Greyhill Incident Review

Greyhill Incident

Release: June 13, 2023
Publisher: Perp Games
Developer: Refugium Games
Genre: PlayStation 5 Reviews, ReviewsXbox Series X Reviews
PEGI: 16
Comments:

 

Comment

Greyhill Incident was instantly on my radar from the first time I saw it. It’s pretty public knowledge at this point that I am a sucker for a good horror game, and honestly, the whole alien aspect hasn’t been done that often, and definitely not like this.

It’s the early 90s in the US, the media talks about weather balloons and conspiracy theories. But residents of the small neighborhood soon realize! THE GOVERNMENT IS LYING. The recent increase in paranormal activities over the last few days have convinced the scared and now paranoid residents of Greyhill, that the Government are somehow involved. They trust no one. The small neighborhood of Greyhill are afraid to speak up and fearing being sent to the psychiatric ward, they avoid calling the police.

Alone, they prepare by boarding up their windows and founding a neighborhood watch.As Ryan Baker,”an average guy” equipped with a baseball bat and a few bullets in his revolver, your path is to get across the atmospheric neighborhood of Greyhill to save a neighbor who is in serious trouble. Find useful items, solve puzzles and you meet other neighbors as you fight to survive the invasion and guide Ryan through the neighborhood.

Sneak through the open areas of the atmospheric US Neighborhood which has been invaded by Aliens & UFOs. Investigate houses & barns and search for ammo while you work up your way through the village and uncover the Alien Conspiracy. A constant threat which invaded the village with their flying saucers.”They” are trying to abduct everyone in the village, taking samples of everything, making experiments and probing people. Sneak, Run or fight to get through Greyhill and beware of “The Greys”.

The game fully leans on the Drive-In movie Sci-Fi vibes of the 6o’s. Utilizing the classic Grey style of aliens is an excellent touch. The game does not rely on the actual aliens to intimidate you, it relies on the atmosphere to add the fear into things. Unfortunately I think the viral status of this game leading up to release set it up for failure. The studio was set and primed to release a game and build upon it, but the internet took it as being the next big thing, and I bought into the hype as well. Truth is the game is flawed, they have done a few updates to make things a bit better, but the expectations were too high out the gate.

The game has a very strong opening with the actual invasion, chaos and abduction of your son. You soon realize that despite being a champion baseball player, your bat is relatively useless. You can swing away at aliens but the best case scenario is you knock them down and try to run away and hide. But your stamina is ultimately your greatest enemy, there is a long pause between swings and you can only run short distances, leading the aliens to abduct you (game over). The fog covered town makes for a very creepy atmosphere, unfortunately you have no idea where to go, there is no map or direction to tell you where to go. You quickly become distracted with fetch quests and seem to not really care about what happened to your kid. You end up just stumbling through the darkness trying to avoid aliens and collecting stuff in the process.

The developers have patched the game numerous times since the release, and they are making progress to making this a much better game than it was at launch, which is why I waited awhile to write this up. They have reduced the aliens’ line of sight and hearing to prevent the swarms from overtaking you, as well as reduced the amount of time the stamina takes to refresh. So they are addressing the issues and feedback. I genuinely think the team is hard at work making this the best experience it can be, it may take some time, but I bet they are learning a lot that they can apply to future updates and games. So I think at this time, it’s worth a shot, just lower your expectations while they work through the static.

Trailer