For anyone familiar with the recent series of first-person horror titles, MADiSON will seem familiar right away. With moody lighting, narrow hallways, and a fascination with jump scares, there’s little here that really sets it apart from the likes of Longer or Scary classes on the surface. Diving into the game a bit more, however, reveals some pretty cool gameplay mechanics, primarily fueled by one item you’ll be carrying around for most of the experience: a polaroid camera .
The camera itself offers many functions; some of them are quite obvious, and others may not be so obvious until you start using it properly. Of course, its main use is to light your way in the dark. MADiSON, naturally, is a very the game is dark (although a patch to add to the brightness settings proves more welcome), so there will be many cases where you will have trouble seeing your front without any any clear light source. This is where your camera comes into play: a quick flash of the shutter will instantly reveal your surroundings, for just the briefest of moments. It’s a clever way to show you important items that might otherwise be obscured, but it’s also an effective way to do some pretty scary jump scares.
Another use of the camera is to show supernatural elements in your surroundings. This only becomes apparent when you start clicking the shutter at every available opportunity, and you might even stumble across this particular mechanic if you haven’t read up on it beforehand. Despite the well-founded setup, there’s a lot of supernatural elements in the game as revealed by the camera shutter flash or the polaroid image itself, so if you’re feeling a bit constrained and uncertain on which way to go next, just keep taking pictures; it will most likely trigger an event or give you some hint on what you need to do.
All told, while the cameraman isn’t the most original idea in the world, its implementation is pretty well done. It reminds us of a pivotal moment in a recent horror movie Host, and using it here would probably work as well. What is perhaps even more impressive is that the jump scares them; given that they often occur because the camera shutter is off, their appearance is heavily player-driven, rather than feeling like they’re being drawn into the story in scripted moments. It effectively increases your anxiety when you play, because you never know if taking pictures will lead to fear of jumping.
Visually, MADiSON looks pretty sheer for the most part. The lighting is particularly impressive and creates some real moments in the air. In the art direction, the environment is well designed, but there are instances where the assets repeat, like the picture frames and certain furniture. Given the impressive visuals, performance is expected to take a bit of a hit on the Switch, with affected frame rates being the most critical flaw here. The good news, though, is that the game itself is slow and methodical throughout, so this probably won’t prove much of an issue for most people.
If you’re a fan of horror games that focus more on atmosphere and fear than combat, MADiSON is a no-brainer. It’s not the most original game and it mostly follows the lead of pioneers like the aforementioned Outlast or even Hideo Kojima PT, But that does not matter. What you have here is an effective horror experience regardless and one that you will enjoy from start to finish.
