Have your socks scared off in Get Even, a psychological thriller game

I've been wondering around wearing a Get Even t-shirt since E3 2014. Whilst there in LA, a few chaps from The Farm 51 explained the 3D scanning technology employed by their upcoming game, Get Even.

I've often wondered whatever happened to that game.

I was quite surprised to see the game mentioned in a press release and jumped at the chance to take a look at a game that I really didn't think would see the light of day.

Get Even is a psychological thriller set in an old asylum. It's also a puzzle game, a stealth game, an action game and a horror game.

You are Cole Black, an amnesiac who wakes up with a strange device on his head (that looks like a VR headset), referred to as the Pandora, and a vague memory of a futile attempt to save a tied-up girl with a bomb strapped to her.

Using the Pandora, Black must unravel his memories, by revisiting them and collecting evidence. This all happens under the guidance of a mystery voice that's either his saviour or his captor.

The setting is eerie, but not as eerie as Outlast, and certainly not as eerie as Resident Evil 7. What seems to be some sort of survival horror game at first, is actually some pretty highbrow sci-fi. The game doesn't lead you by the noise, the developers have, instead, left it up to the player to find their way around, sometimes with the same confusion as Black.

Throughout the game there are notes, tapes and scraps of paper that all need to be viewed in order to grasp what is going on. The ADHD crowd need not apply. This is a game that requires time a patience to absorb its story.

The visuals are nice, but the 3D scanning technology that was so cutting edge, when I first saw this game in 2014, has already been used to great effect in The Vanishing of Ethan Carter. The graphics do, somewhat, betray the game's long development.

The game does feel a bit jumbled, instead of taking one genre as owning it, the developers have mixed in many elements. It does keep thing interesting, but it can be a bit distracting.

Using a pair of headphones, the sound design is absolutely chilling. The abandoned asylum is filled with strange noises strikes and screams that are quite disturbing.

On the whole, the odd things going on in the abandoned asylum-thing is played out perfectly. With the in-game references to VR, the outlandish reality-questioning sci-fi plot and the photo-real environments, the game lends itself to virtual reality. Whilst a VR version was planned, it was canned during development. It would be nice to see a PSVR version sometime in the future, although I'm not sure if my heart could handle it!

I was very unsure of Get Even at first, but the game most definitely grew on me the more I played it. The dialogue and text-heavy narrative may not suit everybody. But in taking my time to examine everything, I had a lot of fun trying to piece together what was going on.

Fans of psychological horror and mystery games are going to enjoy Get Even. It's not in the same league as Resident Evil 7, but it still offers an intense and enjoyable gaming experience.

Verdict: 7.5/10