“Horror in space” – this phrase alone today, contrary to the wishes of the developers, can drive not fear, but rather boredom. Everything is approximately clear in advance: again, the lonely main character (usually suffering from amnesia) explores an abandoned space station, collects notes and audio diaries and gradually learns that everyone around died (or turned into some kind of monsters) as a result of yet another unsuccessful experiments with alien life forms or simply because these very forms (substances/resources) began to somehow have a bad effect on the crew members. Well, what here, it would seem, can surprise and invigorate?! However, the authors Hollow it succeeded – although with some reservations.
Space as a cliché
All of the above cliches and clichés in Hollow, actually present. We play as a certain pilot named Mark, who is assigned to the Shakhtar-1 station – it extracts resources from the atmosphere of Jupiter, and we take them to Earth. At the beginning of the game, the hero, of course, does not remember anything except the code for docking with one of the docks. And there the standard entertainment program begins – the station is abandoned, there are no crew members, there is no electricity, there is only darkness around, corpses and some mutant monsters with bare female breasts.
We find notes and periodically receive messages from an unknown person who tells us what to do, where to go and how to start all the generators in order to find a way out and leave the station. Sometimes he even flashes in the frame, runs past, but our hero, naturally, is unable to catch up with him.
Mark has to do everything himself, www.casinojoyonline.co.uk follow the instructions, manually start the generators, go through a simple mini-game, look for cards to access the elevator and select the correct numbers to the codes on some closed doors – sometimes a clue can be found in a note, sometimes you need to see the right numbers on CCTV footage. Somewhere, in order to go further, you need to explode a flammable cylinder and make a hole in the wall.
And the hero periodically – where without this – is visited by bad visions and memories. The light in the eyes fades, some ominous inscriptions and traces of blood appear on the walls.
Looking for a woman
However, with all the cliches and predictability of many of the techniques that the authors use, something Hollow still catchy. Firstly, either Mark’s wife or simply Mark’s beloved woman plays a key role in the plot. The hero periodically sees her, communicates, she scolds and accuses him, and Mark makes excuses and promises that he will save them. And then he doesn’t understand whether it was for real, or just another vision, and his beloved is actually already dead. This all reminds me of something Silent Hill 2, forcing one to ask the same question: is it not the hero himself who is to blame for what happened to him and his woman?
Secondly, in Hollow you can and should use weapons. In most modern horror films, we just sneak past, hide and run away from monsters, but here no one forbids us to pick up a laser or blaster and kill monsters in space toilets and other compartments of the station. Moreover, there is always not enough ammunition, as well as syringes with health injections (so throughout the game we carefully search all the corners and drawers), enemies are killed quickly, but with a well-aimed shot you can literally blow off the head of the evildoers – at such moments Hollow already reminds me of something Dead Space.
Besides, I must admit, the authors know how to create tension. They work great with sound, light and environment. In the most intense moments, everything around darkens, strange visions begin, the floor and walls shake, shake, frightening music sounds, and Mark begins to breathe heavily. We literally feel with our skin how scared the main character is – and this fear is involuntarily transmitted to us.
It is clear that this is such a “Dead Space for the poor". This is still an indie project with all that it implies – the graphics are nice, but the optimization is no good, there are bugs, the plot is short, and the gameplay is not very varied and suffers from empty runs back and forth across half a station. And yet Hollow capable of intriguing, and most importantly, frightening. So everyone who likes to tickle their nerves simply must try this game. They may even want to see a continuation – many questions remain after completing the game, but in the finale the authors directly promise the second part, which should give all the answers. The reception, of course, is cheap, but, you know, it works.
Pros: Quite an interesting plot; presence of weapons; tense atmosphere; nice graphics; great job with sound and music.
Cons: poor technical implementation and optimization; simple puzzles; the plot is too short.