Back when I was a lad, I spent quite a lot of time at my local video store – remember those? It was located smack bang between my childhood home and high school, so my friends and I would often stop by and pick up a few snacks while perusing VHS tapes and DVDs. It was here that I first glimpsed the horrific visage of Pinhead — or The Hell Priest — Hellraiser’s overarching antagonist.
I didn’t get around to actually watching the Hellraiser series until a few years later, and I’ve still yet to watch later entries like Revelations and Judgment (you can’t have Pinhead without Doug Bradley, I’m sorry), but those first few films were genuinely terrifying. The notion of demonic beings who, unable to distinguish between pleasure and pain, take humans to a labyrinthine dimension to be tortured for eternity still sends shivers down my spine.
Clive Barker's Hellraiser: Revival, a first-person shooter from Saber Interactive, does at least capture the spirit of those earlier movies perfectly. This is thanks, in part, to the involvement of original creator Clive Barker and the return of Doug Bradley as Pinhead, his first official portrayal of the character since 2005.
The story sees you take on the role of Aiden, who loses his girlfriend Sunny to Pinhead and his Cenobites after a night of sadomasochistic debauchery. His journey to get her back takes him all the way from sex clubs to the Cenobite’s labyrinth homeworld. Make no mistake, this is an extreme game chock full of adult material, with full-frontal nudity and some pretty gnarly torture scenes right from the start. Credit where it’s due, if there’s a game Nintendo might potentially prefer censored, it’s this one, but it arrives on Switch 2 fully uncut.
Gameplay is a mix of exploration and combat, with a sprinkling of stealth and a dash of scripted chase sequences. The combat has you hunt down cult members with melee weapons and guns, the former of which can break after just a handful of hits.
During some scenes, you also have access to the Genesis Configuration, an iconic puzzle box from the franchise that lets you manipulate objects in the environment. This can be used to move blocks to solve puzzles or perhaps levitate circular blades, launching them into enemies to dismember them, proper Dead Space-style.
Combat is okay, for the most part. Melee weapons feel mushy, though, while guns fail to pack much of a punch. I found some of the enemy dialogue to be laughable, with many exclaiming “I’m gonna nail him from cover!” at every opportunity. Thanks for giving away your position, I guess.
The chase sequences, however, are my favourite sections, pitting you against Chatterer, a horrifying Cenobite who stalks you throughout a constantly shifting labyrinth. He can teleport, forcing you to change direction at the last moment. These sections are genuinely thrilling, and there were multiple “Oh s***!” moments when I thought I’d escaped only for Chatterer to materialise right in front of me.
سەرچاوەی فەرمی بە زمانی ئینگلیزی: https://www.nintendolife.com/reviews/nintendo-switch-2/clive-barkers-hellraiser-revival
