MADiSON Early Hands On Impressions

MADiSON is the recently released psychological horror Indie game developed by BLOODIOUS GAMES. What’s with all these damn caps in their names? Anyways, I spent a few hours with MADiSON my Playstation 5. Below are moi thoughts. Yes that’s all the French I know. First impressions are good people. If you played Amnesia, SOMA or blessed enough to play Master Kojima’s demo P.T. Interactive Teaser like moi. MADiSON appears to be on their level. I am enjoying the early goings ons in MADiSON. Although MADiSON is an indie title it has that borderline AAA horror experience. The visuals are really good, not much voice dialogue or music to speak of yet though. Early in-game at Grandpa’s House kinda reminds me of the Baker’s House from Resident Evil 7 minus the bat-shit crazy Resident Evil antics.

Gameplay-wise Luca (the protagonist) gets a camera for his sweet 16 from Grandpa. The camera is the most important gameplay mechanism in MADiSON allowing you to cross dimensions and time allowing you to solve some really good puzzles. Luca has 8/8 item inventory capacity limit. Good thing there is a red safe to store your unneeded items ala Resident Evil. Items I found included medallions, photos, cassette tapes and Lucas’s notebook that he keeps notes in. Items are usually involved within story progression or and puzzles. The inventory so far reminds me of items I would have collected in Resident Evil or Uncharted. Weird I know, just a random observation. The puzzles themselves are good. I had to solve (open) a locked stone lid covered well involving three locks (I used the camera).

Interactivity is paramount all over MADiSON. You can open drawers, investigate clocks, safes, take items, collect cassettes and use them in a cassette player, turn on and off TVs etc. I haven’t noticed any smartphones which has me thinking this game takes place either in the 1980’s or 90’s. Presentation overall is solid. Like I said above I am playing this on my Playstation 5. It looks and runs really well from a technical standpoint. I’d say the visuals are a step below Resident Evil 8. Either way, I am impressed.

Atmosphere is creepy with the possibility of jump scares throughout if you’re a jumpy person. Horror and gore is definitely a thing as well. Let’s just say, I don’t want to ruin the story but Luca is definitely involved in a gory mess. For 34.99 on PSN I am enjoying with MADiSON. It has that good Indie horror atmosphere like Amnesia and SOMA did for me. I have no clue how long or what’s in store but if the entire game is like the first few hours it should end up being a good Indie horror game. That’s it for now thank you for reading – Jason