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Layers of Fear 2-HOODLUM: A Psychological Horror Game on a Ship



Layers of Fear 2 is a first-person psychological horror game with an emphasis on exploration and story. Players control a Hollywood actor who heeds the call of an enigmatic director to take on the lead role in a film shot aboard an ocean liner. Beware, for all may not truly be what it seems.




Layers of Fear 2-HOODLUM



The game focuses on survival horror mechanics and stealth and is played from a first person perspective, requiring the player to use items such as a camera, cellphone, flashlight or Ellis' dog, Bullet, to track and follow the trail of missing nine-year old Peter Shannon while fending off shadowy creatures. Along the way, players will find strange wooden dolls, photographs and cassette tapes and will also be tasked with solving puzzles. Like the film, it integrates the found-footage subgenre with the gameplay and story, often through the use of cassette tapes.


The game plays out in a semi-open world, making players explore different parts of the areas which can sometimes lead to abandoned structures, campsites or little crevices that only Bullet can access. Along the way, they will find items such as wooden dolls, polaroids of missing people, dog tags and psychiatrist notes which are stored in the backpack. Also stored in the backpack are dog treats which can be fed to Bullet. Sometimes, areas can be blocked off by a log or a door and are only accessible by solving a puzzle or by collecting several items that opens or operates for example, a steam donkey. It may also require the player to find cassette tapes. There are two types; red and blue. The red tape allows players to manipulate and rewind time to move objects that have been locked or moved in place, while the blue tape tells more of the story. These tapes can be accessed via the camcorder.


While in the forest, Ellis will reminisce about his past through the use of several devices; a cell phone and a walkie-talkie. Whenever a call is received, the player can choose to accept or reject. This decision chosen will directly affect the game's conclusion as well. Messages and voicemails will also pop up occasionally, players can access them in the menu. Also in the phone's menu are the popular 2D games Snake and Astro Blaster which can be played at any point of the playthrough.


Multiple endings and outcomes occur from Ellis' actions. If Bullet is treated well, he survives the events, but will die if he is mistreated. If he kills Carver, Lanning, or Mackinnon, he completes his transformation into Carver and Bullet leaves in fear, causing a time loop. If he lets Carver mortally wound him, Carver ceases to exist, finally breaking the cycle. He dies with Bullet either leaving him or staying with him at his last moments, with his body later found by Jess and the search party. Lanning and Mackinnon's bodies will either remain missing or be recovered, while Peter is either missing, found dead, or found alive and safely brought back to his family.


Blair Witch was developed by Bloober Team who are known for their psychological horror video games, Layers of Fear and Observer. The idea of developing the game was conceived by Lionsgate who had purchased the rights in 2003 from Artisan Entertainment and were interested in doing a Blair Witch game after liking the work that Bloober had done on Layers of Fear.[2] Building on the foundation of their previous titles, Blair Witch was idealised as a semi open-world game with vast improvements to allow players to explore and fully immerse themselves. According to writer Maciej Glomb, Lionsgate had given the team free range to work on an original story that was set in the same universe as the films with guidelines set by the studio. This allowed the team to work on character development and the story while also focusing on the psychological aspects of the game.[3] The game was developed using Unreal Engine 4.[4]


The setting of the game was designed to follow the 1999 film, with the landscape of the Black Hills Forest. As writer Barbara Kciuk explains: "For us, open spaces are not only a challenge but also an opportunity...a forest setting gives you completely new tools to play with. Players can never be sure what lurks in the darkness".[5] For inspiration, the team sought out video games such as Firewatch, Alan Wake and Outlast and films that re-defined the found-footage genre which include REC and Paranormal Activity.[6]


Before you start, it is highly recommended that you read the short series of log reports on Steam that shares a bit of backstory and only takes a few minutes. Players control Captain Caine Phoenix, the leader of a salvage team whose job is to recover whatever you can from a derelict spacecraft discovered on planet Kepler 452b. The opening cut scene is visually stunning, with top-notch animations and sound but only mediocre voice acting (not to worry, as no further voice-overs occur for the rest of the game). A follow-up video of equally high quality sees your team exploring the ship and being ambushed by a malevolent drone, only to be saved by an unknown ally. You then find yourself trapped in a moving chair facing what looks like a giant robotic eye.


Fear is something that either makes you succeed in life only if you overcome it or it makes you weak when you give up in front of it. Mostly fear comes from within that means the horrific things that you see or get scared of are the cause of your fear and if not challenged and overcome, it becomes your worst nightmare. In the same way this horror game Layers of Fear is designed. There is a painter who tries to finish the disturbing secrets that are continuously appearing before the painter and are being discovered as you go on in the game. This game was developed and published by the Bloober Team for players having access to Play Station 4, Xbox One and Microsoft Windows since 16th of February 2016 the time when it hit the gaming market.


As a nuance to McGowan's thesis, this essay argues that not only figures of authority resort to methods of transgression in A Clockwork Orange. In fact, the film stages their acts of suppression as responses to the equally violent acts of transgression committed by the story's hoodlum. Aggression thus appears within every layer of society represented in the film, making A Clockwork Orange not only the apex of the "Golden Age of American film violence" in the 1960s and 1970s, but also a mirror of America's contemporary sociopolitical concerns (Slocum, 2001; Strange, 2010). As Prince (1998) points out, Kubrick's homeland at the time faced "steep increases in homicide, rape, aggravated assault, and robbery," which "fed a sharp public fear of street crime and nourished the law-and-order platform of Richard Nixon during the 1968 and 1972 presidential campaigns" (p. 28). Stanley Kubrick commented upon the spreading atmosphere of insecurity in the United States, specifically with regard to New York, his city of birth. In a 1972 interview with Gene Siskel, the director expressed his concern that in response to violence public opinion might lean towards "more authority of a... 2ff7e9595c


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