''NOW THAT'S WHAT I CALL A CLOSE ENCOUNTER''
Developed: Refugium Games
Published: Perp Games
Genre: Horror
Release Date: June 13th, 2022
Platforms: PS4/PS4/Xbox Series/STEAM
*Review copy provided to me by Perp Games*
Greyhill Incident is a survivor horror alien game that is developed by Refugium Games and published by Perp Games. With the rise of alien content in the media and with disclosure of it being near, Refugium Games aims to terrify us in the most advanced Alien Abduction title yet. However, do they succeed in giving us our Fire In The Sky? or preparing us to be probed with disappointment? Only one way to find out, so lets ACK ACK!
STORY:
Strange events have been happening in the small town of Greyhill. Cattle have been murdered, people abducted and the police force taking part in a large scale coverup for some mysterious reason. Now with night time setting on the town, strange events start to unfold. Do you have what it takes to survive the night and stay safe from threats both on the ground and in the air?
''THEY JUST WANT MILK''
GAMEPLAY:
The game Greyhill Incident at times can bring back your inner nightmares from watching movies like Fire In The Sky , but it can best be likened to a low-budget, fan-produced sequel to a classic film. Which is not always a bad thing, heck I love me some good ol low budget films, I'll sit and watch me some Killer Klowns From Outer Space any day of the week. However, I feel this game feels much closer to another cult classic in the alien movie phenomenon, The Incident In Lake County. In that movie, a family out in a small town are put in a fight of their lives as they witness Grey aliens come to their farm and then proceed to stalk the family as the family cowers in terror, leading up to their inevitable abduction. This is basically the same premise of Greyhill Incident, complete with annoying little girl who I just wanted to slap. I hate you Rachel. The concept overall might seen uninspired, but to be fair, its not often we get a higher quality alien abduction title, especially with a console release, so while it might seem a bit uninspired, sure, I still feel it puts it in a rather unique situation. Alien content in general is what keeps me up at night, no joke, if I watch anything Grey related, abduction related or anything even remotely close, I proceed to turn on all my lights in the house and stay up till the sun comes out. Why? well because in my brain I feel I'm going to get a call at like 3 or 4 in the morning and hear a raspy voice telling me ''Mikeeeeeee, Mikeeeeee''... and yeah... EFF THAT NOISE. Fire In The Sky has given me so much emotional damage that its not even funny, and it doesnt help either that the real life events of that movie actually took place in my home state, so.. yikes.
But you aren't here to hear about my nightmares, so lets dive into what you're doing in this alien invasion. While the story itself isn't much to write home about, with you as the main character needing to find your son that was abducted and getting the help of a local tinfoil hat wearing conspiracy theorist who knows just what to do, then setting off in the pitch of night to help other civilians, steer clear of any aliens and sneak around to the best of your abilities. Yes, that in a nutshell is Greyhill Incident. Complete with a reference to SIGNS and all. Oh ya, your character, Ryan, does he have a gun? of course he doesnt, but you know what he does have? a freaking bat. Yup, that's right, Merrill, SWING AWAY. But boy do the citizens of Greyhill wish those were the aliens invading them, because no amount of ''contaminated water'' and pantry doors will get them out of this one. Well... tinfoil doors in an RV does the trick though, so maybe they're...even lamer? I don't know, that's for you to decide. But personally for me, I think they got lucky, all things considered, because if you saw big brained aliens with Mysterio helmets on their head coming at you screaming ACK ACK, then... uhh... you're dead as all heck, unless you had a grandma who has really bad musical taste, then you MIGHT survive to be honest. Guess we'll just have to settle with making them listen to Taylor Swift or mumble rap. Uh Oh, I'm getting in trouble for that one.
''DO YOU HAVE A MOMENT TO TALK ABOUT OUR LORD AND SAVIOR, ACK ACK?''
As the main narrative starts in this game, you're armed with a baseball bat, which you can use against aliens that spot you to hit them three times to temporarily stun them and make your grand get away and hide in closets, cupboards, under beds and even in trash cans with Oscar The Grouch. If you've played games similar to the Slenderman titles or Amnesia, then you'll get the idea of how this game runs overall, with lots of stealth, very little fighting, unless forced to be a very sneaky sneaky person as you move house to house to find nails, tinfoil, clues and notes for your objective, help other townsfolk who locked themselves in a safe... and what? the heck dude, how did you even manage to do that? what an idiot. As I was saying, stealth is extremely key and its in large part what makes this game have such a spooky atmosphere because the faster you walk and the more you run, the quicker the aliens will spot you and follow you. This holds true as well for your flash light, shine it too much when looking around inside of a house and then end up turning around and an alien rips open the door and scares the living crap out of you, making you squeal in terror as you frantically try to figure out what to do, and panic by running room to room trying to remember what door was the front door. Yeah... that was me, multiple times. I'm kind of a wuss. So many times did this game freak me out as I walked through a farm land with mutilated cows and a lone tractor running without anyone in it, crouching as I move through the thick fields of corn knowing that any second I can turn and run into an alien since I can't see anything, moving inch by inch through dark household backyards or slowly opening doors of residents houses themselves and WHAM, ACK ACK B****, and have an Alien there waiting for ya.. game over, you're now abducted, and now must restart from the last check point. Dammit. That's ok, let's just try this again.. and NO, STAY AWAY FROM ME, Noooo. Welp guys, I guess this is it for me... I wonder... will I dream?. But uh oh, you aren't in Canada or the U.K. fools. WELCOME TO EARTH. PLOW!. Oh ya, you messed with rural America, because what do I have? a gun baby. That's right, besides just a measly little bat, you also can acquire a pistol from one of the cop cars and each alien takes two bullets to put down. Getting annoyed by constantly falling prey to aliens near a house you really need to get into? that's ok, just get your gun, go back to the area and proclaim, HELLO BOYS, IM BAAAAAAAAAAACK, and cut their lives into pieces, you're stupid grey and short, bullet cases, leave ya bleedin, not probing me, because I'm not the one you're breeding, you're stupid grey and short. Uhhh. But be careful though, ammo is scarce, so only use your gun in vital moments.
But while the game can be rather fun due to its atmosphere being extremely spooky and definitely well made in that department, constantly giving you a sense that terror is just right around the corner, or when it pushes your blood pressure it its limit when you're caught by an alien and have to spam R2 as fast as you can to make them release you - while yes, that's really fun and exciting, the game does tend to have many flaws that will get in the way of a lot of your excitement sadly, by making you run some errands that feel a tad bit mundane, like collecting enough tinfoil to cover up your whole body, telling you vaguely to ''find Rachell'' or a specific persons house, but giving you no direction on where to go or even a hint. You're just supposed to know where to go I guess? This makes you have to wander around aimlessly for20 minutes here or even 30 minutes elsewhere if you get super stuck. Thankfully during my state of confusion a few times, I managed to stumble on some stuff that gave me a bit of a chuckle, anal probes. Huh? yes, literally, I'm not trying to be funny or nasty, they're literally anal probes that you find next to an alien body that they've been using on the towns residents, which funny enough, with one of the guys that gets abducted, you can hear him screaming for the aliens to get their dirty fingers out of his butt. Its delivered in a serious tone, but I couldn't help but laugh at how random that was, it comes out of nowhere and is in stark contrast to the lackluster voice acting up to that point. Either the guy is going to emerge with a satellite in his butt or end up on the next season of the fetish show, American Horror Story. The dialogue of the game overall though is a bit lackluster, either its read like someone is just reading lines off a script or a bug in the game is overlapping the audio before one piece of dialogue finishes. Whether it be one of the rednecks in town proclaiming hes good at shooting because he was in the vietnam war, which he states like 6 times, or your kid proclaiming in the most bland and monotone way possible ''we need to get out of this cursed place, I hate this neighborhood hole'', its just really really bad. I did however find the lunatic priests speech funny though, dude kept preaching about angels and gods and I was just like ''HEH HEH HEH, GOD IS NOT HERE TODAY, PRIEST'... because... aliens. Yoink. Bye Bye.
As covered previously, this game is very stealth heavy, which may feel cumbersome or even a tedious bit of a slog, but I honestly like it, even if I agree with those terms to describe the game. While yes its not exactly the most robust and exciting time in the world, it does fuel the sense of danger. You're walking along poorly lit roads, you can see aliens moving house to house with their lasers scanning the areas and you must use your environment to your advantage, such as hiding in bushes, behind fences, garbage cans, or if you're feeling frisky, bop them little aliens in the head with a bat three times and run off giggling like a little school girl. The game itself isn't a long game overall though even with that in mind, for speed runners, you can probably beat this in an hour or less, but people like me, who are new and haven't explored, you're looking for a good 3-4 hour playthrough, even if you do terrible at it. The lengthened run time could be do to multiple factors, for one, the game is an indie game and only utilizes one major area in the game, and two, most of your time is spent crouching and hiding at a snails pace, doing the duck walk, which can up your playtime substantially. Now you can run, which I recommend doing this in last ditch effort scenarios, but sadly, your stamina bar is petty abysmal, depleting after about 3 seconds and leaving you vulnerable to capture because you can't use your bat when its depleted. This has a tendency to make your anger grow as much the sheriff ladies hat in Scary Movie 3, and sometimes, makes you wish you too were trapped against a tree with a car holding you together and then having to get that explained to someone of how it happened in the first place. Be like, this is your wife, and break a hot dog and .. no she didn't break her wiener, ummm look what happens to this taco, CRUNCH, get it now? what? NO its not fancy medical lingo, bro she is SPLIT IN HALF, top half and bottom half. You want to squeeze in time with her bottom half? I'm not sure what you mean by that... wait, oh god no, moving on!
''HIDE AND SEEK WITH A FRIEND''
OVERALL:
At the end of the day, Greyhill Incident manages to be a very mixed bag, offering you a fun dose of horror and intensity, but on the other hand, giving you a headache and wishing it would've done a tad bit more for you and itself. Again, its got a really spooky atmosphere, fun sense of stealth as you hide to save your life, freaky jump scare moments when an alien surprises you out of nowhere, pretty damn amazing UFO and abduction animations, but sadly its pretty bogged down as well. With mundane tasks, lackluster voice acting, a narrative story that gears up for a really epic conclusion but then just drops the storyline and just ends, potential game breaking glitches like the one I ran into on the final chapter of the game that made me spend two hours trying to fix the game because a key item wasn't spawning in a cornfield that was supposed to, and making mew scream louder than Travis Walton out of annoyance. Overall while I did find enjoyment in this title, there IS fun to be had and scares to live through, absolutely, however, with its stacks of shortcomings, I can't recommend it to people at full price at the moment, but when it drops a bit? definitely. So with all that having been said my verdict is clear, GameNChick says WAIT
