by Gary Chapman
The game “Phasmaphobia” became big throughout late Sept. until Halloween. The game became popular through people from the likes of Markiplier and other Let’s Play-ers of the type playing the game and getting the heebie-jeebies scared out of them.
Phasmaphobia, the first entry by VR centered developers, Kinetic Games, was released in Septe. 2020 as an early access title on Steam for $14.99. The game revolves around you and up to four people being urban ghost hunters and investigating hauntings from small houses to cabins, one of the largest locations being a large abandoned high school. The game’s main objective is to get evidence for a haunting and then confirm what type of spirit you have, from Jinn to Mare and demon to poltergeist. The game’s evidence is fingerprints, EMF Level Five, spirit box and freezing temperatures.
While the game is designed with virtual reality headsets in mind, it works fine playing it on a monitor. The game is rather graphic intensive, with the Unity engine pulling a lot of power out of most mid-high level CPUs.
The game has you earning money with each successful exploration, with you starting out with items like flashlights, an EMF meter and a spirit box (a device that scrolls along radio frequencies that ghosts communicate through).
The game requires a microphone as the spirit box and in-game voice chat are required in order to play the game. I have a Blue Snowball and that works fine for the game. (Even though we just play the game in a Discord VC.)
Most of the maps need more than one person, especially as you move up in XP. You can get by with two, but it is recommended to have four people, as it makes the experience more fun.
In conclusion, “Phasmaphobia” is a fun and enjoyable horror experience, that is if you have people to play it with. The game is worth the $15 price tag, and I would recommend it to anybody.
