Hello! I recently went through and played P.T.  with some of my friends.  Here is my review! Let me know what you think (of the review, the cancellation, or anything else) below!

-2Quick

P.T.   (Playable Teaser)

Kojima Productions - Konami Digital Entertainment - 2014 - PS4

Hideo Kojima and his development studio decided to use stealth marketing once again for the latest release in the Silent Hill franchise, entitled Silent Hills (note the 's' on the end).  To announce this new entry, Konami released a demo, or rather, a Playable Teaser on the Playstation store under a false developer's name.  Upon completion of the teaser, the trailer for the new Silent Hill game was unlocked, revealing the true nature of the teaser.  This was a surprise for most, as there hasn’t been a new Silent Hill release in years and no one saw Kojima (Metal Gear Solid, Zone of Enders Series, Castlevania: Lords of Shadow) making the game.  However, with the recent falling out between Kojima and Konami, Silent Hills has been cancelled, leaving the playable teaser as the sole remnant of this potentially genre-advancing game.  I only say this because the teaser was that good.

The horror (or survival horror) genre has been stuck in a rut as of recent.  Most entries Into the genre have seemed to phase out of the original genre and have seemingly entered the territories of shooters or stealth games with spooky themes.

The unique thing about Playable Teaser is that it is not a stealth game or a shooter. 

You can't kill the threat like in shooter horror, and you cannot hide from the threat as in stealth horror

If anything, the game does incorporate some adventure elements, but largely the determinant of success or failure is simply up to your ability to go in and face your fears.  As long as you continue on with the game, you will probably solve the mildly challenging puzzles and be able to finish the game.  This is unique in gaming, and certainly is an idea worth exploring.  When playing a video game, largely 2 things can determine success, action elements (how good are your reactions?) and thought elements (can you solve the puzzle/ come up with a good strategy?)  Games like Mario and Call of Duty test your reflexes, whereas games like Pikmin or Stick it to the Man!  test your ability to think things through.  Some games, such as The Legend of Zelda or the Batman: Arkham games incorporate both.  PT falls into a more obscure third category…  more of a experiential game category, including games such as Journey or The Unfinished Swan (or how That Dragon, Cancer looks to be progressing)  These games offer rudimentary puzzles and actions sequences, but the main point of these games is to go through and experience the interactive setting, characters, and story.  The previous games usually use these themes to convey complex and complicated emotions to the audience, like sadness, despair, and isolation.  PT is the first one to adequately convey mortal terror.  

The game, in the beginning, is largely just experiential.  You wake up in a small, cellar/jail-like room facing the room's single door and some cockroaches. As you open the door, you come to a poorly lit hallway of suburban American household with a static-y radio broadcast playing in the background.  One could simply go through and "bull rush" this part of the game, going straight through the halls and not stopping to smell the roses, however the people at Kojima productions know that you will take time to explore the simple, yet unsetting locale and listen to the entire radio broadcast before you do.  At the end of the hall, you find a foyer and a staircase leading down to another door.  As you enter this door, you realize that you are back in the same hallway as before, with only some minor/subtle changes.  This major element of cyclic gameplay is where the game shines.  It provides a unique measure of theme and variation  for the duration of the game.  One of the key fears humans intrinsically have is minor variation on an otherwise normal situation.  The scariest monsters in horror  films are monsters who appear mostly human, but often have a difference that confuses the brain.  Clowns are scary to some people because they appear just a little different than normal humans.   Pyramid head from Silent Hill 2 is scary because other than his, well, giant pyramid head, he is pretty much human.  Likewise, PT sets up a setting that changes each time you initiate a new hallway cycle.  Playing off of our natural fear of the familiar yet not identical.   Also, the constant decent down a staircase at the end of the cycle provides an increasing feeling of doom as you progress deeper and deeper into despair. 

The game develops well.  It starts out unsettling, progresses to scary, and finally finishes terrifying.

The adventure elements don’t really come into play until the late game, and rely primarily upon keen observation of the similar environment, like noticing a door cracked, a message on a painting, or a hole in the wall that was not there before.  These puzzles aren't really challenging, but rather require you to analyze the entire environment in extreme detail, which cause you to notice the piles of lazily discarded alcohol containers, pill bottles, dust, pictures, and of course, the grime in the bathroom.  The challenge relies on the fact that you ultimately don't want to search the details of the room because of the potential scares that may result. 

The method of the scares vary as well.  Jump scares are present, but not overused, a number of the scares just rely upon you stumbling on something unexpected, and the rest rely on the interaction with the player (camera changes, filter variants, error messages, etc.) these "fourth wall" scares aren't new ideas, but its been a while since they have been implemented well  (Eternal Darkness, Metal Gear Solid). 

The climax of PT is its final puzzle.  This puzzle is infamous because no one knows how to solve it. 

– but actually though;  there are multiple competing theories online on what the player must do to solve it.  These activities vary from focusing on various objects throughout the hall, to <spoilers> letting the ghost possess you </spoilers>  you, to getting out a physical microphone and trying to communicate with the game.  I personally don't buy the theory of saying specific phrases aloud, as I have yet encountered this accurate of voice identification in video games yet.  Instead I "solved" it pretty much by avoiding anything intimidating (not looking around when obvious haunting noises or heavy breathing  were present) and focusing on important looking objects in the hallway.  Other people have followed different methods to solve the puzzle with success, and it seems there is no consistent answer.  This ultimately begs the question if this final 'Puzzle' is actually a puzzle at all or rather just a series of randomly guessing and checking actions to see if they work.  This doesn’t really matter though,  because this sense of randomness contributes to the whole point of the game this uncertainty forces you to try and experience everything in the last level, forcing you to progress with the constant uncertainty of a jump scare any second.  It adds to the sheer terror of the game. Not only is it scary, But also there isn't a guide to help you finish it; you need to fly solo to complete it.

The game PT has all the makings of  an urban legend: Its stealth release, its fresh perspective, its surprise Silent Hills confirmation with Kojima and Del Toro, and its subsequent cancellation.  Although we no longer have Silent Hills to look forward to, we do have this experimental game to remind us that games can be legitimately scary, and Horror can be its own genre.  This unique, Playable Teaser should be remembered for its breath of fresh air, and should at least revitalize some interest in a stagnating genre.

Pros:

Terrifying

Great atmosphere

Great use of limited space and mechanics

Feels crazy fresh and original

Final puzzle forces you to throw gameplay at the wall and see what sticks

Cons

Terrifying

I guess its short… but it didn’t really need to be any longer so you don't have to count this as a con if you don’t want to. 

Not being made into a full game

Note: I played this game with my roommates (who were all terrified).  Based on a recommendation from a message board (VgChartz)  we used a guide to learn what to do for some of the puzzles in the game.  These is because the puzzles are not obvious, and pretty much require a guide to figure out. They are also not challenging puzzles per se, but rather noticing small changes in the environment.  After playing it with a guide I would not recommend the same for you.  I would instead recommend to play through as far as you can, and then only consult a guide if you are hopelessly stuck.  Even then, only find the answer for the immediate puzzle and nothing else.  You can't really spoil the game, but I found the game much more fun with a strong sense of uncertainty.  As such, I tried to keep the review above as spoiler-free as possible. 

Also does anyone have any good recommendations of similar horror games? I didn't realize I would like the game as much as I did and want to know what to play next...