ObsCure (in more ways than one)

:tw: Body Horror

Steam Link

ObsCure is a survival horror title from 2004 that was released on the Playstation 2 as well as the original Xbox, and eventually ported to Steam. It’s unique in the fact that it features drop-in co-op, allowing you and a buddy to control two out of a small cast of high schoolers. In fact, I’d very much recommend playing the game this way if possible. The controls and camera may be a bit janky, as thirteen year old games tend to be, but I personally had a lot of fun with it back in the day.

ObsCure follows four students of Leafmore High, as they lock themselves within the building to investigate the strange disappearance of their friend who never came home the school night before. It doesn’t take long for them to discover that sinister things are happening after-hours.

The game has an aesthetic of a B-horror movie, so keep that in mind if you wish to play or watch it for yourself, which I’d recommend that you do. It’s a fun and tense experience, full of some legitimately terrifying and disturbing situations, along with a mechanic that really stuck with me…

If you die while playing, your controlled character dies canonically, and you must switch to a remaining cast member.

There are a couple bosses and puzzles scattered within, as well as a light mechanic that creates some really unsettling situations as the darkness in a room grows rapidly while you wait for your flashlight to recharge…

If you’ve played Obscure or it’s sequel before…

  • What were your thoughts?

  • Which of the two did you prefer? Why?

I’d prefer spoilers to be properly marked, since I think this game can be a really fun experience that I wouldn’t want to be ruined for anyone interested in starting it.


P.S: This is my first time beginning a thread, so I hope I’ve done everything correctly… If not please let me know! I’d personally love to see a proper LP done of this game, but am not rightly equipped to do so…

My only experience with this game is in LP form, and I remember it being… rough.

I honest to god loved these games when I was 14. It was easy to ignore the roughness when you had Sum 41 playing in the intro lol. I remember the second game being much scarier though.

The second game was definitely a bit scarier, although it did away with a few things that I thought gave the IP it’s identity… but one thing both games did excellently was their soundtracks, because they’re both absolutely beautiful.

edit: and honestly Sum 41 being in it should have been one of the selling points I made.

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Yeah, The sequel is a very different game and ruins my favorite character from the first one, but I got a soft spot for both for very different reasons. I’m still crossing my fingers for a miracle of an HD remaster someday.

I’m with you there! There was to be a third game, but it was scrapped and eventually turned into something else entirely.

Unfortunately, I’m guessing since the series got such negative feedback that it made them scrap a project that we probably won’t get such a thing, but I still have very fond memories. And we can still hope…

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Oh man, ObsCure. I first played in the 6th grade with a friend of mine who just complained the entire time that we weren’t playing Silent Hill.

We recently came back to it on a nostalgia trip, and loved it. It’s just such a funny, dorky game. Felt useless once we got the jock character killed though …

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I’d love to get my hands on a copy so I could play through it with someone again, because that’s most of the fun IMO.

And yeah, being able to actually kill off a character always felt so impactful… especially considering you can neglect a puzzle at some point that results in one of your cast members being crushed by a safety-less elevator.

That actually leads to my biggest complaint about the sequel game, in that character deaths instead turn into a game-over state, with characters dying canonically throughout the story, rather than through your own actions. I felt like that really dulled the effect the first game had.

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I played both games with a group of pals in high school- we sat up all night and just did it. Also played the games heheheh
So they’re rough, and the second one has a dreadful final encounter, but I think they hold up as pretty OK survival horrors. Goofy but still kinda spooky, especially when it first gets dark in the first game.

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My only experience was an LP of the second game and boy did that look rough.