Perception Reviews

An imaginative horror game, Perception is coming at a well trodden genre from a new angle, but despite its good ideas, it doesn't quite live up to its own potential.

Perception’s unique echolocation gameplay hook is enough to sustain the game for its 4-5-hour run, but I was saddened that The Deep End Games didn’t explore this mechanic any more than it did. Had it, Perception’s shallow plot and characters might have found some redemption. Ultimately, Perception is more carnival than amusement park - cheap thrills than top shelf. If you like horror games, you’ll like Perception, but you’ve probably already experienced a bunch of horror titles scarier than this one.

Horror can often take all shapes and sizes when it comes to video games. Playing with the ideas of light and what is visible versus invisible to the player’s eye can play a huge role in the suspense. But what happens when the sense of sight is completely stripped of player agency? Perception toys around with the concept of ‘sight beyond sight’ and players take the role of Cassie, a blind woman tasked with investigating an infamous mansion and the secrets within.

Perception's blindness is both its biggest strength and weakness. While it did lead to some frustrating moments of being lost without a clue what to do, it also meant really having to think about the environment and truly wondering what each noise what. Perception was ultimately terrifying when it was at its best.

There are some great ideas in Perception, but the execution is somewhat lacking. Wandering around a haunted house with no vision should be a tense, methodical, creepy experience, but this game has a sprint button. You are given a lot of help to navigate and solve puzzles because if you did not have your sight and were trapped in a mansion with moving walls and keys to find you would be utterly helpless. This means the whole premise to the game quickly becomes pointless, which is a real shame.

Perception is a fun game full of unique concepts and ideas, but for a horror game it isn’t particularly frightening.

Survival horror games are ten a penny these days but Perception attempts to freshen things up with a novel premise and some unique gameplay mechanics. However, is that enough to help it stand out from the crowd?

Perception's mediocre narrative, annoying art style, and frustrating gameplay mechanics add up to a horror game that most fans should skip. In the meantime, The Deep End Games is a studio comprised of talented people that have worked on some of the most remarkable horror games in the industry, so perhaps its next effort will be worthwhile.

No summary available

The unique blindness mechanic just isn't quite enough to overcome a bland execution and lackluster story.

Explore a haunted, ever-changing house in this ultimately dull horror game.

Survival horror makes you feel threatened through your limitations. Perception takes this philosophy to an extreme: You play as a blind young woman named Cassie, maneuvering through a haunted mansion with echolocation, all while a ghostly presence stalks you. By teasing you with the unknown and playing with your senses, Perception largely succeeds at horror with its novel concept.

Not creepy or scary enough to quite work as a horror game, and without the sense of investigation that would make it work as a mystery, Perception falls between two posts. It's premise is strong and the echolocation works well, but there simply isn't enough to do in that old house, other than knock on the walls and listen to tales of times gone by. It's a game that I wanted to like so much more than I do, partly because it's so visually appealing and partly because Cassie is such a likeable character. She deserves a better story for herself rather than to be an observer of other peoples' lives.

Perception is full of interesting ideas, both mechanically and narratively, but it never fully commits. It’s a game about being blind that allows you to see. It’s a game about things that go bump in the night, but those horrors rarely show up to threaten you. There are some strong moments peppered throughout Perception, and some great, chilling histories to uncover in this virtual haunted house, but it plays at much bigger ideas than its surface-level exploration can handle.

Perception is as much a disappointment for the clever and inherently frightening idea it wastes as it is for the mistakes it makes. At its heart, there’s the promise of playing something genuinely new, from a perspective that could help teach and thrill simultaneously. It’s unfortunate that, like its echolocation mechanic, the more I saw of Perception, the more there was to worry about.