Cannibal Abduction is the second retro-style survival horror to be released this week, and as mentioned in my Alisa review, this is kind of my bread and butter genre. So as soon as this landed in my inbox I hoped I was in for yet more glorious nostalgic goodness. While I definitely prefer the more classic style of Alisa, Cannibal Abduction was a fun, if slight, experience.
The premise of Cannibal Abduction is as such; we play as Henry who, after his car breaks down out in the sticks, gets locked in a ‘friendly’ farmers house after he offered to help fix the vehicle in exchange for Henry using his carpentry tools to look at a wardrobe. Initially confined to one room, we manage to break free using his tools only to find the rest of the house in disrepair, the farmer gone, and a hooded person looking to make us his next meal.
What follows is a game of cat and mouse as we move Henry from room to room looking for the next McGuffin to unlock more of the rooms, and eventually (hopefully) an escape route.
We follow the action from semi-static cameras in the vein of Resident Evil, though with the environment being fully 3D they do pan about a little rather than being locked in place. Tank controls are used too which is in keeping with the retro styling. I’m one of the few it seems who often prefers this method of control in games like this, but I must admit that they felt slightly off here, especially when starting out. Henry seems far too twitchy when turning, and there’s no way to quick turn 180° which has become a staple of other, similar games. We eventually got used to it, but not without faceplanting a few walls and doorframes along the way.
There’s no combat in Cannibal Abduction, with Henry’s only respite if found being to run away and hide in one of the house’s closets. Luckily the killer moves pretty slow, and it doesn’t take too long to open up all of the doors so we can loop around the house fairly easily.
Ideally, we don’t get spotted of course, but that’s easier said than done. The killer is a light-footed fucker, and it’s tough to even hear him approaching. Luckily, we get a small hand in the VHS filter that is persistent throughout; as he approaches, the static lines (that only 90’s kids will remember) get more intense, letting us know it might be time to turn tail and run away. He naturally has the inclination to appear at the worst possible moments, but again, it’s not too hard to get away. This can deflate some of the tension mind you, as the majority of times he spotted me I was able to simply outrun him and wait a few seconds before he lost interest and wandered off for a while. He certainly could have used a bit more aggression in terms of being able to chase and track us at times.
If he spots us going into a closet, he’ll pull us out and give us a good wallop, but as long as we have a little health we can then leg it and try somewhere else. He will barricade closets he finds us in as well, which can make a chase that bit trickier if we’re prone to getting spotted often.
Henry has a small inventory to carry up to four items and can store unwanted ones back at his toolbox. VHS tapes act as perishable save points, while bandages will patch him up. But keeping both of these on us might mean we can’t pick up a key item later, necessitating a possibly deadly trek back across the house. While it’s not a massive environment, the killer being able to pop up at any time makes even a short run a risk.
The tense atmosphere is only compounded by this. Often times we’ll be happily exploring for an extended period and just as we get comfortable, the cannibal pops up out of nowhere as we open a door. While it’s not especially graphic in nature, I must admit to letting out a few yelps in surprise when he suddenly burst onto the scene, the audio doing some great work to jolt us too.
The presentation too does its part, as not only are we presented with 32-bit era 3D visuals, but there’s heavy use of film grain and the aforementioned VHS tape static, often making it harder to see exactly what’s going on and forcing our imagination to fill in some blanks.
Cannibal Abduction isn’t a particularly long game (we beat it in a couple of hours, and that was with plenty of dillydallying), but repeat plays are encouraged on higher difficulties. Also included in the package is a different experience called Scissors. This takes the same premise of trying to escape an area while being hunted, and places us in an abandoned warehouse. It’s a bit trickier for our money, but a nice added bit of game that makes the £10 entry price even more worthwhile.
Conclusion
All in all, Cannibal Abduction is an enjoyable, if slight, retro horror title. The cannibal gives up a bit too easily at times, but that doesn’t really deflate the shock value when he appears out of the blue each time we start to get comfortable. Add in a secondary, trickier game mode and for horror fans this is an easy recommendation.
This game was reviewed based on Xbox S|X review code, using an Xbox S|X console. All of the opinions and insights here are subject to that version. Game provided by publisher.
