Mind you, I actually prefer this game’s enemy behaviour compared to the likes of Security Breach. I learned this when the game’s AI broke down during some of the levels, allowing me to freely walk around and complete my objective. That too, is evident in the levels where many a floorboard will creak or the doors with jingles attached to them. This AI is important because, without it, the player is left with a middling adventure game with simplistic challenges that really depend on the player being chased. And until the final boss, the AI is barely a challenge and serves more as a brief annoyance. But not only can you easily outrun them, if you jump onto anything they can’t reach, they’ll give up and leave you alone. Ergo, the smaller the house the more of a challenge you’ll have. Their intelligence isn’t the best and they’re only as menacing as the game’s level design allows them to be. Their job is to wander their homes, do ‘home things’, and kick you out. And?” (Eerie Guest Studios/tinyBuild)Īs I’ve mentioned a few times now, Hello Neighbor’s biggest component is its non-player characters: the Cop, Baker, Crazy Old Man, Musician, and the dad-bod Neighbour. Remember that note as we delve into the second half of the game: the AI that challenges you. Ultimately, while the game did a fairly good job with giving solutions to its puzzles in its level design, the lighting, art, and objectives felt more of a chore to figure out than fun. Objects you toss, for example, can fly very far distances and sometimes they’re tools that you might have needed to complete other objectives within a level. It doesn’t help that the player character controls aren’t very… Grounded, I want to say. The downside comes down to the puzzles and what the game expects you to pick up and use or break to complete objectives: too often things I thought I could interact with I could not and vice versa. It’s out of the player’s way and the inventory system is beautifully simple-I love it and I want more games to implement similar systems. For the most part, this game’s implementation of this immersive view is pretty good. The player character sees everything through the first-person and there are virtually no UI icons. It pains me to say this, but despite the good level design, things fall apart once you get to gameplay. The music and ambiance do a good job of being the right amount of pleasant and creepy when needed, too. The whole town is this bright and cheery suburban setting but yet eerie and peculiar-the perfect set up for kids that want to get spooked. The visuals also hold true to the colourful cast of the game and I think some of the best moments of the game for me was simply sightseeing. They don’t just look like homes, but they give players plenty of advantages against the computer, such as open vents or holes in the wall that let you keep tabs on the homeowner. Most of them are fun to explore and the puzzle mechanics within them fit the aesthetic of said character. Not just in design but how the neighbourhood and each house has an abundance of detail that really gives each level’s AI plenty of character (no pun intended). This should work in theory, but in practice leaves a lot to be desired.īut first things first, credit where it’s due, the game’s levels are great. This leaves you with a time limit as you not only need to learn your end objective and how to clear it, but also avoid the artificial intelligence (“AI”) who will toss you out and take back items that belong to them. It’s easier said than done, of course-every home has its occupants and they definitely do not want you running around and ransacking their humble abode. Each day and night, the player is tasked with ransacking a house of interest to discover clues, solve puzzles to obtain keys, and use them on the doors of the museum where the boy is kept in captivity. Hello Neighbor 2 follows a similar structure to its predecessor and, in some ways, other games like Five Nights at Freddy’s: Security Breach. After waking up back in your flat, your character becomes dead-set on saving the boy-a mission that will take you across the whole neighbourhood, being an absolute menace to your “neighbours”. Before the journalist can take action, the old man goes first, conking you out. A sequel to a game I can only remember as a fever dream of sorts, the player assumes the role of a journalist who, while keeping tabs on everyone, spots a burly man forcefully dragging a little boy, crying for help, right into his home. Hello Neighbor 2 is what I would describe as an adventure puzzler slash horror-like game developed by Eerie Guest Studios and published by tinyBuild.
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