If there’s one thing that’s going to effectively terrify me it’s those things that are supposed to be innocent, but aren’t. You know what I’m talking about; clowns, dummies, children’s toys, giant humanoid animal costumes, the horror genre has been drawing on the things from our childhoods and turning them into our greatest nightmares long before the arrival of ‘Child's Play’ or ‘Killer Clowns from Outer Space’ so it’s no great surprise to see them in horror games as well. ‘Five Nights at Freddy’s’ is set during the hours of midnight and 6am as you, the new night watchman at Freddy's pizza place, must attempt to survive with limited defences against some horrifyingly deadly mascots. This is a game where your own paranoia and attempt at protecting yourself will push you closer to sealing your own twisted fate as each and every nervous twitch lowers your resources and, ultimately, your chances of survival.
Developer: Scott Cawthon
Genre: Survival Horror, Point and Click
Release date: August 8th 2014 (August 27th for Android)
Platforms: PC and Android
ESRB: M - Mature
‘Five Nights at Freddy’s’ works its way deep into my own insecurities and draws out of me a fear I didn’t even know I had until this game. The enemies you’ll encounter are anamatronic animals that sing and dance for children during the day, annnnd attempt to stuff the new night guard into a suit filled with cross beams and metal bits during the night. Needless to say, this action would kill you so it’s your new priority to survive five nights as the new security guard because presumably he really, really needs the money and values his life less than this. It sounds crazy but who am I to judge, finding work is difficult these days and the fact that you’d have to physically nail me to the chair to get me to stay there is no bearing on what this guy would do, apparently. As an added extra you can define the AI of each individual enemy for two additional nights where, upon completing all five nights, you'll notice a night six is suddenly available. The reward for completing the seventh night is not just bragging rights at your own stubborn survival but in valuable storyline explanations where you finally learn the dark secrets behind the deadly mascots.
In order to survive five nights at this disturbing pizza place you must carefully manage your power supply whilst monitoring a bunch of CCTV cameras to watch where those dastardly murdering critters are going. They only move when you’re not watching them, reminiscent of the Weeping Angles from ‘Doctor Who’ which can only spell trouble, so by ignoring the cameras they’ll just walk on over to where you’re sitting and tear your face off. The building’s power percentage is tracked in a corner and every time you use a camera, flicker the light just outside either of the two doors to your security room or close the doors to protect yourself it’ll drop how much power is left, significantly so. There’s quite a few cameras and unfortunately a couple of them only have audio feeds so you can only listen to the ominous grinding of their motors as they shuffle down a corridor, worse still, there are plenty of blind spots. Cruelly, those blind spots are mostly right outside the two doors that lead to your little security room so you won’t know they’re in there until they’re either grinning at you around the doorframe or if you manage to hear their, fairly stealthy, movements.
Whilst a lot of survival horror games utilize a player’s fear of being helpless, ‘Five Nights at Freddy’s’ cranks it up another notch by adding in the complete inability to move. So basically you’re stuck in a tiny room, unable to move and quite possibly nailed to that chair I mentioned now that I think about it, maybe the owners had to resort to brute force with their staff, who knows. Your only line of defence is closing the doors and even then, there are two of them on opposite sides from one another and they use up a lot of power so you can only close them very briefly. You have to survive from midnight to 6am in the morning which takes just less than 10 minutes of your life but at least three years off your life due to the stress it causes. Every night is harder than the last and whilst you’ll quickly adjust to the manner in which you must organize yourself the difficulty intensifies dramatically for the final two nights. The AI of the creatures can vary and they’re fairly unpredictable but generally they’re a lot faster and a lot more intelligent as you progress through the nights. Initially they’ll stay still backstage for the start of the night but, come Night 5, they’ll have mysteriously vanished from their usual spot as soon as your shift starts leaving you to switch between cameras manically, trying to pin point their location.
What makes this game so effective at terrifying the living daylights out of you is how well it plays on your paranoia and nervous twitch reaction to check a camera or check the doorway, reducing your power in the progress. Whilst you need to constantly check where everyone has shuffled off to it’s difficult to reign this in and not flicker constantly, dooming yourself in the progress, and the feeling that it’s your own increasing OCD checking of everything that’s narrowing your chances of survival is very unsettling. What's particularly likeable about this game is it’s an extremely simple yet imaginative concept that breaks away from the current trend of ‘Slenderman’ or ‘Amnesia’ trend of snooping about houses, collecting up notes and newspaper clippings that many horror games are copying. Overall I found this game to be an imaginative addition to the survival horror genre and whilst the overall style and concept is extremely simple it's still a creepy venture into a nightmarish world of grinning, killer mascots and a gruesome story that you're gradually rewarded with.
The Good:
- Simple, original and very effective concept
- You become your own worst enemy as you double check, triple check everything
- Decent jump scares keep you on your toes
- Disturbing character design
- Very atmospheric, feelings of isolation and helplessness predominant
- Looks and sounds great with very good voice acting
- Final two 'bonus levels' add in an element of freeplay
- Quite a brutal difficulty curve but the challenge is welcomed
- Although Night 2/3 offers up whole new gameplay feature, more variation would still be good.
- Tends to degenerate into careful time management which some may find boring.
Final thoughts: “Some more variation in gameplay would have gone a long way, but this had me constantly jumping out of my skin as the AI are so unpredictable and it’s got such a disturbing atmosphere.”
