A thrilling, ink-tinged homage to BioShock – Bendy and the Dark Revival Quick Review
Bendy and the Dark Revival by Joey Drew Games is a title that wasn’t on my radar in any way. I knew that there were a couple other games in this franchise, but I never touched them. This iteration of Bendy is the poster child for why you should make every effort to go into an entertainment experience blind as I did, because it shocked and surprised me in all the best ways. I definitely was not expecting it to so authentically remind me of one of my favorite games of all time, BioShock, every time I turned a gloomy corner.
THE STORY
It’s the early ’70s and an animator named Audrey Drew is working at Archgate Pictures, spending her evening working overtime on animations. After being suddenly tricked and kidnapped by a mysterious maintenance man named Wilson Arch (who claims to have vanquished an “Ink Demon” several months before), she finds herself in a corrupted, inky form in the world of the Ink Machine. She also looks a great deal like a Little Sister from BioShock in this new form...which I’m sure is no accident. Audrey must now navigate the once thriving animation studio, and ally with iconic cartoon characters such as a battle-hardened Alice, a tough Boris, and even a “perfect” Bendy, surviving the horrors of the studio and avoiding the Ink Demon on her journey to escape this realm she now finds herself trapped in.
PLATFORMS
Right now, Bendy and the Dark Revival is only available on PC, but Xbox and PlayStation releases are coming at a later date. The PC version ran as smooth as butter on my computer on “high” settings.
TIME PLAYED
I put a little over four hours into Bendy and the Dark Revival, and I beat the first chapter. From where I stand now, it appears there are four other chapters to complete, so I would think that there’s approximately eight to ten hours more to plow through.
WHAT’S AWESOME
• Graphics/art style. The graphics of the game itself are great for sure, but what I was more “wowed” by was the old-school “Disney-ness” of Bendy and his cohorts. This aesthetic is ultimately tainted but in a fascinatingly macabre way.
• Melding gameplay styles. In my mind, some of the best games of all time are games that take several genres and mix them all together to make something much greater than the sum of its parts. Bendy does that quite well, even better than BioShock or Resident Evil, as there is a full-blown stealth element here beyond the first-person combat, puzzles, and magic abilities that you need to master in order to survive this ruined cartoon studio. As I am recalling, there wasn’t much stealth going on the last couple Resident Evil games or BioShock.
• If you haven’t guessed it yet, it's reminiscent of BioShock. It seems like it’s been forever and a day since there’s been a new entry in that enthralling series, and I’m seriously jonesing for another one. In my mind, Bendy and the Dark Revival is the next best thing until Ken Levine and the bigwigs at 2K Games get their collective acts together to give us a new BioShock experience.
WHAT SUCKS
• Not much. The only real issue I found while playing Bendy and the Dark Revival was that vital switches and the like would blend into the animated background and were hard to see, but once I knew how to look for this, it wasn’t that big of a deal.
SHOULD YOU PLAY IT?
Hell yes. Especially if you dig the BioShock series and the latest, first person Resident Evil games (VII and VIII). I honestly wish I didn’t have to review another game this week so I could get back to playing Bendy and the Dark Revival right now, because I truly want to see how everything shakes out in this ink-stained, Bendy-world. Hopefully, Audrey will be fine and everything will return to normal, but I have a sinking suspicion there isn’t going to be a happy ending here.
Ah, well... Good things come to those who wait, right?
💬 Do you enjoy first-person survival horror games? If so, tell me what some of your favorites are in the comments below!
Mentioned games
Comments
Latest
View 1 reply
No more comments. Why not add one?
