Obscure: The Aftermath

aka: Obscure II
Moby ID: 30343
Windows Specs
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Description official descriptions

It has been two years since the incident at Leafmore High you witnessed in ObsCure and the survivors of the nightmare moved on to a university of Fallcreek. When they killed Herbert Friedman, the conductor of the biological experiment with the black flowers, they assumed everything was okay, of course it was not. The seeds of the flower had already spread around and it grew and blossomed without much notice. When it was discovered, that the flowers contain a dangerous substance that induces strange but vivid dreams, it became the new hit drug on the campus. Now the seeds begin to germinate and the bad trip turns into a horrible nightmare. The only ones that really know what is going on are the ones that are experiencing it for the second time and hide terrible secrets inside themselves...

Most of the time you take control over two of the six available characters. Each one has a speciality that comes in handy in order to open blocked doors or reaching new heights. Kenny for example has more muscles than brain and is therefore able to move around crates. Mei is instead a hacker and knows how to hack access panels. You can switch between both characters at any time and if you need another character in a given situation, you can go back to a gathering point and change your team.

But their wits alone can't save them from their doom so they also find several different weapons ranging from melee-weapons like a baseball bat to pistols and other weapons with a serious punch. You can also pick up chairs and tables to throw at your enemies. Early in the game you also gain a syringe with which you take samples off the dead creature-bodies. Once the syringe is full you can use it to gain a temporary boost of your abilities.

As a multiplayer-treat the game features Drop in/Drop Out-coop which allows you to play the game alone and if someone comes and visits he or she can just take over the second controller and play with you.

The camera is a mixture of following the character and being at a fixed position in a room but to reduce the amount of blind spots, you can also control it to a certain amount.

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Credits (Windows version)

65 People (63 developers, 2 thanks) · View all

Executive Vice President
Chief Technical Officer & Production Director
Chief Marketing, Lixensing & Sales Officer / Vice President
Producer
Product Support Services Manager
International Sales Director
Sales Manager
Marketing Manager
PR Manager
Corporate Communications & IR Manager
Lead Tester
Testing Team
Special thanks to
  • Willem M. Smit (Chief Executive Officer)
  • and everyone at Playlogic International
Public Relations Europe
  • IMC InteractiveMediaConsulting GmbH
Localization
  • Voice agency Inter Voice
Graphics / DTP
Storyboard Consultant
Voice Recording
  • Voice agency Inter Voice
Executive Producer
Additional Producer
[ full credits ]

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 61% (based on 58 ratings)

Players

Average score: 3.5 out of 5 (based on 31 ratings with 2 reviews)

Losing its essence

The Good
Obscure: The Aftermath is a sequel for the previous obscure developed by Microids. The game allow you to take control of different characters as you did in the previous game of the series. You can play the game with someone else as a second player which is something that makes the game different from other survival horror games.

The graphics are good, better than before with a new camera system behind our character most of the time. All the characters in the game are charismatic and has different personalities, they talk most part of the game and they're not like the characters of many games that don't say a word in the whole game.

The music is really good, one of the best things of the game like it was in Obscure. Composed by Olivier Derivière who made the game for Obscure too as well as other games like Alone in The Dark. The music is ambient and fitting for the occasion.

The battle system has been improved, now you'll fight better than before and every enemy has different weak points, so, you'll have to use the correct weapon for every distant enemy.

The Bad
The main problem is the game is that the good things that the game has were in the previous Obscure game. It's more of the shame thing but with a different camera style, which was a really bad choice.

Cameras are one of the worst things on the game. I've never seen such a bad camera movement in a game like this one. They'll hide important objects, doors, enemies and exits, it's really annoying to play a game with such a bad camera movement. Sometimes you'll aim to nothing to change the camera and see where you are.

Maybe because the game wasn't developed by Microids, loses the essence of the first one. Here you'll have some puzzles (which are really good puzzles, hard enough to spend a little time thinking what to do with them) but there's no sensation of graphic adventure which was in the previous game. Obscure was something like a survival graphic adventure horror game, and this one is just a survival horror game.

Obscure featured one remarkable thing, the game won't stop unless all of your characters die, so, you could finish the game with all your characters alive or just with one or two remaining. That feature was eliminated on this game, here you can't choose (most of the time) the characters, and the game is predestined from the beginning to a unique storyline which you can't modify. It doesn't matter what you do, you'll have to finish the game with the same characters and if one of them dies when he shouldn't the game will finish.

To finish with, there are many weapons but most of them need to be reloaded so soon, most of the times you'll have just 4 or 5 shots before reloading and it's annoying. Anyway, it's a minor thing in comparison with the other bad things of the game

The Bottom Line
Obscure: The Aftermath loses the essence of Obscure and become one more survival horror game, not even special and different from others. Play it if you've played the first one (which is better) and if you don't mind to have one of the worst camera movement system ever made in a game.

PlayStation 2 · by NeoJ (398) · 2009

College Campus Terror

The Good

I am a big fan of survival horror games. But what sets the ObsCure saga apart from Resident Evil, Etc, is that this has an optional 2 player mode, which enhances the enjoyment of playing through the game.

ObsCure II was a fun, and satisfying addition to my games collection. Gameplay was fun, better and incredibly imaginative. But the story was weaker in its execution. Whereas the original had a great set up, this one gets into things a little too fast, and the camera angles were rather awkward. Kind of like Midway's prison bloodbath The Suffering, in that you have to use the right analog stick to position yourself.

The story was very different as well. While there were references to the Leafmore High experiments, much of the game had a totally separate subplot about deadly spores produced from flowers. The fact that this game determines the fate of the characters for you was also deeply saddening and unrewarding as a result. In the first game, everybody could make it through if you were extra careful. Here, this is not the case.

Hopefully, ObsCure III (if it is made) will not be as cutthroat with the characters, and maybe save a lot more of them the next time around.



The Bad

Camera angles aren't the greatest. The lack of ammo is also problematic at times.



The Bottom Line

Resident Evil meets Alien.

PlayStation 2 · by Melvin Raeynes (22) · 2007

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  • MobyGames ID: 30343
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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by Sicarius.

PSP added by Charly2.0. Wii added by Grog Logen.

Game added September 28, 2007. Last modified February 26, 2024.