There are a few aspects that really have people interested in the recently released video game by developers Splendy Games, The Bunker. For starters, this is a live-action adventure title that brings back full motion video gameplay that was once made famous from such titles as Night Trap. Additionally, the development team behind the game boasts its cast featured within the title such as Adam Brown, Sarah Greene, and Grahame Fox. The results of these various little aspects that went into the creation of The Bunker have been underwhelming.
In the time I had to go through The Bunker to give my impressions, I’m not finding enough grip in order to keep me attached to The Bunker and I’m rather bummed. Everything looked great for The Bunker when it was being unveiled to the public. One of my favorite genres of video games has been known as the walking simulators. A few examples of this could be Life is Strange, Gone Home, and Firewatch. Essentially, these games focuses more on the overall story rather than tossing in complex gameplay mechanics.
When it came to The Bunker, my biggest issue was the story. Unlike Firewatch, Gone Home, and Life is Strange, I wasn’t gripped at the start of the game, it was very much a slow burn. While there was some mystery that was present at the start, you’ll find that you’ll be digging around for more narrative before it really starts to unfold.
I don’t want to spoil the game for anyone, but to give examples on some of the issues I ran into, I’ll focus more on the start of the title. Within the game, you play John, the last survivor of a nuclear bunker and that means there are plenty of daily routines to go through in order to assure your safety. For the most part, the start doesn’t offer backstory, you’re just set off to begin your routine which consists of the basics such as checking food rations, taking vitamins, scanning radio stations, among other tasks.
During one of these daily routines, something goes array and you’re forced into solving the mystery along with the events that follow. When the game really starts to open up the freedom of what players are able to do I wished the developers had given players the ability to skip scenes. Instead, it became quickly frustrating to sit through a scene that I had witnessed multiple times before such as walking down a corridor.
Likewise, I found the main character to be another annoyance. I understand that the game is not mean to feature a notorious hero such as Nathan Drake from the Uncharted series, who is not easily frightened and able to explore the darkest of regions. Instead, John is skittish and has no issue reminding you, constantly. For instance, exploring a room for clues to continue on with the game story John would consistently speak out the same phrase which ultimately told players how he did not like being in this particular room. Doesn’t sound like too much of an annoyance, but when you’re trying to investigate the area, having John repeat the same phrase over and over quickly caused me to mute the game until I was ready to leave the area.
Gameplay mechanics are simple, but it could have used some slight tweaking for consoles. Players control a cursor and are able to click on various items or use a button in conjunction with an analog stick to activate the item. Being a point-and-click style gameplay, using a console controller doesn’t make for the snappiest results and I felt adding a snapping mechanic when the cursor reached near a clickable item would have made for a slightly easier time to progress through the game.
When it comes to video and audio The Bunker is great. Scenes look like you’re watching a chilling film so I don’t have any complaints when it comes to the audio and visual quality to the game, but I didn’t expect I would run into any to begin with.
Unfortunately, The Bunker may just be too slow of a start to capture gamers along with some of the quirks that could cause any annoyance to continue on with the game. Although, if you’re not finding any fault with the issues I had when it came to The Bunker, then this still could prove to be a worthy title for pick up.
Disclosure: A review copy of the game was supplied by the publishers.
