I was blind, now I see…actually, still blind.
Perception is a first-person adventure where you play as a young blind woman called Cassie. She visits an old house that has been haunting her dreams, only to find itself is haunted. Cassie must use her extraordinary hearing and razor sharp wits to overcome the horrors inside.
Tapping Cassie’s cane to the ground sends a ripple across the area you are in, highlighting the many objects around you. You’ll be using this a lot to basically see where to go, Cassie may be blind…but you aren’t, not really if you keep tapping the cane. The game will take just a few hours to get through and besides hunting for collectables, there’s no real reason to return once you’re done…but is the experience at least memorable?
It is, but I felt it could have been so much more. Perhaps a VR version would have made the experience more atmospheric and intense, but there’s little to no hope of that sadly. The story itself is fairly standard and while interesting, isn’t anything that hasn’t been done before.
Visually, the game is nicely detailed and the echo vision of the cane works really well. The voice-acting, on the other hand, is a mixed bag, Cassie does a decent job…but other characters do not fare as well. The music is a winner though with a creepy atmospheric tone throughout.
The Verdict
If only Perception was a VR title, it would have made more of an impact than it has. It’s got great ideas and a fairly decent story, despite being short. But it has no replay value once finished and isn’t as memorable as I would have hoped it would be.