Slender-Man iPad Review
Even if you avoid scary games at all costs, chances are good you've at least heard of Slender Man, star of the cult hit, Slender: The Eight Pages, a PC game that gave the survival horror genre the shot in the arm it so desperately needed. In it, players wander through a creepy forest at night in search of eight pages, doing their best to avoid the Slender Man, a tall and skinny creature with a knack for appearing out of nowhere and at the worst possible time, though if you play this title extensively, you already know there's no appropriate time for Slender Man to pop up. That said, we had high hopes that Rory Harvey's iPhone and iPad adaptation, called Slender-Man, would deliver the same terrifying thrills. Instead, it's one of the worst games on the App Store.
We begin with the dual analog controls, which by the way, are among the sloppiest we've seen in a 3D game. You literally cannot navigate the world effectively because the camera refuses to work in conjunction with the sticks. As a result, even the slow-paced Slender Man will have no trouble tracking you down.
On top of that, the game looks more like a PC tech demo from the 90s, which is an insult to 90s tech demos. The densely packed and fog-ridden environment from the PC version was replaced with a field sparsely decorated with trees and the occasional building. In fact, we managed to walk in one direction and lose trees entirely. Speaking of trees, they shift whenever you walk too close, but this has more to do with the game rendering textures than the developer attempting to draw cheap scares.
Then we have the flashlight. The entire game is conveniently lit, and you cannot turn the thing off, from what we can tell. Ultimately, this ruins the level of immersion we desperately wanted to enjoy.
And what of Slender Man? Is he worth getting so riled up about? No, at least not in the iOS edition. He's just some dude that slowly gives chase. There are no sound effects that go bump in the night, no footsteps behind the player. Instead, the screen goes crazy and you can no longer move.
Considering the great advances in iPhone and iPad graphics, Slender-Man should've made a smooth transition to iOS. Instead, it's perhaps the most disappointing title in mobile game history, an abomination that fails to justify its $0.99 asking price. Barring some heavenly update, it's both a waste of time and money.
What's Hot: No one will force you to buy it.
What's Not: Atrocious controls, terrible-looking environment, you can't turn off the flashlight, very few sound effects.
0.5/5
