I remember
having The Park on my games to get
list for a while. Not because it was supposedly really easy from a Gamerscore
perspective, but because it supposedly offered a new survival horror
experience. What I got was a slow paced, non-scary, non-survival horror that
was closer to a Visual Novel than an adventure game. And following the Three Fourths Home review, my feelings on
the Visual Novel genre are quite clear.
The Park sees you take control of a
mother in a car park of a theme park looking for her lost child who has
apparently re-entered the park. Or has he? That appears to be the big question
as you casually stroll and occasionally sprint around the various dilapidated
attractions in search of the lost child.
That’s about
it for the game play and storyline. You walk around. You look at things. You go
on the rides for some reason and then you disappear into the fun house/house of
horrors to conclude the game.
Achievements – 1,000 Points – 14
Achievements
Playing
through the story will get you all but four of the achievements for this one.
The other four are entirely missable too caused by the end game not having any
pre-end save point.
The first of
these missable ones is actually the last achievement I unlocked because I
didn’t do my research well enough. When you start the game, instead of going in
to the park to look for your son, you simply leave the park by walking up the
road in to the mist. The game just returns you to the car park but you get the
achievement for trying to be a bad parent.
The next one
that comes up requires you to take a boat ride where you have to look at some
kind of fairy tale play out, however the achievement requires you to not look
at the story and instead look in the opposite direction at what I can only
imagine is a deranged killer dressed like a chipmunk called Chad.
There is
another for finding a picture of you and your son on a bench near one of the
attractions. I’m not really sure why there is a family photo in the middle of a
theme park. It seems like one of the weirdest things to drop or leave behind.
There is one
more that requires you to go off the beaten track (but not far). You will come
across some bumper cars and one them as a battery in it. You need to interact
with this one to get a cut scene and the last missable achievement.
Downloadable Content – N/A
The Park is a short straightforward
completion if you are aware of what you need to do before you set out. I was
disappointed with what it had on offer. It felt very thin and it wasn’t half as
scary as it was made out to be. Maybe I missed the point? I don’t know.
There’s not
a lot else to say about The Park. It
didn’t offer me any additional reward for seeing the game through an offers zero
replay value and while it’s still retailing at £10.39, it’s not value for
money.
