Five Nights at Freddy's
Stress Simulator
1 Player
System: PC
Developer: Scott Cawthon
Year of Release: 2014
I feel like I really don't even need to say anything about this game. For some god forsaken reason I felt compelled to play through this series, though I don't know why as I'm already caught up on both how the game works and the plot behind the games. Honestly that's the only real reason I was even interested in the game. The gameplay looked like (and plays like) shit to me, but the idea of a haunted children's party place is really interesting to me. Plus the fact the developer allegedly made this game out of spite for people who insulted how his characters looked too much like animatronics in his older games makes me respect him a bit more. While I understand why this game blew up in popularity via internet videos, I honestly don't think it's necessarily deserved.
Let's just get this out of the way, you're hired as an overnight security guard for a place called Freddy Fazbear's Pizza. You get a call from some guy who explains your job to you. This is my favorite part of the entire game, the only part with any real entertainment in it actually. The way this guy talks is just odd, and fits the game perfectly. He explains the animatronics act strangely and walk around at night, if they spot you they'll try to stuff you into an animatronic suit. Luckily you've got front row seats to the computer linked to all the cameras in the facility, not only that but you've got doors you can shut to stop these over sized teddies from murdering you in various crude ways. The downside is that everything takes energy, and you have to make it last until 6AM. This is where the game becomes a stress simulator, and is really the only actual gameplay element.
You monitor the restaurant checking to see where the various animatronics are hanging out. This eats power, you check the lights by the doors to see if anyone is there, this eats up power. You shut the doors when someone comes for you, this eats up power. At the end of every night I wound up losing all my power and was literally at the mercy of the game to see if I managed to make it to 6AM or not. As of writing this I'm still on night four, but I'm more than set to talk about this game in all of its glory and short comings. Short comings really.
Graphically the game looks fine, I like how every looks and the jump scares look neat as well. In a funny twist my slow as fuck laptop can't quite handle the cut scenes portions so I the jump scares take about twice as long to play out. I kind of like this actually because I can get a good look at the monsters coming for me at least. And the jump scares just don't work. In my opinion there are two sorts of "scary", the cheap jump scare route, and the true horror route. Now my bias may be showing but clearly I don't value the former as much as the latter. Don't get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with a well placed jump scare, but as Five Nights at Freddy's proves, the welcome wears thin quickly. Instead of being scary at all it's just humorous, and worse, annoying. I don't think I've jumped after the initial jump scare I saw when youtube videos first started popping up. After a while it becomes routine, and while I understand a large amount of people seem to relish in people posting videos of them screaming like girls over fucking nothing, it just doesn't do anything for me expect further compound the idea that this game doesn't really have gameplay. Or at least none in a worthwhile sense.
The game does worry me though. I'm worried that this guy Scott is painting himself into a corner. In half a year he's already created a trilogy of games, seriously this series has whored itself out faster than Assassin's Creed. On the one hand I understand, you caught lightning in a bottle, ride it out as hard as you can. You've gotten you fifteen minutes of fame, Scott, and even though I personally don't enjoy your game you've created something unique and you generated buzz around it. You've already wasted plenty of this time suckling the teat of your cash cow, make something new. Video games is a fast business, but it isn't so fast you have to regurgitate the same formula with minor tweaks as rapidly as you have. I'm legitimately excited to see the next thing you have up your sleeve Scott, I pray it isn't FNaF4.
Since beginning to write this about twenty minutes ago I've been considering just talking about my experience with the sequel games as well. I really don't think (or even really want) to bring this series up again, so I might as well. Five Nights at Freddy's 2 makes the entire affair much less fun to fun amazingly. Doors are gone, your only defense is to blend in by wearing a Freddy mask (or for one in specific shining a light), secondly there is an obtuse as fuck music box mechanic to add even more to your to do list. On the one hand I get this, it can't just be an option in the office as you could still see oncoming threats. But having it be on one specific camera makes things initially confusing, and once that has passed it's still just strange you have to go to that specific camera to crank the music box. They really amped the stress factor up, and what little time I did spend with the game was incredibly annoyed. They did add a neat little feature in the form of strange Atari-based mini games that help illuminate the plot some more.
As for the third entry in the series I haven't played or seen too much of it. From what I've seen they've toned the stress factors, which is great, but... that's what the game is all about? So I come to a conundrum, what is the goal of this series? To make it more accessible you'd need to make it less annoying, to make it less annoying you'd have to make it less stressful, and the sense of "fear" the game illicts in actually just that stress with a jump scare cherry on top. It's hard for me to imagine what the overall goal here is, and from a progression stand point it seems like after ramping up the difficulty the third game brings it back down. Instead of being overly stressful it seems more annoying as all but one of the creatures are just hallucinations that bring with them an annoying visual and audible effect. Progress? I really don't know anymore.
Exasperated is how I'd best describe my feelings after playing this. There are ideas here that are wholly original and interesting, the execution is less than stellar, but also possibly the best way to go about implementing the desired features. I don't really know what to say, like I said originally I don't know what I could add to the conversation that hasn't already been said. Everyone knows of this game, most of the interested parties have watched full let's plays or even played through the game(s) themselves. An interesting lore always helps draw me to a game, but it takes more than just a clever and obscure tale to hold my interest. I really think the guy behind this is a talented dude and I hope he eventually works on some new content.
Now that that is out of the way, it is time for my brand new feature:
MY TOP FIVE FAVORITE THINGS ABOUT FIVE NIGHTS AT FREDDY'S!
Counting down from 5 we've got:
5: This fanart, I'm not a huge Gorillaz fan, and really I like their first album the most, but the cover for Demon Days looks nice and this fits perfectly in my mind. Good show Gyki of DeviantArt!
4: The Atari based minigames from the sequels,while simplistic they add some charm to the game I can't rightly explain. Plus they help to fill in the plot which is the most compelling part of the game in my book.
3: Simultaneously the look and the idea behind the animatronics. As I said above apparently Scott made this game because people criticized that his characters in other games looked like animatronics, a man driven by spite is a friend of mine. Not to mention they just look cool, even if it isn't scary the outlandish way these machines move looks great, and the haunted kid's restaurant idea just works for me for whatever reason.
2: This phone guy quote:
"Hello, hello? Hey! Hey, wow, day 4. I knew you could do it. Uh, hey, listen, I may not be around to send you a message tomorrow. *banging sound* It's-It's been a bad night here for me. Um, I-I'm kinda glad that I recorded my messages for you *clears throat* uh, when I did. Uh, hey, do me a favor. *bang bang* Maybe sometime, uh, you could check inside those suits in the back room? *bang bang* I'm gonna try to hold out until someone checks. Maybe it won't be so bad. *bang bang* Uh, I-I-I-I always wondered what was in all those empty heads back there. *chime plays* You know... *moan* oh, no - *noises followed by an animatronic screech and static*"
The death, of phone guy. For some reason the tone and word choice of his final words just cracks me up, plus he rants a bit about in his oddball way before hand. Truly you are my favorite in-game thing about this.
1: This song, the absolute, hands down best thing about Five Nights at Freddy's, there is no competition. ~Five nights at Freddy's, is this where you're supposed to be, I just don't get it, why do you want to stay?~ Thank you The Living Tombstone, you are a saint.
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