South of Midnight Review (Laxative Payne)
My interest in this game throughout its marketing over the past year was cautious; the Deep South setting looked incredibly fresh, and the music of course sounded excellent--but the gameplay immediately underwhelmed with its button-mashy combat. Unfortunately, the marketing proved honest. But the enemy encounters aren't the only thing that's repetitive, the same can be said about the rest of the level design, and even parts of the storytelling. Despite introducing the occasional new ability and enemy type, those do little to shake things up when there's still a strict formula never deviated from.
1. Find item from protagonist's lost mother and watch her soliloquy
2. Basic, not very polished platforming, with Uncharted ledge-climbing
3. Some exploration on a tight leash (your control of the camera often stripped to show a point of interest), finding notes/examinable items and resources to buy skill upgrades or increase your health
4. Squeeze through many different loading screen crevices, though at least it's just an animation here
5. Enter plain, segmented battle arena to fight a bunch of the same enemies you fought before in the same way. "Unravel" enemies upon death--which itself is a repetitive act, as the camera always pushes in to play the animation--to restore health or trigger an AOE blast
6. When the enemies are cleared, unravel the arena's "knot" which brings you into a kind of narrative memory vignette, where for some reason you're forced to walk forward a few yards before actually watching the scene
7. Do the past several actions multiple times until they culminate in a platforming chase sequence with not much going on
8. Eventually fight a boss, putting up with the combat to hear awesome music
9. Repeat, more or less
Something else I noticed and found odd was that almost every camera angle during cutscenes is fixed. I can probably count the number of shots with movement on both hands. Those made the cinematic presentation a tad stale. Shame, because the writing and voice acting are compelling... compelling enough for me to reach the end. I also really liked the protagonist, she talked to herself yet it wasn't obnoxious.
If Compulsion makes another action-adventure title, they desperately need to take a page from Hazelight Studios' book. Variety is king. I think back to the first Psychonauts, how that became one of my all-time favorite games, disregarding the objectively rough edges. People would've criticized the platforming and combat of this game no matter what, but varied level design is a strong crutch, especially when you've got such an original concept.