Slender: The Arrival

Scare yourself silly in this suspense horror survival game.

Slender: the Arrival is a story based survival horror game with a twist. Unlike many other entries in the genre, the point of the game isn't to survive as long as you can, building up resources from nothing. Instead, the game centers strongly along the story and the experience of playing through a series of events, surviving the game's terrifying antagonist, the Slender Man, until you get through to the end. The Arrival is the prologue to the first slender game, Slender: the Eight Pages, which was itself an experimental game. In the first, players are challenged to search the short game for eight pages of a book while being relentlessly haunted by a faceless man, the Slender man. This second game comes before in the story, but uses the same mechanics in a longer story to some what mixed effect.

Game Play

The most interesting mechanic is the Slender games is that the player can not fight the antagonist. The Slender Man is invincible, immortal and for that reason, extremely terrifying. The player, armed only with a flashlight, can only run from this creature when it gets close. Any close contact will cause the screen to shudder, distort and prolonged exposure causes death. While the Slender man hunts, the player is tasked with the same kinds of tasks; find a set of objects in a creepy landscape. The task is pretty repetitive and although the skill set of the Slender Man evolves so players are forced to change their tactics, there isn't much variety in how you solve the puzzles. Scare tactics are high on the games list of priorities and you'll find yourself playing to be spooked instead of playing for the puzzles.

Presentation

Slender: the Arrival is all about presentation. From the soundtrack of creepy background noises and excellent music to the way the Slender Man seems to stalk the player from near and far and the abandoned areas each level takes place. The game is short, but very intense and guaranteed to get your heart rate up. The story is a little cookie cutter, there's a missing child and a history of terror as the curse of the Slender Man is revealed to be driving people into violent madness. Abandoned buildings, etc. are all staples of the horror genre.

Pros

• Terrifying game experience will give horror fans something to scream about
• Excellent presentation, both visual and audio

Cons

• Repetitive game mechanics and unimaginative puzzles
• Short play through