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The Vanishing of Ethan Carter review

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    The Vanishing of Ethan Carter review

    One of Sony's planned PS4 indie darlings has already hit PC and is out to play right now. The Vanishing of Ethan Carter has been billed as an open adventure, letting you solve several murders and slowly uncover the mystery of how a small boy called Ethan Carter disappeared in an abandoned town.

    I'll start with my impressions of the games visuals first. The game uses the Unreal Engine and frankly uses it incredibly well. There's a wonderful sense of place to the locations and they're beautifully lit. The game, so far, channels a tranquil scene even when you uncover a body. The main factor that probably works against the game world is that so far, despite hwo some previews and reviews make it out to be, the game is very linear. Some areas open up a little bit for you to mooch around but you're very much on a single path in terms of your journey. An example would be a section where you've crossed a dam and there is a three way fork in the road. You can go anyway you want but one fork leads to a dead end, the second eventually loops back on itself and the third is the main path.

    Audio is very nice too, it fits the tone of the game well though is very understated. As you're in a set environment and nothing is actively happening there's not much for it to do except set the scene. Music drifts in and out whilst some sound effects set the scene with wind, water etc.

    Controls are simple too. On a controller the left trigger zooms in the view, right trigger is for run, B crouches and A is the action button for looking at objects. That's your lot with the exception of being able to open a portal at key points to see more detail though I've yet to see much use for it. Effectively, despite the hints of a murder mystery aspect that seems similar to Murdered: Soul Suspect, the experience of playing it so far is easily closest to that of playing Dear Esther. If you hit a brick wall in enjoying that title you're unlikely to get along with this. Currently, I'm in a looped area so it remains to be seen if the game adds anything to its arsenal or remains effectively part of the walking simulator genre.

    Journey Begins




    Entering Town




    Daaaam

    1
    1-Less Ethan Carter, More John Carter
    0%
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    2
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    3
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    4
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    5-Lost and Found
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    6
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    7
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    0
    8
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    1
    9
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    10-The Rise of Ethan Carter
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    0

    #2
    Thanks for the impressions on this. I didn't realize it was coming to pc. I loved Gone Home and Dear Esther so this will no doubt be another I'll enjoy. Screenshots make it look very nice too. It's on my wishlist now!

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      #3
      Saw a video of this a few weeks ago and it looked stunning, I had no idea it was even being released this year! Keep us updated, really intrigued by this one.

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        #4
        Well, the game is now finished. It's one that I would now definitely say sits fairly comfortably on the Dear Esther side of the fence. Each mystery seems to have 5 clues to locate and piece together as your work your way through the scenic village. You'll have to complete all the mysteries in the game to reach the ending so there's a good chunk of backtracking to find everything which is what mostly pads the run time out. In terms of location size, overall it seems similar to Dear Esther too. Visually it's near flawlessly gorgeous. The only hiccups I could find in the game was a glitch in the graveyard area that you can work around till it's fixed and when running none stop there can sometimes be a single frame judder. I don't think it's connected to the PC, when you enter the game there is literally no loading screens at all so I think the running just causes you to hit a momentary blip as it loads in textures etc. That said its the bare minimum of visual issues in an otherwise lovely looker.

        At ?15 it's borderline a purchase depending on how much your personally get out walking games. It's primarily a product about visuals and the narrative so for some might be better in a sale. I enjoyed it though, Didn't hit me as much Dear Esther but there's a tad more meat on the bones of this game. Nice stuff.

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          #5
          Tempted to get this, seems to be scoring 9/10 at most places, found it a bit bizarre that the Eurogamer reviewer completed it then started it over again straight away.

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            #6
            I think you'd have to really enjoy it to do that. Once you've seen the ending there's nothing extra to see or anything you'll have missed. By halfway you'll know where the story is headed too so it doesn't shine new light on a second run either

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              #7
              Is there a confirmed release date for PS4 yet? I love the look of this.

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                #8
                Originally posted by dave heats View Post
                Is there a confirmed release date for PS4 yet? I love the look of this.
                "Sometime in 2015" is what the dev said in August so nice and vague.

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                  #9
                  Originally posted by DavidH View Post
                  "Sometime in 2015" is what the dev said in August so nice and vague.
                  I was about to reply with something bordering on devastation, but then realised I've got a mountain of releases for the rest of this year to plough through....so 2015 is actually fine by me!

                  Really does look beautiful though. Look forward to further impressions on here.

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                    #10
                    I finally played through this at the weekend. Really liked it. It’s beautiful and the soundtrack is gorgeous. Very polished. I wonder what it took to make it... must go look up more about it.

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