The Attic: ‘The Bunker’ Review

bunker on steam

bunker on steam

Welcome to The Attic; remember to stick to the routine.

The X-Files PC game that came out in 1998 was the first, and only other, FMV (Full Motion Video) game I had played until The Bunker last week. As a huge X-Phile since the late 1990s, being able to play a video game that utilized my favorite characters in a live action setting was life-changing. Up until then, I had never seen or even heard of a game that used real actors to film scenes that you would be able to play through by clicking in rooms and on objects to trigger these pre-recorded scenes. For me, it was revolutionary. It was like being able to control and yet still watch a whole new episode of my favorite series. This memorable and unique experience has stuck with me all these years, and remains one of my favorite gaming memories of all time. If you have never played an FMV game before, The Bunker would probably be a good place to start, but that is due more to the lack of options than it being the perfect example.

You are in Britain during an alternate version of the 1980s where the Cold War has taken a hard turn for the worse. The bombs have fallen and many took shelter in large, government-built, bunkers. You play, but mostly watch, John, a man who was born and raised in one such bunker along with his mother, who is a doctor for their fellow inhabitants. There are many flashbacks in this game, and it is interesting to see how quickly the residents began to turn on each other once they realize that the food rations will not last them until it is safe to go outside again. This, along with a sudden outbreak of a mysterious illness, is what led to some very tragic events.

bunker on steam

Years later, John is the only surviving resident, and so he keeps up his daily routine of checking himself for radiation, reading to his dead mother’s corpse, and checking the inner-workings of the bunker to ensure that his air supply is safe from the radiation outside. Suddenly, one day things go awry, and he must face his fears of leaving his post and enter the other levels of the bunker to fix the problems before they get worse. Why is he so scared? What is looming in the other levels of this structure?

Without getting too spoiler-heavy, I’m just going to say that my assumptions all proved to be true, and I felt like all along it was a bit too obvious what he was afraid of facing. There were a couple of moments where I felt maybe the slightest bit of a creepy vibe, but this story is more suspense than horror, and I was disappointed by that. The actor that plays John is Adam Brown, who was in The Hobbit Trilogy, as well as the upcoming Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales film. There is no denying he did a fantastic job, and was my favorite part of the experience.

bunker on steam

The Bunker, unlike the aforementioned X-Files game, uses very little in terms of immersive controls and trigger objects, leaving you to “control” the game simply by clicking on circles when prompted. A few of these are time-sensitive, but for the most part even failing to do so in time didn’t lead to anything very important happening or not happening. As long as he survives, the end is still the same. I know I keep mentioning it, but The X-Files game just felt more engaging. You collected objects and had to figure out what to use or show others to question possible witnesses, and push the story along. It made you think and investigate.

This story is certainly very different, and so I could still be happy playing an FMV game without many control options, but only if the story was something that really hooked me. I need something to really keep me engaged, besides just feeling depressed for my main character and sort of wishing he would just die to be put out of his misery. It was like watching The Twilight Zone’s “Time Enough At Last” episode, and if you’ve seen that, you know what I mean; it’s brutal. The Bunker’s ending was anticlimactic and that drove me nuts, but from a storytelling perspective, I understand why they chose to take that route. All-in-all, I would still recommend giving it a try, but wait for it to drop to at least 50% off on Steam, like I did, and only expect the game to last for a couple of hours.

bunker on steam

What’s downstairs?

If you have any FMV games you recommend, please let me know in the comments below! I absolutely love the experience, and would love to try some more.

Stay scared,
Dark Princess

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