At some point you’ll transition from mainly melee to mainly ranged combat, but that’s about all the variety you can expect.Īfterfall is billed as a horror game, but it lacks the atmosphere or pacing to really inspire any scares. These don’t have durability so you can keep the ones you like pretty much forever, and enemies aren’t really varied enough to require different tactics to dispatch. There’s a ton of weapons to choose from, spanning pipes, wrenches, hammers, axes, prods, and more, as well an a decent variety of guns. The entire first half of the game will take place in the grungy underhalls of the bunker, with you fending off crazed survivors and twisted mutants every time you reach a new room big enough to battle in. I’m impressed with what the developers were able to do on what seemed like no budget but the cutscenes are awkward, the levels are confusing and repetitive, and the combat has very little substance to it. Albert himself carries a lot of the game, with his observations and exclamations becoming more animated and unhinged as you progress, culminating in one of the greatest cutscenes in video game history.ĭon’t get me wrong, this is still a bargain-basement title.

That’s all I’ll say specifically about this mad journey, but the story does everything it can to keep up with the cavalcade of weirdness you’ll be battling with. But on the other, this game is no longer available for purchase, and if you happen to have it then knowing that you’ll be facing mutants, cannibals, ghosts, and rainbow golems might encourage you to give it a shot. On the one hand, I always avoid spoiling games in my reviews. This quick synopsis does not, in any way, shape or form, approach the utterly bizarre twists the story will take in its course towards the appropriately insane conclusion. Albert will need to travel beyond the walls of his subterranean home to survive and, if he can keep his wits about him, make sense of it all. The situation quickly spirals out of control, with people dead, a saboteur on the loose, and the fate of the bunker in jeopardy.

Tokaj and Potocki don’t have the best of working relationships, though, which leads to the good doctor being sent into the maintenance levels to look into reports of workers acting strangely. Albert Tokaj, the sole psychiatrist tasked with keeping the rest of the citizens from succumbing to mental malaise or psychosis from being stuck underground. Gathering into a vast underground bunker, a new society plods along under the authoritative eye of Colonel Potocki. Despite its origins, though, it makes good on its title with a mad whirlwind of plot beats, revelations, and nigh-inexplicable twists that help prop up what would otherwise be a pretty unremarkable adventure.Īn alternate Cold War left the surface of the Earth uninhabitable, but the people of Poland were prepared. A perennial bargain offering, Afterfall borrowed heavily from the gaming zeitgeist of the time with clear Dead Space, Fallout, and other influences.

The movement spawned plenty of titles besides the big, recognizable names, and Afterfall InSanity was surely one of the most ubiquitous on Steam. The third-person action phase of horror seems to have run its course, heralded by the coming of Resident Evil 4 and perhaps ended with the death of Dead Space’s developers.

Steam doors of insanity