Flesh Made Fear
Developer: Tainted Pact
Publisher: Assemble Entertainment
Platforms: PC (Steam) and PlayStation 5
Release Date: Out Now
Remember Resident Evil? No, not Requiem, or even the recent remakes, but the original Resident Evil, that fantastic trilogy of PlayStation games that thrilled us back in the Nineties. These OG survival horrors remain fantastic experiences, albeit hamstrung by the tides of time. Let’s face it, modern audiences are not accustomed to tank controls, or needing ink to save their games. Ha! Flesh Made Fear cocks a snook at such trivialities, tweaking the nose of directional control while performing a tear-inducing wedgie on convenient quick saves.
Ahem. In Flesh Made Fear, the player is either Natalie or Jack of the Reaper Intervention Platoon (or RIP, ha), an elite team of soldiers sent to Rotwood, a decaying backwater town infested with hideous monsters. It’s all the work of Victor Ripper, a former CIA agent turned mad professor-type, obsessed with turning humankind into some grim, obedient zombie mass. Through the woods surrounding Rotwood, to its outskirts, church and finally, Ripper’s mansion, the player battles the warped population, solving puzzles while scouring the environment for clues and items.
This retro-themed survival horror has been out a few weeks now, and we’ve finally cleared our backlog enough to enable us to complete it. And are we glad we did. Each location is meticulously designed to suit the fixed-camera angles, making it relatively easy to spot items and enemies. There’s a clear nostalgic Nineties mood, most vividly in a sequence inside a VHS video store, complete with a Jason Vorhees statue and a Triple-X section.
Away from the visuals, weapons are uniquely satisfying, from the clipped pistol to the booming shotgun and swishing blades, while the RIP operative can assemble ammunition using gunpowder and kits. Saving requires paraffin wax, but only once or twice during the entire playthrough did we feel this was in short supply. Views on this mechanic vary widely, but it induces a more careful approach, especially with ammunition in short supply, too.
Flesh Made Fear is not the easiest game to start and engage with, as its initial forest segment lacks the imagination and tight locations of the later levels. It’s also mildly let down by its boss fights, which essentially merge into one, the same tactics working against each anonymous glutinous mass. And the game’s puzzles, a mix of light-the-candles-in-the-correct-order and rotating discs, are also highly unlikely to tax anyone who has even a brief experience of the genre. Fortunately, there’s enough variation of enemy to keep you on your toes, especially once you arrive at Rotwood town centre.
For gamers brought up on those OG Resis, Fear Made Flesh is a brilliant experience; for everybody else, perhaps not so. In either case, something we can most definitely all enjoy is the wonderful soundtrack by its developer, Michael Cosio. Boasting 19 tracks of catchy 80s synth tunes and dissonant, portentous rumbles, it’s well worth the asking price alone, and you can download it separately if you purchase the Flesh Made Fear Deluxe Edition. Also of note is the game’s longevity, increased with several different endings, the two characters and a bonus section where—yes!—you get to play Victor Ripper himself.
CONCLUSION
A nostalgic and entertaining blood-soaked return to the 90s, smoothed out in places, but still retaining features that could jar with modern audiences. Stick with it, though, and it’s a real treat.
