35MM Review (PS4) – Small team projects always have their limitations. The trick for those teams is to take those limitations and find a way to convey their vision.
This stands as the principal for all creators, but limitations make or break the end product. 35MM endures heavy consequences for its own limitations, but the game still puts together something unique.
35MM PS4 Review – A Beautifully Gloom Concept Shot Out Of Focus
Immediate Repetition
You play as a nameless man making his way across the dilapidated countryside to reunite with his family. He meets another nameless man who accompanies him for a better part of the game’s journey.
A handful of events take place along the way as you journey back to your hometown, practically all of those events somber.
The first glaring thing you notice is the low-end PS3 graphics. In fact, it reminds me regularly of the Telltale Games’ aesthetic but without the stylized cel-shading.
Unlike Telltale games, though, characters lack any facial animations outside of blinking and mouth moving. At the same time, a fair amount of effort goes into animating how character eyes move in their sockets.
Several signs in 35MM indicate that the small development team was limited not only by resources but by time.
The next aspect you begin to question is the game’s audio. You hear loops of the same sound over and over and over, including sounds from people.
At one point I made my way through a hospital with sick people, and someone coughed incessantly in the distance. The same hack and cough repeated itself until I found the next story beat.
Another point in the game I walked down a dusty dirt road and heard myself stepping in a puddle.
The longer I played, the more I felt like the developer used stock sounds from the public domain for the game’s effects (the ending credits confirms this). But at the same time, something feels so cool about this project that it warrants a shot.
A handful of people took their idea to the Unity engine and created what they wanted. It likely isn’t what they imagined, but it still delivers their intentions.
Rigid Gameplay
Gameplay is just as rigid as what you find in Telltale Games, but Telltale Games are walking sims. The heavy, clumsy camera movement does enough most of the time, but its limitations show themselves in the handful of gunplay sections.
Aiming takes much more effort than in most games, but thankfully enemy AI and movement lack any difficulty or quickness.
Gameplay also includes wide spaces of nothing to see or do. In defense of the game, this is a post-pandemic world devoid of much life.
At the same time, you get free reign to run around large empty areas rather than play a channeled linear experience. Many of the gameplay issues that 35MM has, I believe, could have been either alleviated or mitigated by making the game a walking sim.
The intentions of the gameplay, alongside the few story hints of the main character’s background, indicate that he lacks much firearm experience.
While gameplay limitations in games like Silent Hill add to the formula, the limitations in 35MM break any immersion the game creates.
The character’s limitations come from development issues and not from creative expression.
Bleak Ambience
This game reeks of bleakness in the best way. The story doesn’t feel like a scripted affair, and the ending outcome feels just as tragic and happenstance as what you see in real life.
It’s abrupt and unfulfilling to see where the main character’s efforts ended up, but that’s also what happens in real life.
The team behind 35MM sets a dark tone and sticks with it, despite the game’s technical shortcomings.
It’s also important to note that making different choices throughout the game adjusts how the game ends.
While the endings don’t vary too greatly, the ending I got felt incredibly tragic and I feel like it did enough to make the 2-hour affair worth my time.
The game also visually excels in dark, confined locations. These areas generally include small puzzles and an eerie soundtrack, an urgency that compliments the lighting tech behind the game’s flashlight.
It’s not to the realism of high-end AAA titles, naturally, but it does the job to the same effect. I almost say it performs better just because of how it enhances the limited graphical environments.
Getting By By Making Due
At the end of the day, Sergei Sergeich, in tandem with Sometimes You, created something he wanted to share with the world, and that aspect of the game shows.
35MM is far from a good game, but it also offers a type of story not often found in this industry. I can’t say it’s for everyone, and I also can’t say it’s among my favorite games.
I can say that I applaud the efforts around the extremely limited budget and resources put into the game to ultimately come out the other side of development with this final product.
Review code kindly provided by publisher.