The Dark Pictures Anthology: Man of Medan

Man of Medan was reviewed on a PS4

After an awkward prologue filled with some of the worst voice acting I’ve ever heard in a game, Man of Medan switches to the modern day usual horror trope of obnoxious spoilt young adults that are just looking to have fun somewhere where the cops or the coast guard can’t get to them. This time around, their activity of choice is diving in the middle of the ocean, looking for sunken treasure.

What is Man of Medan?

Man of Medan is an interactive horror game in which your choices affect the outcome of the game as well as the relationships between the characters. This genre of gaming is a favorite of mine despite Telltale’s previous attempts at oversaturating the gaming world with them. (Read all about Telltale here)

Man of Medan is no Detroit: Become Human, and it still has a long way to go to be on par with it. However, despite being a bit too similar to Until Dawn, it still tries to improve upon the formula. If you’ve never played these types of games and you’re a bit confused, then let me simplify things for you.

Man of Medan plays like an interactive movie with some elements borrowed from point and click games like the ability to interact with objects that are found in your surroundings. The gameplay consists of exploring the environments with your playable character, pressing the occasional QTE (Quick Timed Event) and picking some of the dialogue choices and decisions of your character.

You choose who dies and who lives

The characters’ fates depend on your actions, they live or die by your decision making abilities. I don’t mean to brag, but during my first playthrough, all of them survived the ordeal. Which made my second playthrough even more interesting since I can now take riskier decisions and kill them off one by one, watching them scream in agony as they suffer a brutal death.

That’s what made Until Dawn such a fun experience, and the same can be said about Man of Medan. The game’s supposed to play out like a cheesy B-horror movie from the 90s, and it pulls it all off wonderfully.

Man of Medan is based on the legend of the SS Ourang Medan, a shipwreck that was found in the 1940s whose entire crew had died in mysterious circumstances. It’s the perfect setting for a horror game like this.

It’s about the friends we made along the way

Getting your head around the characters and their relationships at first can get confusing, but you quickly get the hang of it. Brad is the clichéd nerdy cowardly guy who’s also extremely nice (Because apparently being smart AND courageous simultaneously is impossible).

Alex is his older brother who oozes of the usual arrogant athlete charm. Alex is dating Julia, a rich dumb blonde that just wants to enjoy her vacation by desecrating abandoned underwater war graves.

Julia’s brother, Conrad, is the comic relief. He’s basically an alcoholic with how many times he’s seen with a beer in his hand — or, as he likes to call it, an amber frosty.

What ties them all together is their love of adventure as the four of them set out on a diving trip aboard a ship called The Duke of Milan. The ship’s captain, Fliss, is a strict authoritarian woman that rolls her eyes every time the preppy siblings, Julia and Conrad, open their mouths.

Unlike Until Dawn, Man of Medan offers more chances to change the relationships of its characters. That’s what makes it so entertaining — manipulating the emotions of the characters towards one another. The fact that some of the main characters are blood related to one another also makes it much more enjoyable to watch their interactions unfold.

Shawn Ashmore’s performance as Conrad is extremely amusing. He’s constantly trying to hit on Fliss, the ship’s captain. Not to mention that he drinks and swears like a sailor and acts like a complete jackass at times. While the rest of the cast do an okay job, Conrad is leagues above them. Both as a character and thanks to Ashmore’s voice acting.

Exclusivity has its perks

Man of Medan is a multiplatform game, which means it doesn’t take advantage of the PS4’s exclusive features. There’s no motion tracking when you’re interacting with objects, you have to press R2 and rotate them using the right stick.

No more swiping right on the touchpad to turn through the pages of the tattered journals you come across. Gone are the tense moments where you have to hold the controller in place while the characters hold their breath.

That last one though is replaced by a much better sequence that involves you tapping X in a rhythmic manner as to imitate the character’s heartbeats. However, the game doesn’t overuse it the same way that Until Dawn did, and it’s all the better for it.

Jump Scares Galore

What Man of Medan does overuse are the abhorred jump scares. Its overreliance on jump scares is hilariously bad and annoying. Each time my characters interacted with something, I expected a jump scare, and most of the times, I was right. That’s why Man of Medan, despite being a good game, it isn’t really a good horror game.

It absolutely lacks any true frightening scares. There’s no denying that it’s dripping in atmosphere and exploring the Ourang Medan can feel tense at times. However, there wasn’t a single moment where it felt as if my characters were in some serious danger. The jump scares actually made me sure that they were safe, since most of them don’t lead to any dire consequences.

Outside of missing a few QTEs (Quick Timed Events) and making the wrong choices, it’s hard to get your character killed. While the QTEs aren’t that prominent this time around, they’re still irritating at times.

The game’s first few scenes are slower than the latter half of the game, but I enjoyed them a lot. Man of Medan’s is better because of them. If it weren’t for the slow build up, the interactions between the characters wouldn’t be as enjoyable as they are.

The opening scenes also introduced a variety of locations and scenarios that were exactly what the game needed. The Ourang Medan is a terrifying ghost ship, but there’s no denying that the discolored corridors and the dingy hallways can get repetitive after a while.

A few creative camera angles also make walking through the desolate ship an absolute treat. Even though those angles can make the exploration a bit difficult at times, they’re well worth it.

Graphics and Sound

The graphics are a mixed bag. At times, the environments look stunning and almost life-like, while in some of the other locations, they look average at best. The facial animations, despite a few hiccups here and there, are great and do a good job of conveying the characters emotions. It often seems as if the love poured into this game wasn’t equally divided between all of its aspects.

The sound design is phenomenal though. All of the creepy sounds that you expect to hear in an abandoned ship are there. Squeaky pipes and the sounds of crashing waves, the gnawing of rats that crawl in the walls and that are often used, as the prop for Man of Medan’s numerous jump scares.

Once you’re done with your first playthrough, you have the ability to replay the game using what’s called a curator mode. It’s a mode where the game switches up the characters you’re playing as during most of the scenes. Which offers a different perspective and keeps things a bit fresh during any subsequent playthroughs you might take.

Overall,

Dripping with atmosphere, Man of Medan is a journey that’s worth experiencing if these kind of games are your typical cup of tea. If you’re going into the game expecting a proper horror game, that’ll give you a few heart attacks, then skip this one.

The lack of genuine scares prevent Man of Medan from reaching the same heights as its spiritual predecessor, Until Dawn. It is a bit short (about 3.5 – 4 hours), but the curator mode and the multiple choices available offer a bit of replayability.

Man of Medan is well paced and entertaining. Despite lacking in scares, it’s still a great interactive experience. We highly recommend you try it out if you can get it for a cheap price.

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