Despite being a big baby when it comes to horror games– I haven't even installed Resident Evil, let alone play it, despite everyone's rave reviews--I did for some reason spend time last week with Crisol.
Not because it's a horror game. It's pretty pedestrian in that regard, it's really more of a moody adventure game.. The pitch for Crisol is that you, a Spanish man washed up on the beach and given a mission from God, have to scour an island full of evil statues and blast them into pieces.
Using weapons that are powered by your own blood. Need to reload? Your guns have spikes in them and will just suck your life force straight out of your arm. Wanna imbue your knife with special powers? Once again: you're gonna have to juice that knife up with your own blood.
It's extremely cool to see happen, but of course in true Resident Evil, horror-games-are-actually-just-excuses-for-interesting-resource-management style, the actual point is to constantly force the player to juggle between their need to blast creepy puppet statues with their need to stay alive, since the blood you're draining to reload your guns comes straight from your health bar.
Also cool: this game is very Spanish. It defaults to an English dub but I had a blast playing in the excellent Spanish language track, because given the location and the Gods and the characters (and the developers, it's a Spanish game!) it just felt more appropriate.
Crisol is out now on PC, Xbox and PlayStation. If you're into everything from BioShock to the first-person Resident Evil games, it's great!
