My followers, lend me your ears like the days of old. I come to you after a long and arduous hiatus. An interlude where I began to wonder if there was truly a place in the world for an old doomsayer, such as myself. In a world filled with such darkness and hatred. In a world, so fractured, I wonder if the wounds can even be healed. It’s all wrong. When dark clouds begin to circle like vultures, I turn to stories for respite in my hour of need. Stories with heroes on their last leg. Broken weapons and shields littered across the battlefield. Doubt forms in the pit of your stomach as you fear this might be the end. Yet the dawn breaks, the epic music swells, and our heroes arise once more. Like those heroes, I must rise to the occasion. I must get back up cause, like those heroes, I have something worth fighting for: a dream. A dream of better days. A dream of a life more fulfilled. A dream that I will be able to help write those stories one day. Stories that help people when all hope seems lost. Stories that will inspire people to get back up and keep fighting, and that dream will always be worth fighting for. However, those days will not come until I take steps towards them. Those steps require me to return to my old soapbox and rant about games. I will walk this path for the better days ahead.
Alas, you might be wondering, what has the Video Game Doomsayer been playing during his time away from the soapbox? Well my eager followers, early in January, I played Blooper Team’s new game The Medium. Some might be skeptical as Blooper Team is infamous for their lackluster walking simulators like Layers of Fear and Blair Witch. However, Blooper Team has added a twist to their usual formula. You play as Marianne, a young woman in post-Communsium Poland circa 1999, who has the gifts of a Medium. She can see the spirits of the dead and will frequently help them pass on from the spirit realm. The Medium will often split the screen in half and ask you to control Marianne in both the real world and the spirit realm. She receives a phone call saying answers to her mysterious past lie in the abandoned Niwa Workers’ Resort: a communist vacation resort that was shut down following a violent, yet mysterious, massacre. Naturally, our heroine heeds the call to adventure and travels to the abandoned facility.
I must confess, I initially did not care for Marianne. In the beginning, she would always talk with such a gloomy tone. I remember rolling my eyes when she described a knife, not as a tool I could use to progress through a puzzle but as some metaphorical guilt. Even with the ability to help souls overcome their guilt and regrets in life, she initially writes it off as a curse rather than a gift, claiming she has seen things that would break an ordinary person. As I have gotten older, my tolerance for characters who seem unwilling or uninterested in changing their situation begins to wane. No, Billie Joe Armstrong, I do not have the time to listen to you whine about nothing and everything all at once.
Fortunately, this depressive side of Marianne seems to vanish when she’s interacting with other characters. Early on Marianne encounters the spirit of her recently dead adoptive father, Jack. He’s scared, confused, and unaware he’s passed on. At that moment, Marianne is supportive, calm, and caring. Completely focused on helping him pass on. Glimmers of Marianne’s bright side begin to shine beneath the muck of gloom.
Another character who brings the best out of Marianne is a young spirit named Sadness. Sadness is a young girl who died at the Nawi Workers’ Resort, and to get some information from her, Marianne must gain her trust by being goofy and playful. Marianne often resorts to childish jokes just to get a laugh out of Sadness, something I am pleasantly surprised to see. Again these interactions make Marianne a more likable character, but one thing I am confused about is how Sadness decided to name herself Sadness. I understand that spirits that linger in the spirit realm slowly lose their memories. I know Sadness interacted with other spirits of children who referred to her as Sadness, but honestly, she never seemed to embody sadness with her more playful attitude. It honestly felt like the writers merely named her Sadness because she’s a young girl who tragically died young. The story of The Medium deals with some dark themes, that I won’t spoil, that seem rather off-putting standing next to Marianne’s angsty inner dialogue and Sadness’s bizarre naming choice.
You might be wondering at this point if The Medium is a horror game. Many have said The Medium feels like a spiritual successor to Silent Hill, and I am not sure I entirely agree with that statement. I will admit many aspects of Silent Hill are present in The Medium: fixed camera angles, feeling isolated, and dark story themes. However, I never felt endangered when playing The Medium. Walking around the resort felt more like the time I looked inside an abandoned mall. The juxtaposition of an area usually teaming with life now empty and deserted. Yes, the hairs on the back of my neck stand at attention, but I never feel like I am in danger. Unlike Silent Hill games, where there always seems to be evil lurking under the surface. I will admit there were two jumpscares in The Medium that got me, but it very much feels very menial in my eight hours with The Medium. The Medium feels more like a supernatural version of True Detective, not made to scare you, but certainly made to make you uncomfortable. A tone that I was very much in favor of.
Unfortunately, the monster that chases you around doesn’t help with the game’s tension. Many of you might be scratching your head, as you remember how terrified you were when pursuers like Mr. X or Jack Baker were nipping at your heels in horror games. Unfortunately, I found this monster, known as the Maw, to be more annoying than scary. First, he carries a similar angst dialogue to Marianne, saying how he’s lonely and just wants to hear people’s skin. Second, you can only see him in the spirit world and the real world, he’s invisible. Frequently, you will be asked to sneak around him in both the spirit world and the real world. You have to sneak around him by ducking around debris and furniture staying out of his line of sight. Personally, I always felt like this form of stealth gameplay to be rather messy. It always ends with me cursing out the game and claiming there was no way I was spotted there. Since the Maw is invisible in the real world, you have to determine where he is by his footsteps and objects he knocks over, throwing another monkey wrench into the gameplay. I always feel like these sections we’re in need of Outlast-style lockers you can hide in, allowing you to almost reset the encounter rather than try to run circles around your foe.
Fortunately, The Medium has some clever puzzle designs. Most of The Medium takes place in a split-screen view between Marianne in both realities, it allows for puzzles that would initially seem rather basic to have their own unique spin. An early example is Marianne becomes trapped in an elevator in the real world, to get out she must attempt to restart the elevator in the spirit world. The puzzles very much lean into the strength of the game: the artistic creativity of the dual worlds. Exploring these two worlds and seeing how the architecture complement each other is clearly the highlight of The Medium, it especially became the driving force as the puzzles didn’t evolve as the game went on. Toward the end, I frequently felt well the developers were going too for the puzzle had run dry. I wouldn’t dare say any of the puzzles were bad, but they lack the creativity I saw in earlier puzzles.
MY LOYAL FOLLOWERS, I stand before all of you, I must confess I have thought deeply of my place among the art that I both criticized and one day hope to be a part of. I cannot deny that I see many faults within The Medium, but I also see that glimmer of something unique. As I thought of what to say, my mind frequently fell upon a quote from a fictional critic:
“But there are times when a critic truly risks something, and that is in the discovery and defense of the new. The world is often unkind to new talent, new creations. The new needs friends.”
-Anton Ego, Ratatouille (2007)
I have played more video games than one man should, and I do not recall a game quite like The Medium and its split world. I will not stand before all of you and claim it to be perfection, but I cannot say the flaws hinder the overall vision Blooper team had. I recommend The Medium to you, in the hopes that if Blooper Team does make a sequel they will iron out the uneven dialogue, the janky chase scenes, and the lackluster puzzles at the end. Personally, I recommend you pick up The Medium on the Xbox Game pass, as ten dollars a month feels like a fairer price than buying The Medium for 50 dollars. My LOYAL FOLLOWERS, you help me keep my dreams alive, I ask of you to help keep Blooper Team’s dreams alive as well. I truly look forward to a sequel to The Medium.
