Now in a forest behind the house from the first chapter, I picked up a shimmering item nailed to the side of a building and found myself reading a familiar message: “Note 1/8.” Naïve, I thought the developers had cleverly inserted an homage to the original game within the sequel. In a disappointing case of expectations versus reality, where I assumed there would be a gradual escalation of the tension created throughout the start of the game, I found instead a rapid wearing of my patience. It was a hint at what the chapter would hold, but one I apparently read the wrong way at the time. The second chapter is the first time I spotted Slender Man, standing on a distant hill, watching me for a few minutes before teleporting away. The first chapter is largely used to set up some of the narrative of the game (largely influenced by the Marble Hornets ARG series on Youtube), but it rides that wave of anticipation through until the beginning of the next. Knowing that something bad is going to happen, but not exactly where or when, keeps you on edge and makes the scare all the more scary when it finally occurs. As you proceed down the path and approach an apparently abandoned house, the game displays a clear understanding of what is the key to a great horror game: anticipation. You start the game on a dirt path through a field, on what would be a lovely fall day were it not for the sense of foreboding so carefully crafted by way of the creepy soundtrack and rapidly darkening sky. The title is divided into five chapters, the first of which manages to outshine almost every aspect of the original game despite its brevity. This is especially disappointing considering the promising start to the game. Unfortunately, what it is instead is more of the same less heart-racing and fright, more frustrating and trite. Where Slender: The Eight Pages was a proof of concept, a demonstration of potential, I expected The Arrival to be a full, fleshed-out, fear-filled experience. In Slender: The Arrival, I expected to find not just a continuation of the first game, but an expansion of it. The success of the original Slender, bolstered by the fact that it was free, provides additional evidence of the widened appeal horror games have achieved in just a few years. Recent entries into the fray like Amnesia and Outlast, now infamous thanks to countless Youtube “Let’s Play” videos, have brought in thousands of gamers who had never played or even considered a “scary game” before. Although die-hard horror fans will argue that it never truly went away, the genre seems to have made a resurgence in recent years.
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