AILA review, many horror games in one

Video games increasingly lend themselves to homages and self-referentiality, also in the horror genre. They know that in Pulsatrix Studioswho has already done remarkable work with Phobia and now returns with the curious AILA for PS5, Xbox Series X/S and PC.

Once again, we are faced with a horror adventure in subjective viewbut set under a meta umbrella that will be funny to veterans.

In this game we travel a few years into the future and play Samuel, a video game tester who lives locked up in his apartment and has a lot of experience with the fear genre.

One day, he receives the order test AILA, a new virtual reality experience which, he says, is capable of transferring our personal fears and traumas into the game.

As you can imagine, what started out as just another test gradually becomes twisted until cross some borders that will put Samuel’s base on the ropes.

At a playable level, The adventure is structured in two halves. On the one hand, we have the sections in which we go through the Samuel’s apartmentas a “rest”.

Here we carry out some routine tasks, from feeding the cat to deciding whether to have coffee or tea.

These pauses also serve to gossip about the apartment and discover some clues about Samuel’s past, besides seeing collectible figures that we find or story books that give us clues about what awaits us in the main missions.

Horror has many forms

And what are these missions about? The objective in each of them is to put on the virtual reality headset and enter a horror experience.

We don’t know what awaits us next, but AILA gives us some clues and suddenly launches us into horror themes: a forest attacked by a mysterious meteorite, a mansion full of secrets…

Although Each mission has a different setting and themePlayable pillars are always maintained.

We must explore, solve some puzzles and face the entities monstrous monsters that attack us, all crowned by corresponding duels with the final bosses.

But of course, depending on the configuration, we will have different weaponsfrom a crossbow in the medieval setting to a modern pistol in the contemporary setting.

THE the ammunition is not particularly numerous, so we have to use melee weapons and search healing drinkswhich we can mix with a red plant to make it more effective.

It’s not the only reference to Resident Evil that we’ll find in the game…

The puzzles are numerous and are based on the classics of the genre (look for keys with a certain emblem, locks matched to the clue somewhere in the room, etc.).

They have increasing difficulty that is never impossible, but can be a good challenge in the final sections.

Given the configuration, the game sometimes uses surreal elements, which causes objects to appear suddenly or certain corridors to change suddenly, so we have to be very attentive to our surroundings.

To give more strength to the experience, there are several moments when we have to make moral decisions, like “do we kill this character or let him live?”

Accept it with karma

All these decisions and some other game elements they change our karmaalthough the player cannot see where this karma is.

It’s more a matter of common sense. This leads to right story ramifications and ultimately changes the game’s ending that we can witness. Will we follow the right path on our adventure?

In addition to the interest aroused by the mysteries of the plot and moral decisions, The game is very horror-oriented. On the one hand, the environmental aspect, which is what works best thanks to the a very immersive and disturbing sound design.

We keep hearing the floor creaking, the knocks in the distance, the screams behind a door…

So we have the “jump scares” or sudden scares, which in our opinion are abused and end up being somewhat heavy and treacherous, especially when they involve a confrontation with someone who was waiting for us behind the door.

By the way, advice: put aiming help in the optionsbecause the default aiming is quite inaccurate.

In addition to a varied horror atmosphere and, to some extent, original by remixing so many scenarios into a single game, we have a more fun element.

It’s the reference, because as we said we find many references not only to Resident Evil, but also to other classics like Outlast or Alan Wake. It’s clear that the creators wanted to pay homage to their favorite genre.

Is AILA difficult? How long does it last?

Some Combat moments can be a little more complicated than othersthen there will be a time when you die and a time when you some puzzle makes you choke (especially since there are no maps or compasses of any kind).

Even so, by persevering a little you will be able to advance an adventure that lasts around 11 or 12 hours.

On a technical level, obviously It is clear that AILA is the work of a small studio, therefore, the scenarios do not have the level of detail of an AAA study.

Even so, They do their job wellthanks to the support of environmental effects and lighting, as well as a very efficient artistic design.

The character models aren’t bad at all, but their animations are weird and roboticwhich takes away some immersion from the experience.

This is compensated, as we said, by a much more disturbing sound section and achieved what they presented to us in Phobia. The voices, yes, are in English, with subtitles in Spanish that are quite well adapted.

In general, AILA is a horror experience that will especially please lovers of the genre.thanks to your references and your effort to break what we consider natural in the genre.

Playably, there’s nothing new and its visuals can’t compete with the big names in the genre, but Its setting and its history make us fall into AILA’s networks.

In our case, moreover, it is doubly an objective. We are game testers testing an adventure in which we are game testers. How strong, doctor.