Anchorhead

There's little I can say about Anchorhead that someone hasn't already beaten me to. All the hype is true. This is not just one of the greatest IF's but possibly one of the greatest pieces of contemporary mythos fiction.

When I first played Anchorhead, the First Day and part of the Second earned a few eye rolls from me, as much of them seem like no more than a Lovecraft Greatest Hits reel. Gentry is not subtle with his inspiration, and there's several moments where you'll encounter a character or location, and go, "Ohhh okay we're doing 'Shadow Over Innsmouth' now." Or "Ohhh okay the monster from 'Dunwich Horror' is here." Etc. It made me worried the game was going to be very predictable, standard Lovecraft pastiche.

I was wrong. Anchorhead takes these preconceived elements from Lovecraft's stories (and at least one Robert E. Howard story, 'The Black Stone') and carries them into wildly unpredictable, shockingly dark directions. And it does so very effectively. The protagonist is well-defined and likable, and you really fear for her as she finds herself in increasingly over-the-top horror scenarios. And while the story does go a little off the rails, it stays very stylistically grounded, and the puzzles stay dangerous, so you're never able to stop feeling that pulsing fear as you type in your next action, unaware of what cruel fate Anchorhead has prepared for you next.

I really wanted to like this game. As a Lovecraft reader and a resident Massachusettsan I relished reading a story about the man-made horror beyond comprehension that is Massachussetts small towns. But there really is nothing going for this game that would justify its position as #2 on the IFDB Top 100.

The writing comes off as juvenile to the extreme. It violates the holy rule of "show not tell" which is especially essential in a horror game, and it just leads to a complete lack of atmosphere. It felt like the "horror" was being forced upon me like "are you scared yet?? how bout now??". The dialogue is awkward and stilted, and none of the characters seem human (even the ones who are actually human).

The gameplay is tedious. The map is just large for the sake of being large. I also spent more time inputting tiresome commands (like needing to unlock the door every time you want to open it, getting out of bed first before grabbing an item etc). This should have been implemented automatically.

All in all, a very disappointing experience. Its an ok game, it just doesn't deserve to be so highly rated when there are so many newer IF games that do a better job.