Barrow Hill: The Dark Path

It'S been 10 years since the first Barrow Hill, and Jonathan Boakes tries again with a direct sequel. Ten years have not passed only in real life, but also in the game: in The Dark Path we dress again the role of the heroine of the first chapter, who returns to those places to try to explain what happened and find out what happened to all the people Disappeared in that fateful equinox. To complicate things, however, a group of guys who had nothing better to do than play with arcane forces that have not taken this intromission well. TDP is, as the first, a graphic adventure point and click to boxes and fixed screens, with arrows that allow you to rotate the view and look around. Graphically It was made undoubtedly a step forward, with screens rather edited and undoubtedly better than the first, crude, chapter (not that it took much). The resolution, however, as in many other games of Boakes, is still inexplicably fixed to the 4:3, for reasons unknown to me. In any case, in TDP we move through some family settings (the service station) and other unpublished scattered along the hill, with lots of map that tries not to make us lose in the intricate bush. But Where BH was a "ghost story" substantially in solitary and more in line with the classics of Boakes, with few intromissions from the outside and for this much more atmosphere and disturbing, in TDP there are a lot of characters (both "actors" true and digital) that They continue to call us on the phone every two steps or to appear for short cutscene, so annoying that, seriously, you can not wait to be taken from the spirits that have awakened only to get out of the balls. It Does not help at all the very amateur dubbing of the whole (with Welsh accent or whatever), which puts very little emphasis on what happens, even in more "dramatic" moments. The plot is also quite dull, even if it takes a while to the final. The gameplay instead remained more or less the same, you collect objects, you read several documents also interesting on folklore and ancient traditions, and as usual you have to "solve" the curse through a certain combination of objects/runes/ Whatever arranged in a certain order. This type of conclusion is almost in every game of Boakes, but here is a little ' less elaborate and does not require large studies or notes on Notepad: the same objects necessary to collect them without even having to look for them, and do not need much effort to make the right combinations . A couple of puzzles, moreover, are definitely not intuitive and solvable only by guessing or consulting a guide. There is Not much more to say, TDP is a title all in all enough and that lasts on 5-6 hours-depends on how much you lose in the woods-but it is not very difficult nor adds something important to what already seen (if anything takes away), and where improves in graphic design for But in the atmosphere: you tried to do something more modern involving even real actors, but it worked only to a certain point and the first Barrow Hill continues to seem better, even with all the limits of the time. If that and the other titles of Boakes you liked, then you can also consider the purchase, but in any case not at full price.