I remember after I played The Last of Us for the first time, I felt like I was sort of done with video games. I had this feeling that a game's narrative would never blow me away the way that one had, and for the most part, I was right. But there was a bit there after my first playthrough where I didn't really want to play any games. But then I gave the PS4 version of Until Dawn a shot, and once again, I was excited to follow a story-based game again. It's not that I thought Until Dawn was at the level of The Last of Us, but it was an important reminder to me that not every piece of entertainment has to floor you in the same way to make other pieces of entertainment worth engaging. Just because I've watched Citizen Kane doesn't mean I shouldn't watch A Minecraft Movie. That's a poor analogy, but you know what I mean.

With the remastered version of Until Dawn available, I wanted to return to this world and spend time with this story again. And to be honest, I found it to be sort of a slog. I started this game four months ago (I was trying to finish it before the movie came out...whoops!), got tired with the place setting the game was doing, then quit it for a while, until I just ran through it over the last two days. Guess I forgot how short this game actually is!

And I get that the first two chapters need to set up who our cast is, but man, does this cast feel packed at first. Also, I would kill for a run button, because I think this game would take about half the time. I also find that a lot of the decisions that you make here are dumb luck, and can lead to disastrous conclusions. I found myself making a choice, having it lead to a death, then having to restart the section to fix the issue I could've never known would arise. I get that that's part of the fun, but I often just found it irritating. I do think I did better than my first playthrough though, and that was mostly without restarting sections.

But once I got past those first two chapters, I did start to enjoy the horror story that was being told, and the more it embraced the cliches of the genre, the more I started to like it. I love the moments when you're asked not to move in order to stay hidden, and the way this is basically four different horror ideas wrapped into one. It's a psychological thriller at first, but it's also a slasher, but ALSO there are monsters in the woods. It's trying to do a lot, but that over-the-top, ridiculous nature ends up being enjoyable in the long run.

Until Dawn didn't have the same impact on me that it did when I first played it, but I did have a good time once I hunkered down and worked my way through this horror story. For a quick burst of silly horror story, you can do worse. Plus hey, lil Rami Malek!