Let me just start by saying this game is cheezy, like a bad horror movie, and as a lover of bad horror movies, I love it to death. I loved it on the PS2 when I was 15, and I love it now. That said, if you cannot stomach bad voice acting, this might not be for you. It ping pongs back and forth between being quite good and laughably awful, but when given a chance it has some very tense moments, and the port is, in my opinion, a very good one all things considered. There is the issue that the game is not in widescreen, but it also wasn't on my PS2 so I am not terribly concerned with it. More important to me was the controller support, which thank god was added. There are also some token achievements for those who like that sort of thing, so overall, I am impressed. Overall, if you like cheap horror or old school survival horror, download this little cheap game and have a few hours of fun with it.

Obscure 2 is a refined example of the good effort turns bad and unsuccessful sequel, which made a big question of any further titles in the line. What we had in the first Obscure game? Old-school TPS "survival horror" ala Resident Evil 3. Fixed camera action, some monsters to beat with baseball bats and shoot with pistols and shotguns. Some not too hard puzzles to solve, some missed keys to find, some really bad big freak to finish in the end... Not perfect, but quite working recipe. As a bonus, there was a unique good soundtrack and overall athmosphere, which was really fitting the setting.

Now, the second game. It seems that developers were really going to make the sequel bigger and better than original.

Fixed camera? No more! Now you can choose the camera angles by your mouse, and shoot the monsters from the FPS perspective!

The characters. In the first game, every one of them had some unique and helpful feature. One could notice items laying around, another could outrun almost anything, third was breaking locks way faster... But, really, you could beat all the game with just one person, while others were sitting on the bench for all the way. Now, in sequel, it's much more intense! Every person still have some useful tricks under the belt, and the game course make you use them all! Some girl solving puzzles, other hacking the electronic locks, some guy is as agile as monkey and always somewhere above the floor level, trying to open the locked door by going some way to the other side of it. Et cetera. And it is working! There are really much more puzzles and other situations, where you need some team work, which feels even better in the coop mode!

The atmosphere is almost the same and maybe even more closely recalls the teens horror movies, which was the plan from the start. The music - goes from the same guy who made the first soundtrack... What could go wrong? The developers are certainly made a good work, so, why do I (and not only I, but overall sales numbers and ratings) think that the second game isn't that good?

Well, there will not be some clear answer. Sure, the plot is way too generic and pathetic - somehow even worse than before. Gameplay is much more versatile than before - and much more clamped all the way. Sure, the battle part, even with more different weapons and enemies - is lacking the using the lights part from the first game, and is clumsy more than could be due to the awkward controls. But hey, it's the same devs! Same story setting! Same and even upgraded coop game, where you really do team work!

Yet - alas - the aftertaste is much, much worse. So, my mark is about 62/100. Worth the interest in case you like the first game, and/or if you were looking for survival horror coop game which is not Resident Evil. For any other interest and especially in case you haven't played the first game - start from it, please.

Combine a storyline more loopy and incoherent than almost every Japanese anime ever made, a cumbersome real-time item-choosing system guaranteed to make you use those medkits even faster, a save system which ensures you'll have to waste countless minutes at a time getting back to the bit which killed you in the first place, the occasional obstructive "camera angle" almost deliberately designed to ♥♥♥♥ you six-ways-to-Sunday, and some of the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ boss fights in all of video game history...and what do you have?

Well, oddly enough, a mostly enjoyable and worthwhile gaming experience...but ONLY if you've already played several dozen other post-Resident Evil third-person "survival horror" games, and are so addicted to such curiosities that you'll endure almost any level of punishment in search of that next elusive "fix".

I recently played and wrote a review of the first Obscure in which I declared it a "pleasant surprise", or words to roughly that effect. Given that I had slightly higher expectations of this one in the wake of its more-than-serviceable predecessor, I wouldn't say that I'm "disappointed" so much as a little bewildered at just how nutty and, well, borderline incompetent this one so often gets.

Don't get me wrong: there's a lot of REALLY GOOD IDEAS here. One improvement it arguably makes over the original are the very distinct "special abilities" which each character has, all of which you will at some point REQUIRE to make progress through the game (as opposed to the "vaguely-useful-but-mostly-inessential" abilities evidenced by most of the characters in Obscure 1). To this effect, much of the puzzle-solving in this game is actually quite clever (though asking the player to pick a tricky lock puzzle in the midst of the climactic boss fight while a monster clobbers you from the side was perhaps pushing the friendship a little)! And the learning curve applied to these mini game-within-a-games is mostly realistic and achievable, even for a certifiable doofus such as I.

The scenery is also frequently interesting and varied. Perhaps a little TOO varied for realistic geography purposes, but never mind (just think of it like one of those epic sword-and-sorcery fantasy worlds where a blazingly hot desert and an icy wasteland are just a hop, skip and a jump away from each other...apparently suburban high schools and spooky, near-desolate islands inhabited by in-bred Texas Chainsaw rejects do much the same thing).

It's also a game with lots of "personality", not least of all within the characters themselves. Plenty of entertaining banter and carry-on whilst the gameplay continues unabated, giving it a convincingly "cinematic" feel and making you actually "care" a little more for the fate of said characters than your average paper cut-out video game personas (off the top of my head, the Walking Dead and Left 4 Dead games are about the only other horror titles so earnestly devoted to giving their protagonists more than two dimensions).

Look, it's pretty clear by now that I have a certain fondness for these games, even if this one in particular infuriated me almost to the point of electronic pulpification. Mostly I'm just relieved there was never an Obscure 3, 'cause you know that I'd feel obliged to play it, and judging by the quality arc this series has evidenced thus far, it would probably be almost intolerably "bad". ALMOST.

In the tradition of the best "trashy" horror films, let's just chalk this one up as a "guilty pleasure"...even if the "pleasure" parts only seem to come in spurts.

Verdict: 8/10.

It's hard to decide where to start with this one. But I'll start by saying that Obscure: The Aftermath was one hell of a good game and deserves a lot more than the 59 rating it received on Metacritic. This is truly a unique game that has never really been done before. A mix of Resident Evil and Silent Hill with a combat system that isn't ass. (Not saying RE and SH's combat systems are ass but it's not fluid and it's just tricky mostly, coming from a huge fan of both series.). Obscure gives you a mix of a good combat system that's fluid and like a classic survival horror having to stop to reload or swing your melee weapon and pretty good co-op gameplay, one of the only true survival horror games that has co-op and it was indeed creepy, co-op doesn't make a game less scary.

+Good looking for it's age, not super dated.
+Great co-op and gameplay mechanics/puzzles, not too hard, not too simple.
+Intriguing story that you'll want to know more about and hope for a third game, likable characters although they are pretty cliche. Stoner, techie, vixen, jock, comedian and goth.
+Nice control scheme, X360 controller support with button prompts and vibration.
+Practical Achievements.
+Mostly bug free and stable.
+Creature designs.
+Fun boss fights.
+Just the perfect difficulty.

-Voice acting is hit and miss.
-Pre-rendered cutscenes are pretty badly lip synced at times or are in general not very good looking and often times in-game cutscenes are better.
-No widescreen support at all, resolution options are there but the game is letterboxed at 4:3 with side borders.
-Camera can sometimes be weird, though in co-op each player can focus the camera on themselves hitting the right trigger in case they get stuck on a creature or need to have each player in a different location.
-Some bosses can continuously hit you if you get smacked into the perfect position and some boss fights have un-dodgeable moves, no warm-up animations or signs they'll be using their OP move that can't be dodged but most boss fights aren't super difficult.

Now I know you must be thinking: "Wow, that's a lot of cons...sounds like a pain in the ass..." well the positives outweigh the cons by a huge margin and honestly the camera isn't that bad and the lip-syncing/hit and miss VA work is understandable for a French indie developer title that released on multiple platforms in 2007, honestly the most annoying aspect of this game is the lack of widescreen support that was available on the PSP version which I had but didn't get the chance to play.

I'd highly recommend this game, specially for someone who just wants a creepy game in general with a good story or someone looking for GOOD scary co-op fun. That game is pretty short but felt almost perfect in length for me and you may need to play it twice to unlock all achievements, I missed one small key so I'll probably blow back through it again.

I did not play the original one all the way through, only the very beginning, but I will definitely pick it up when I feel like.

used to play this when i was like 9 on ps2 now i can play it again and its still freaking awesome

I play this with my aunt. We have yet beat the game.

Great co op.

i have a great friendship with someone and he is my coop partner

and with many games and adventures ... this game made our friendship gets so much better !

its sad there is no third part of this game , i recommend this game if you dont mind old games and if you have the right person to play with ...

still waiting for the third part

I rented this game on ps2 once, it might have been the dumbest horror game I've ever played. So of course I had to buy it on steam.

Child hood memories