controllable link to the realm of scary ghosts in the form of an old transistor radio. This small device is both your ticket to rescuing yourself from danger and placing yourself at death’s door. There are intervals in the game where you would come across a sinister red light, curse under your breath, hold on to your ass and whip the radio out to tune into whatever evil had gripped the island. It was a cool little mechanic that both added a layer of gameplay complexity and amped up the game’s tension.

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I really liked Alex. I felt like she let me do something protagonists haven’t rarely let me accomplish in awhile, and that’s crafting her past and personality. While there are definitely moments the story goes on auto-pilot with Alex and decides for me how she’ll behave, I was generally free to choose if she were a clever girl or a simple one, cynical or naive, brave or a scaredy cat. I felt like I ended up with a kid who was adventurous, intelligent and just a teensie bit of a romantic.

While I did have the freedom to craft some of Alex’s personality and backstory, there was plenty of scripted material that prompted her as your typical one liner busting, snarky teenage protagonist. I’d be remiss if I didn’t say there was something very 80’s about that approach but it didn’t really feel like the most natural writing in the world, and there were times it badly scraped against the tone of the game. The title is generally dark, or at the very least has a whiff of sinister, not only in dealing with supernatural malevolent entities but in delivering a story that involves teen death and suicide. This is a wonderfully dark atmosphere, easily broken by the fact the protagonist barely old enough to drive is wise cracking her way out of everything.

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The puzzles scattered throughout the game felt just right. A lot of them simply tested how much you’ve been paying attention to the game’s story and atmosphere. Often the poltergeists on the island would challenge you to a ‘game,’ a twisted version of Hangman or Eye Spy where you would be quizzed on things the game already told you. It really did feel like being pop quizzed in high school. If I was attentive in class and took all the correct notes, I could ace the test easily, if I slacked off and went through the motions I was headed for a D minus.

There is a time travel lite element to OxenFree as well. You would often find yourself trapped in a “time loop” that would show you different outcomes of the same exact event. You could find yourself stranded as far as one year back on the island. The world would start to look all messy, scrape and tear like an old VHS cassette tape, and Alex would have to try and “straighten out” the world by adjusting giant magnetic reels found throughout the island. Finally the game had a bit of a semi-hidden relationship system. Alex could repair or damage her relationship with her four other cohorts over the course of the game, all leading to different impacts on the narrative.

it's all fine

Unfortunately OxenFree falls into the same trap a lot of indie horror tends to fall into. It quickly became transparent as to when exactly I was in danger, or at least in for a fright, and when everything was going to be relatively chill and mundane. The terror itself also soon felt all too scripted, and I began to wonder if I was in any real trouble at all. It’s a pitfall I’ve seen SOMA, A Machine for Pigs, Among the Sleep, The Park, and even Outlast stumble into. It would have been nice if the game made for more moments of actual tension or just kept its own horrific momentum going. If Night School Studio ever pursues a sequel, which I would be pretty excited if they did, I would love for them to create a radio that captures strange frequencies beyond the scripted moments, to really keep their nice atmosphere of horror going.

Of course that’s acknowledging whether or not a strong horror atmosphere is what Night School was going for in the first place with OxenFree. OxenFree bills itself as a “supernatural thriller”, but it’s carried by a teenage cast of freaks and geeks with their wit driven banter and fond reminiscing of kooky parties and incredible drug highs. You have your awkward, shy girl, your nerd with a band, your mean girl, your loner and your indomitable lead. From John Hughes to Diablo Cody and maybe a dash of John Green, it’s a coming of age story buried under smarmy witticisms and youthful world weariness. It’s actually well executed, and comparisons may be a little unfair as this game doesn’t so much feel like pastiche as it does set to define its own style. That being said OxenFree’s particular style of teenage coming of age drama clashes with the supernatural thriller style more often than not.

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Which brings me to the very nature of OxenFree’s story. It feels like a very bi-polar title. The scares and dark themes are generally very well pulled off, the game is capable of feeling very baneful. The game’s spikes of horror made for moments that were visually intense, gripping and often left me with a sense of unease. Almost immediately after these reality bending hauntings I’d experience, I felt as though I were transported into a different game entirely. The five friends would be having a jolly old laugh. It would stop being Poltergeist or the Shining and start being the Breakfast Club. While I think the writing and atmosphere of the game was generally enough to keep me interested whether the game was trying to spook me or give me a chuckle, these wild tonal shifts left me perplexed as to the kind of narrative journey the devs wanted to take me on. It needed a bit more commitment to either one or the other, and while I admit this might be a matter of personal preference, the supernatural elements were impressive and stylish enough to make me wish it slanted more in favor of the horror.

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OxenFree is a charming little title that has a lot of style. While I can feel the send off to the 80s and teen movies, it doesn’t get mired in its tropes which is a trap so many other games, even successful ones such as Gone Home and Life is Strange, have fallen into. OxenFree sets up its own identity, its own lore and its own world, which is why it’s such a shame that the title feels so non-committal when it comes to tone and atmosphere. Even with its tonal issues it still manages to be a fun and very hip “point and pull out your radio” adventure title that’s worth a couple of hours of solid entertainment.