Beholder

One in every 90 East Germans was an informer for the Stasi in 1989

Publisher Curve DigitAl / DeVeloPer WArm lAmP gAmeS / forMat XBoX oNe / release Date out NoW / Cost £19.99

Beholder Complete Edition

East gErmany: thE gamE Martin kitts

Would you rat on your friends to save your own skin? Condemn an innocent man to line your pockets? Or would you rebel against the forces that created this hellish dystopia in the first place?

Taking the role of live-in custodian of a gloomy tenement house in a grim totalitarian state, your officially mandated job is to spy on residents and report back to your government masters. By planting hidden cameras and rummaging through apartments while your neighbours are toiling away in the factories, you’re the first line of defence in the ongoing battle against subversion.

On my first playthrough I went full evil, and it did not end well. My first chore was to evict a seemingly nice old man, so I planted some contraband in his wardrobe and off he went, dragged away by the Secret Police, never to be seen again. Well done, said the man from the Ministry.

Things got a bit dark after that. I became preoccupied with digging up dirt on the residents, to the detriment of my own wife and children. The old man’s widow killed herself, my daughter died because I didn’t notice she was ill, and when I stole someone’s parcel to raise a bit of cash he went crazy and murdered me.

The next time I tried to be nicer, in the hope that happy residents might make a healthier environment. Instead of evicting the old man I opted to help him escape, a long quest that would involve money, documents and people trafficking. But there’s no happiness to be found in Beholder.

I failed to assist the old man, my daughter got sicker and sicker, and the mounting cost of medicine drove me to blackmail. Residents be damned, at least I could help my nearest and dearest, I thought. That’s when my no-good son got caught doing a robbery, for which I was held responsible, and with no money left to pay the fine I was carted off and executed. The voiceover added that none of my family would live to see the end of the year – a typically cheerful touch.

right the authorities arrive to drag a resident out of bed, beat him senseless and ’disappear’ him.

short cut

What is it?

People management and paranoia in the worst place on earth.

What’s it like?

This War Of Mine crossed with The Sims.

Who’s it for?

Anyone considering emigrating to North Korea.

“On my first playthrough I went full evil, and it did not end well”

Unhappy ending

It’s a great, if somewhat depressing, concept. New tasks pop up continually, and whichever way you decide to complete them there’s always a downside that might lead to a swift demise. If there’s a ‘good’ ending to the game, I’ve yet to see it.

In terms of gameplay mechanics, there’s room for improvement. There’s no stealth involved, so despite all the sneaking and peeping through keyholes, if you enter an apartment even while a resident is fast asleep they’ll instantly wake up and chase you out. The menus are fiddly, speech text is all stuffed at the bottom of the screen rather than in bubbles above a character’s head, so it’s hard to tell who’s talking, and the shadowy art style makes everyone look alike.

Beholder on Xbox One comes with the ‘Blissful Sleep’ DLC from the original PC version, in which the previous custodian performs one last task before being carted off for euthanasia, due to someone at the Ministry misreading his birthdate. That’s about as close to a muchneeded injection of levity as you’ll find here, but for all its relentless misery and stressful timer-based gameplay, Beholder is definitely worth experiencing. It’s a game that lingers in the memory. n

oXM VerDiCt

No horror ever inflicted on a Sim compares to this. Be brave and enter its dark world.

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