Review DanMaul 3/5 · Oct 18, 2023
Two opposing forces going at each other
This is an interesting FMV with some cool ideas, but also some problems. The Bunker’s trump card is easily its atmosphere. At times, it does a great job of immersing you in the experience and its intended feelings of isolation, paranoia and despair. This is backed by some powerful old school horror imagery - a couple of moments can be …
This is an interesting FMV with some cool ideas, but also some problems. The Bunker’s trump card is easily its atmosphere. At times, it does a great job of immersing you in the experience and its intended feelings of isolation, paranoia and despair. This is backed by some powerful old school horror imagery - a couple of moments can be tough to stomach -, surprisingly decent acting for such a low budget production, and a welcome narrative twist that keeps its short playtime engaging from start to finish.
However, The Bunker comes with some genuine problems as well. There’s a noticeable lack of QoL features, such as fast forwarding or a decent interface, and the very minimal or even unnecessary input required through long stretches of the game make the experience overly passive at times, even for FMV standards. There’s also a bit of a design flaw that gets highlighted in moments where you may get locked out of extra content if you accidentally click on whatever prompt you’re faced with and it moves the story forward. Finally, like in most games that feature them, QTEs are absolute sewage nonsense. And somehow this game manages to make them feel even worse than usual, since you can be really thrown back a bit if you miss a QTE (particularly easy to do so on console).
So overall, The Bunker is a mixed bag. I still think there’s quite a bit to enjoy here for fans of the FMV genre, especially if tone is one of the things you tend to gravitate towards. But sometimes its technical and design shortcomings seem like they’re trying to sabotage the experience in an almost intentional way. However, on a sale, its playthrough time being basically the length of a movie makes it quite easy to recommend, flaws and all. 6.5/10
