Cole Black wakes up in an old, abandoned asylum. He is confused and his sole memory is the attempted rescue of a teenage girl with a bomb strapped to her chest. With a strange technology fused to his head – used to read and replay human memory – Black travels into the depths of his own mind to discover the truth about his past.
Every step he takes, leads to the mysterious Red, whose intentions it is difficult to guess. Get Even is a game maintained in convention of a thriller, where action is shown in first-person perspective (FPP). Raising fundamental questions about the understanding of justice and reality.
The player discovers the story piece-by-piece through exploration of interactive environments.
Get Even is one of the most atmospheric games I have played. The music and sound effects do a remarkable job in setting the tone and the story proceeds nicely as your detective skills and memories build the narrative. It is primarily built around exploration and discovery, but does it in a way that is wonderfully entertaining. The combat elements work well, and the sleuthing and stealth all combine to make the game a fulfilling experience, one that has you sitting on the edge of your seat until you reach the conclusion.
This is an extraordinary gaming experience. Somewhere between shooter, stealth, sleuth, sci-fi technology and psychological horror The Farm 51 relinquishes conventions. Imagine a party where The Matrix, Inception and Total Recall celebrate with Layers of Fear, Metal Gear Solid and Alan Wake. Sounds weird? Yes. And then some.
Like Spec Ops: The Line and Alpha Protocol, Get Even is a flawed game whose strengths dwarf the mechanical weaknesses. Expect it to start popping up on podcasts or in long-form articles in the next few months, accompanied by the ever-present caveat “well, the combat bits aren’t particularly good” and then praise for almost everything else. It’s probably going to pick up 6/10 type scores in most places that aren’t here, and I can completely understand why. The shortcomings are easy to point out, but Get Even delivers a complex, non-linear narrative full of clever misdirection, shifting truths, and conflicted characters in a way few other games can match.
Get Even offers to players a quite different survival horror experience from beginning to the end. It has a different gaming experience, dramatic story and atmosphere for a survival horror game.
The biggest reason to finish the game is its multi-layered and complex story that’s prone to turning everything you know upside down at the drop of a hat. From medical drama to corporate intrigues to family problems – Get Even delivers what’s expected from a psychological thriller. [Issue #222, p.60]
Get Even creators have probably lost both fans of horror games and shooters by layering the story and dosing it through shorter memories. But they attracted both the fans of thrillers and fans of exciting stories – which is definitely quite an achievement.
There's no questioning that Get Even offers a different dimension to the first person shooter genre, yet it struggles to maintain the aspects that make it most unique, quickly devolving into a repetitive cycle.
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