We all remember little Danny Torrance running around the lodge muttering “redrum…redrum…” in the terrifying 1980’s thriller, The Shining, even more so when the mirror revealed the true meaning of the chant. Well, things are just as chilling in G5 Entertainment’s latest HOA, Redrum: Dead Diary HD about a little girl who sees dead people. Naturally, her father deems her insane and locks her away in an asylum where an evil doctor does believer her and tries to use her supernatural gift for his own sinister plans.
I really enjoyed the story in this particular adventure; both its unique perspective on life after death and perhaps some of the most mature and gory graphics of any HOA to date – or at least the ones I’ve been playing. The designers seem more intent on delivering that story than creating any type of challenging or competitive gameplay. The majority of the game is hidden-object puzzles and none of them are terribly difficult, especially if you’ve played one before. You’ll locate objects to match a written list or perhaps a set of silhouettes or even go on a scavenger hunt to find a dozen or more variations of the same object. And of course, they throw in those sliding tile puzzles to occasionally mix things up.
The conundrum is that the game is just too easy, at least when you consider the mature target audience. There’s no timer, no scores, no penalty for random tapping, no reason to replay, and only nine achievements to earn, which you will easily do on your first pass. The game seems almost designed for younger gamers or newcomers to the HOA genre, but the disturbing subject matter and grisly graphics contradict that.
Dead Diary has 7 chapters that contain 42 puzzles, which may sound like a lot but in reality you can finish this off in 3-4 hours easy. The graphics are excellent; even outstanding at times and even a bit shocking in their brutality, and there are some great sound effects and haunting music to go along with it. I also enjoyed the voice overs that went along with the notes and diary entries to move the story along.
Redrum: Dead Diary HD is a great game that seems to be in search of a proper audience. It’s low level of difficulty and challenge will discourage the sophisticated audience that the story and graphics invite. Genre fans will tear through this in a day and never look back, which means you should probably wait for a really good sale.
