I’ve been looking forward to playing “The Park” ever since I first heard about it. There are very few things that I enjoy more than a creepy story about an amusement park. “The Park” promised to deliver a creepy theme park along with a side of disturbed family dynamics. My enthusiasm was dampened somewhat when I found out that it was actually a spin-off of the massively multiplayer game “The Secret World.” I just don’t care for massively multiplayer games, and so I was worried that some of that may have rubbed off on “The Park.” How well does it all work out? Let’s take a look!
“The Park” seems to offer a simple enough story at first glance. Lorraine took her son Callum to a theme park called Atlantic Island Park. As the two are getting ready to leave, Callum dashes back into the park and Lorraine runs in after him. As she explores the park in search of Callum, Lorraine begins to discover the strange and grotesque history of Atlantic Island. There’s this running Hansel & Gretel motif throughout the game, and a lot of references to the works of H.P. Lovecraft and Stephen King. None of these threads (the history, the mother/child story, the fairy tale, and the other writers) ever really converges with another of the threads in any meaningful way. In fact, none of them really gets a satisfactory conclusion of its own, even. The final nail in the story’s coffin, for me, was when at the end they spun the fact that a character took antidepressants into that character hallucinating and murdering. That’s wrong on a few different levels there.
“The Park” is in kind of a weird place, visually. The design is pretty darn good. The different rides in the park really do look like they could be rides in a creepy, rundown theme park like Nara Dreamland. However, on a technical level the graphics aren’t very good. It looks like something that could have come out around 2010 or so, rather than 2016. The character models are awkward and kind of blocky. At one point when I was playing, I saw Lorraine’s hand clip through part of her head. So, points for design, shame about the rest of it.
“The Park” brings absolutely nothing new to the table in terms of sound. The score is a pretty cliché affair consisting mostly of pounding that tries too hard to be ominous. The voice-acting is pretty dreadful, too. It hits that point where it’s not bad enough to be kind of amusing, but it’s still not good enough to be mediocre.
After playing “The Park” I have begun to understand why some people so strongly dislike so-called walking simulator games. There’s very little gameplay present in “The Park.” Whereas the other walking simulators that I have played include at least some sort of element of exploration, instead “The Park” takes place on a single continuous path with no real variation. There’s also a button that just calls out for your missing son.
I wouldn’t say that the park is the biggest pile of self-indulgent nonsense that I’ve ever seen, but it certainly comes close. It’s got dated graphics, poor gameplay, and a jumbled story which takes a sudden turn into demonizing people with mental health issues in the final act. There are a few good ideas lurking somewhere in all of that, but pretty much all of them can already be found in other, much better games. “The Park” would still be too expensive at five dollars, but at its current price of $13 it’s just absurd.
