The Dark Pictures Anthology: Man of Medan

The Dark Pictures Anthology: Man of Medan is a nice starting point to a series that tries to recreate the horror movie scene with a choose your own adventure gaming experience. From the start you are thrust into a story of what is real and what isn't and you try to play the game the best you can with the info you have on hand.

Graphics are nice, with added ray tracing for DX12 launcher, and environments are believable and characters are pretty fleshed out, with a few minor flaws here and there like exaggerated faces and reactions sometimes throwing you off. Sound design is good, nothing special, but enough to make you feel uneasy at moments, which is what you need in a horror game.

I enjoy this style of game, it's part movie, part book, part game that makes it a great game to sit back and relax and just enjoy playing.

Man of Medan is an interactive drama and paranormal horror game. It is part of the The Dark Pictures Anthology series. It’s a game where 5 characters can be played by you or with a small group of other players. The evolution of the story is influenced by the player's choice and those choices can alter relationships between each character.
I found that this game had a slow start, meaning that it took me a while to get into the story. But when I got grabbed by it, I completed the game quite fast. I had quite a few jump scares! Graphics and sounds are nice! I think that it’s better to play this game with a controller instead of the keyboard. I found it was harder to control characters with a keyboard than the controller.
The story is about 4 friends and a captain going on a boat on an expedition to find a WWII wreck. While on the expedition, they get caught in a storm and find the shipwreck. They say that this game is inspired by the urban legend of SS Ourang Medan, a ghost ship. Strange things happen on this boat and you’ll have to focus on keeping all characters alive. Unfortunately, in my first play through, I managed to save only 3 of them. Took me about 4-5 hours to complete the story once. To fully understand the story, I think the game needs to be played more than once. Happy gaming!
---{ Graphics }---
☐ You forget what reality is
☑ Beautiful
☐ Good
☐ Decent
☐ Bad
☐ Don‘t look too long at it
☐ MS-DOS
---{ Gameplay }---
☐ Very good
☐ Good
☑ It's just gameplay
☐ Mehh
☐ Watch paint dry instead
☐ Just don't
---{ Audio }---
☐ Eargasm
☑ Very good
☐ Good
☐ Not too bad
☐ Bad
☐ I'm now deaf
---{ Audience }---
☐ Kids
☐ Teens
☑ Adults
☑ Grandma
---{ PC Requirements }---
☐ Check if you can run paint
☐ Potato
☑ Decent
☐ Fast
☐ Rich boi
☐ Ask NASA if they have a spare computer
---{ Game Size }---
☐ Floppy Disk
☐ Old Fashioned
☑ Workable
☐ Big
☐ Will eat 10% of your 1TB hard drive
☐ You will want an entire hard drive to hold it
☐ You will need to invest in a black hole to hold all the data
---{ Difficulty }---
☑ Just press 'W'
☐ Easy
☐ Easy to learn / Hard to master
☐ Significant brain usage
☐ Difficult
☐ Dark Souls
---{ Grind }---
☐ Nothing to grind
☐ Only if u care about leaderboards/ranks
☐ Isn't necessary to progress
☐ Average grind level
☐ Too much grind
☐ You'll need a second life for grinding
---{ Story }---
☐ No Story
☐ Some lore
☐ Average
☑ Good
☐ Lovely
☐ It'll replace your life
---{ Game Time }---
☐ Long enough for a cup of coffee
☑ Short
☐ Average
☐ Long
☐ To infinity and beyond
---{ Price }---
☐ It's free!
☐ Worth the price
☑ If it's on sale
☐ If u have some spare money left
☐ Not recommended
☐ You could also just burn your money
---{ Bugs }---
☑ Never heard of
☐ Minor bugs
☐ Can get annoying
☐ ARK: Survival Evolved
☐ The game itself is a big terrarium for bugs
---{ ? / 10 }---
☐ 1
☐ 2
☐ 3
☐ 4
☐ 5
☐ 6
☑ 7
☐ 8
☐ 9
☐ 10
---{ Author }---
☑

Nice little scare tale game with some very minimal interactivity. Mostly just you deciding from a few options to continue to story or moving from room to room to get some discoverable items for some story background. Not much action here so if you're in a mood for a bit more "chill" game to watch and play then this is the game. There some nicely timed scary moments in the game and thankfully not many tasteless jumpscares.

Man of Medan has everything I love: choices that truly matter, an engaging horror story, and fantastic co-op options, but it's held back by a rushed and emotionless ending. It can be played solo, in couch co-op, or online co-op, and I found online co-op to be the only one I can’t recommend, the definitive way to play this game being, in my opinion, in couch co-op (Movie Night). The playthrough was gripping, with stunning visuals, immersive atmosphere, and a strong sense of mystery, but it ended so abruptly that it left a huge void. The lack of proper closure for the characters made the final moments feel hollow. Still, despite its flaws, it’s a great short horror experience that I’d recommend to fans of the genre.

Steam Deck performance review of Man of Medan:
This game is listed as unsupported but here is my steam deck performance feedback after spending +40 hours and 100% achievements. I kept the game on the default graphical setting. If you want a full review of the game itself, there are plenty of reviews online.
Long story short: It runs! Perfectly. Better than some verified games and the best performing Supermassive Game so far that I have played on the steam deck.
I encountered no game breaking bugs, no crashes, no freezing, no frame rate issues. Nothing to force me to restart the game or steam deck. In fact, this game ran a lot better than Dark Pictures: House of Ash, which was listed as playable and had severe graphical glitches, frame rate issues and crashes.
Problems I encountered with Man of Medan:
1. Minor audio glitches in some of the extra menu features videos.
2. Very rarely, texture pop ins and loading while in-game.
3. Minor graphical glitches and environmental clipping while navigating the environment.
4. Battery drain. I'm using the original LED version and my battery lasts only about 90 mins with about 50% brightness while off the charger.
That's it. The game runs just perfectly on the steam deck and is completely enjoyable.

Man of Medan works alright as a horror B movie but it lacks the flair and finesse of Until Dawn. A large part of this is because the story isn't adequately fleshed out. Despite decent VA, the script is subpar and characters often lack proper emotional responses - not to mention odd facial animations and the occasional visual glitch. Spooky jump scares in MoM are aplenty. These are fun to experience with a friend and while making different choices is intriguing and can lead to a character's early demise, MoM's ultimate reveal is underwhelming. Supermassive punctuates each chapter with brief commentary from the curator, an observer NPC who judges your gameplay but doesn't hold a candle to the disturbing presence of Dr. Hill or the Quarry's fortune teller. Still, choices-matter games like these are, much like pure stealth, painfully infrequent so I am grateful for a short unspectacular journey rather than nothing at all. Buy on sale. Achievement hunters please note that one of the trophies requires playing co-op with a friend online.

I enjoyed this game, second one of the anthology that I’ve play. So far House of Ashes is the better one.
Personally, I feel like this one had an incredibly slow start. The setting is cool once you finally get there. As for the characters, I personally did not like half of the main cast. Story is overall good, kept me engaged for the most part. Definitely buy this one on sale.
If I had to give a score, I’d give it a 7/10.