We play Psychobreak in Japanese but no scares were lost in translation

It’s official, Tokyo Game Show is trying to give me a heart attack.

First I was attacked by demonic victorians in Bloodborne, then Until Dawn made me squeal like a little girl, and finally Psychobreak (known in the West as The Evil Within) made me stab a brain until I nearly died. Of all the horror games I played during TGS, it was Psychobreak that left me truly disturbed; I expect to be seeing images of that bleeding brain everytime I close my eyes for the next few weeks.

I can’t tell you much new about Psychobreak’s plot, because I played the game Japanese, and I don’t speak Japanese. What I can tell you is that even without understanding what was going on, I was terrified and intrigued. On the face of it Psychobreak does not look that original, it’s a third-person survival horror game which you could be forgiven for mistaking for any other survival horror since Resident Evil 4. Trust me, looks can be deceiving. Just check out our video:

[fve]http://youtu.be/rWI-Fq6V3dA[/fve]

I began with a heavy heart as I headed into a mental asylum. Mental asylums are to horror games what swords are to actions games: reliable, overused, and boring. However when I walked through a blood-splattered door (computer game logic) and got sucked through a magic mirror I realized I was going to need to rethink my approach. That’s right a there’s a magic mirror, and it sent me back in time to collect a piece of evidence (in Japanese, but it was about a missing boy) which I am sure was important! Time travel in the first 30 seconds of the demo, I did not see that coming.

Within a few minutes of exploring I stumbled across my first inmate, who was, of course, snacking on the body of another human. As I aimed at his barb-wire wrapped head, an action I have perfected over the years, the scene shifted and shit got really weird. The zombie transformed into Psychobreak’s main antagonist, the colors on the screen became sepia and I had the sense that the world around me was swimming. Then he ran at me as I fired ineffectively into his face. He disappeared as he reached me and left me standing alone in the corridor. No zombie, no hooded villain, just me and an empty gun. Was that even real? It’s a fantastic game that makes you doubt the characters sanity without telling you that he’s insane.

And that’s just scratching the surface of the weirdness.

The next area contained a living brain (no head attached), a rough brain chart, and tool for poking. Guess what happens next? You got it… I had to poke the brain. When I poked it in the wrong place, there was a flash of pain and I lost a chunk of health, conclusion: I’m poking my brain. To make matters even creepier, in order to continue I had to trigger the consent part of the brain, I am not sure what I/it needed to consent to, but I am sure I’ll find out in the full game. However you look at it, I just poked a brain to open a door, that is some seriously messed up stuff. I loved it.

Don’t misunderstand, the rest of the demo was not as mental as the opening, and I spent a significant amount of time sneaking behind various zombies and executing them with an axe I found beneath a table. I then burnt their bodies, I am not sure why the game prompted me to do that, but I decided not to find out what happens to unburnt bodies.