I am not historically a fan of survival horror games. It could be that as a young child my parents never let me play them, or it could be I was more interested in burying myself for 100+ hours into a good RPG. Whatever the reason is, I just never got into them.
When I saw Dark Meadow I was intrigued. I had just come off a fresh play through of Infinity Blade and I was craving more. I purchased Dark meadow because it looked good. It utilizes the Unreal engine and on an iPad especially, it looks amazing. I also wanted to try out a survival horror game, and figured this was a good place to start.
Set in an old abandoned hospital, you wake up in a room unsure of how you got there. In the room with you is an old man in a wheelchair who tells you a few quick things than rolls away to whatever safe spot he has found for himself. He will remain in contact with you via the hospitals intercom system (not sure why it still works because quit clearly nothing else in the hospital does). Every time you enter a safe room he says something new to you. This is one of the best things about Dark Meadow, hours into the game and I have not come across any duplicate dialogue. You would be hard pressed to find this much story and dialogue in any other iOS game.
As you explore the different rooms and hallways you will find small scribbling, newspaper articles and doctors notes that will help piece together a story. I won’t say anything, but it gets rather interesting.
As far as game play mechanics go, it feels a lot like infinity Blade. You tap a location on screen and you move there. Unlike Infinity Blade you don’t know when the next monster will appear in the dark cold hallways. Combat is just like Infinity blade but a little more basic. You dodge and block, then frantically swipe the screen with your finger to do damage. The one complaint I have with Dark Meadow is the combat, after awhile it gets repetitive, but fortunately it has so much more going for it it make the combat palatable.
All on all it is a great game and pretty to look at. I would recommend it to any iOS gamer out there. And at only $5.99 it is a no-brainer. It’s a lot of game and eye candy for not much dinero.
Value: Purchase @ $5.99