Blair Witch: Volume I - Rustin Parr

aka: A Bruxa de Blair: Volume 1 - Rustin Parr, Blair Witch: Czesc Pierwsza - Rustin Parr
Moby ID: 2521
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Description official descriptions

Blair Witch, Volume I: Rustin Parr, the first of three games based on Blair Witch folklore, takes its name from a character mentioned only briefly in the movie. Parr was arrested for the ritualistic murders of seven children in 1941. You play as Elspeth "Doc" Holliday, an agent for a secret government agency called "Spookhouse". She is dispatched to Burkittsville, Maryland weeks after Parr's execution to see if there is any truth to the claims of supernatural forces at work there.

By day Elspeth will talk to the locals, attempting to befriend them and get any useful information about the investigation out of them. At night she will travel through the expansive woods surrounding Burkittsville, dispatching a never ending swarm of monsters as she searches for more clues as to the source of the aberrations. As an agent of Spookhouse Elspeth has access to a wide range of advanced weaponry that ghosts and monsters are vulnerable to, but often it is better to run than fight.

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Credits (Windows version)

104 People (98 developers, 6 thanks) · View all

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Reviews

Critics

Average score: 75% (based on 40 ratings)

Players

Average score: 3.4 out of 5 (based on 25 ratings with 2 reviews)

A very creepy Survival Horror style romp through the Blair Witch Mythology.

The Good
I admit that I was one of the first people to dismiss this title when I first heard of it. "A game based on the Blair Witch Project? So what are we going to do? Run around some woods yelling at each other then suddenly disappear? Boring! Luckily the designers thought the exact same thing and so, with the film makers support and the back story they wrote for the film, three different companies have created 3 games based on the mythology of the film. This first volume by Terminal Reality deals with the hermit Rustin Parr who you may remember being mentioned in the movie as the man who murdered 7 children in his basement while keeping an eighth in the corner. BW1 uses the Nocturne engine (also by Terminal Reality) playing almost identically to the game of the same name and since it's set in the same time frame, it even features characters from Nocturne as the protagonists which is a nice touch. BW1 is very puzzle intensive for a game of this type which I personally loved. There's still quite a bit of combat but most of the game involves talking to people and deducing codes and puzzles. The story which is only hinted at in the film is expanded on very well and even manages to make the film more enjoyable as many things are alluded to. Visually the game looks just as good as Nocturne did which seeing as Nocturne was ahead of its time means BW1 holds up quite well. Sound is effectively used throughout with weird noises and jumpy music at just the right moments. "So?" I hear you say... "Since the film was a horror and all.... is it scary?" I'm very glad to say YES! There are a number of sections that are quite eerie. The strange sounds in the forest are apparent and a sequence early on in the game where you awake in the night is utterly terrifying! Definitely play it with the lights off for extra effect.

The Bad
There are a few bits where you have to travel through the forest killing monsters which seem to cheapen an otherwise excellent title. It's also not an overly long game but you should still get a good 8 hours out of it so it's comparable in size to Resident Evil 3 for example. The speed that the game runs at is at times inexcusable. One occasion that comes to mind was towards the end when there were a number of characters on screen at once and the game slowed to a crawl on an 800mhz P3 with over 384 meg ram! Well in excess of the requirements. The game also has a nasty tendancy to crash sometimes at random and as of the time of writing there is no patch for this.

The Bottom Line
This is easily the best of the three Blair Witch games so survival horror fans take note and get this right now! Don't be put off by the fact that it's a film license. One of the best and scariest game of its type to have come along in years! Gets under your skin like Silent Hill then leaps out and scares you like Resident Evil.

Windows · by Sycada (177) · 2002

A real horror experience!

The Good
Not only is BW:Rustin Parr the game Nocturne should've been, it is also the movie the BWP should've been too. Rustin Parr has a true cinematic quality, stunning graphics, a detailed story and a likeable protagonist. One of the best features is a sliding difficulty rating so players have the option of action over adventure or vice versa.

The Bad
Well, you will get lost in the woods and tricky camera angles will hide monsters until the last moment, but this all comes with the territory. The biggest drawback of Rustin Parr is its linear design. The addition of conversation options or multiple endings (not multiple deaths) would have increased the adventure portion of this game and would give this game a replay value, of which it has very little.

The Bottom Line
Rustin Parr is a survival horror game in the tradition of Alone in the Dark and Resident Evil. A superb story and price compensates for short gameplay and minimal replay value. It's nice to see the Nocturne engine finally put to good use.

Windows · by Terrence Bosky (5397) · 2000

Trivia

Continuity errors

When you finally meet up with Robin Weaver, she's holding a civil war uniform which she says belonged to a man named Lazarus (the protagonist of Blair Witch, Volume II: The Legend of Coffin Rock). However, if you play Blair Witch II, Lazarus' uniform is destroyed through burning by Weaver's granny near the beginning of the game because it was caked with blood (not to mention 20 years old). So much for continuity.

A bigger breach of continuity occurs with Blair Witch, Volume III: The Elly Kedward Tale. During the first game Holliday somehow contacts Jonathan Prye across time. Prye helps Holliday by leaving his journal about the Blair Witch in a safe place for her to find. None of this actually happens in the third game.

Engine

Well before the game's release, there were all sorts of interesting bits of stuff floating arount the internet. One item was that the game would be utilizing the Unreal engine. This is, and always was, completely false. The game does, however, utilize the engine from Nocturne.

Lens flare effect

The back cover of the box and the CD case has a screenshot showing off the lens flare effect from the flashlight, one of the features which distinguished the Nocturne engine. However in the actual game the lens flare effect is disabled, considerably watering down the flashlight beam's appearance. It is possible to re-enable it by editing the game's .ini file, but the Terminal Reality tech support advise against it for stability reasons, stating it could crash your game, erase your save files, and even possibly wipe your BIOS (although the last one's a bit of a stretch).

Nocturne

Blair Witch, Volume I is (for all intents and purposes) Nocturne Act V. "Doc" Holliday is in the starring role with the Stranger as a supporting character and cameos by Svetlana, Col Hapscomb, and the Spookhouse staff.

References

In Burkittsville's general store, a few interesting boxes can be seen on top of a counter. These are two of Terminal Reality's games; Nocturne and Fly!.

Awards

  • GameSpy
    • 2000 – Special Award for Budget Gaming

Information contributed by Alan Chan, ClydeFrog, Paul Budd and re_fold

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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by Andrew Hartnett.

Additional contributors: Timo Takalo, JRK, tbuteler, Patrick Bregger.

Game added October 18, 2000. Last modified February 27, 2023.