Home Sweet Home

Horror games are a bit like marmite. People either love them or hate them. There are the jump scares, the storyline and if the person is lucky enough, the player can get some great graphics with the for the complete experience. Nowadays, you have horror games trying to copy other great horror games. Some of the all-time classics would be, F.E.A.R, Silent Hill, Resident Evil, and P.T. And what makes these horror games all the same? Well, that is down to what makes a horror game. The horror vibe, the compelling storyline, and the feeling that the player does not want to put the controller down even though, the person is so scared to continue. Now that is what makes a great horror game. So how does Home Sweet Home fit in this category of horror games? In this review I will give you, the player, my of opinion Home Sweet Home and if it is worth the time.

What Home Sweet Home about?

It’s weird, the title of this game makes it sounds nice and innocent and maybe that’s the point of the name. Whatever the strategy is here, it’s anything but sweet and innocent. The game starts with Tim, the main character of the game, who wakes up in a mysterious place. This is a bit like PT, waking up in a mysterious place, and not knowing where the character is.

Later in the game, the player finds out that Tim’s wife went missing and that things start to connect and lead back to the wife. Throughout the game Tim is being chased by an evil being, sounds familiar? That is because the concept is from a popular game called Resident Evil 7 that had a missing wife. And being chased by some evil being?? Well, that is literally every other horror game around.

Gameplay

So, every other horror game has one goal in common. That is to make the player terrified and keep the storyline interesting so that the player wants to complete the game no matter how scary the game is! And Home Sweet Home has missed this in my opinion. The storyline seems to not follow any type of pattern. Sometimes the story is about the wife and Tim. Other times it is just random bits and does not actually add any value, only confusion. The player has to solve puzzles, find keys to missing parts while trying to dodge the evil being (who is a schoolgirl with a box cutter).

To add the confusion, besides the schoolgirl who again adds no real value, there is another evil being named Petra. Basically, a huge face that appears here and there. Again, has no real value. Just adds to the ‘fun’ of the game. There is no doubt that is some genuine horror and jump scares within the game, but that is pretty much all to it. When Tim is running and peeking around corners, you can feel the tension and the questioning of every moment. The whole ‘is this going to be a jump scare’ moments are real. The game is actually based in a school or some sort of dorm in other areas of the game which may lead to why there is a schoolgirl in the game. But again, besides setting the scene there was no other real valuable information as to why the schoolgirl was hunting down Tim.

The ending of the game really only brought confusion as well. There was nothing explain and left a huge cliff hanger that read ‘To be continued’. The game altogether will take the player anywhere between 2-3 hours playing.

In today’s standards that’s not a very long game at all. Graphically the game could defiantly be built on a newer game engine as the graphics do show their age.

My verdict

When it is all said and done, the game actually was not too bad. Yes, the graphics of the game are a little dated and the time of play is a lot less than I would have been happy with. But the game does stick with the formula ‘if it isn’t broke don’t fix it’.

Pros

• Somewhat of a storyline
• Keeps the basics of horror games
• Genuine jump scares

Cons

• Short time to play
• Could do with a graphic update
• Confusing ending, nothing is answered