His Review with Ian

Catherine is part moralistic story challenge, part manga survival horror and part cinematic puzzler and is unlike anything I've encountered before.

As an introduction into the world of Catherine, and the game is genuinely attempting to create an alternative world, I was presented with Shakespearean quotes, pastel animations of sheep, a 70s cop show theme and a red afro’d Amazonian goddess called Trisha who begins to tell the TV tale of a Mr Vincent Brooks. It was a bamboozling set of framing devices designed to set me as a player, on an edge, never quite sure what to expect and therefore unable to second guess the direction of travel for either our protagonist or the game itself.

Playing as Vincent, a man in his early 30s (who says game developers don’t cast the game lead as mirror images of themselves?), he lives in a town where men have started dying in their sleep with a looks of pure anguish on their faces. His relationship with the long term girlfriend Katherine starts to ebb and fade and not coincidentally in the slightest he’s approached at a bar and somehow manages to fall into bed with Catherine, a young and frivolous hottie who seems to fit his fantasy image of “girlfriend”. So begins the choices set before me as I could plot either a worthy (Katherine) or morally corrupt (Catherine) pathway through the serious and adult dilemmas along the literal and metaphorical journeys.

The gameplay sees Vincent embedded deep in his nightmare every night as a half naked and horned sheep attempting to climb up several walled levels of hell to escape and wake up. He has to pull and push bricks out from a wall in order to aid his progression to the top before the blocks fall away beneath him and also to ring that incessant bell; a simple premise and one that I got bored with quickly. It became so very repetitive with the only variation being in how I manoeuvred the bricks i.e creating staircases, pushing them to let the walls drop away and many other methods of tricky brickery. The end of each level saw the added incentive of me being chased by some giant enemies (including obvious things like a giant bloody baby and a rather large bottom with eyes and teeth) up the wall, forcing me to think a little quicker and not hang around sheep spotting as I went oop t’brick.

The playable narrative saw me hanging around the bar interacting with my friends, customers and environment choosing to answers to questions which determined my goodliness or evilliness.

With Saints Row the Third and now this game using a mobile phone as a means of interacting and moving the game forward, it felt like an appropriate method of engagement as a modern cheats main tool is normally a private, discreet mobile device. I quite enjoyed getting picture messages on my phone from my dirty little girlfriend, which I had to hide away or look at in the toilet. I felt the game was attempting to give me an authentic experience allowing me to become shifty eyed, to feel how it must be to have an affair and not to get caught.

The soundtrack and audio design made up of mainly pre-existing classical works and an incessant ringing of bells – those bells, them damn bells, I heard them so much I was going hunchback at some points. They were designed to agitate and encourage me to behave in a certain way and in some respects it was successful. Hats also go off to the voice acting to Laura Bailey whose hushed tones and innocent lilt made Catherine all the more tempting to stray from my existing flock.

A true sense of puzzlement remains with me as I go to sleep each night, because Catherine has been playing on my mind. I admire it for attempting something different, something innovative in terms of player interaction and for making steps towards a morally challenging world whilst letting me choose my route through and decide whether I want to be a horny ram or quivering little lamb. But it is also fiendishly difficult with deaths happening so often that I almost didn’t notice that I was starting again. However, all of these things were designed to create this groundhog necessity of falling down, getting up and starting again like a good nightmare should. Catherine you’re a real bad kid!

Her Review with Tracey

Vincent’s head snaps up from its slumping spot on the table and his eyes bulge as he hears a familiar female voice ring out “There you are!” Bright blue eyes and twisted blond plaits almost draw the gaze away from the white, lacy, revealing mini-dress Catherine wears as she enters the Stray Sheep bar. Tired, emotional and guilty as charged, Vincent is in panic mode as he’s been a very bad boy, cheating on his pregnant childhood sweetheart Katherine with the bubbly young Catherine; an affair that might just cost him his life.

Though many might be inclined to quickly condemn Vincent’s deceit, Catherine with its strong sexual themes is not all Manga porn or a shallow story with a few climbing block puzzles thrown in, but is a cleverly crafted and thought provoking experience. Lengthy anime cut scenes from Japanese STUDIO 4°C made me feel like I was part of an interactive movie rather than a game, as the mysterious tale of male morality and mortality was slowly revealed. Meeting his girlfriend, the prim, polo-neck jumper wearing Katherine for lunch, it’s clear that she is keen to tie the knot with the shaggy haired protagonist and similarly clear that Vincent needs time to think this proposal over. After a tedious day at work, Vincent heads to his local bar with his friends and finds himself in a predicament that I initially rolled my eyes at and tutted loudly over – another chap who can’t keep his pants on when a pretty girl turns his head – but eventually I found myself almost sympathising with him. Witnessing the impossible yet mysterious and life threatening situation he has found himself in with the complex, plausible and perhaps even forgivable elements to it resulted in my moral highground eventually being whittled away, just as the blocks fall away from Vincent in his climbing nightmares. Such is the strength of storytelling and vocal performances, Catherine managed to unsettle and question my typical strength of resolve without being underhand, shocking or provocative simply for the sake of it – it’s the Derren Brown of videogames where digging into the human psyche is often agonising for the scrutinised but rewardingly entertaining . I questioned; what would I do? What should Vincent do? What will the consequence be and how will this affect my ‘game’? Perhaps the game was actually playing me…? Nail were bitten, my bottom lip was squished and eyebrows were raised. What was happening to me???Interestingly, during the nightmares, you can see how other players online responded to questions like “Is marriage the beginning or end or your life?” or “If you get a call from someone you hate, do you answer it or let it go to voicemail?” Each answer then influences Vincent’s inner monologue – how good or bad his thinking becomes – and also what events will be triggered but I also found it influencing my own opinions. Ian was an outrageous bad boy and got explicit texts (so revealing, his Vincent had to sneak off to the bar’s toilets to view them) plus phone calls from Catherine during his indulgent affair whilst I didn’t experience that but there was a sneaky part of me that wished I had... Ironic that when faced with the question "Are you a pervert?" I had to actually stop and think about my answer! The boundaries of cause, effect and of how complex, sexual, adult relationships are built on or can twist trust, decisions, action and faith are pushed to limits rarely seen in videogames.

Set over the course of 8 days, the bar is where the real ‘game’ takes place but it was only as the story drew to its conclusion that I realised every activity I did, be it having a conversation with fellow patrons, drinking at the bar, playing the arcade machine, listening to the jukebox, bothering to watch TV news reports or responding to text messages ALL had an impact on the final outcome of the story, of which there are at least 8 possible endings. I almost felt like the game had played me as with some clever plotting and some difficult moral questions about fidelity and commitment in relationships, my responses and actions influenced everything that was happening around me. This isn’t just forcing players to make tough, ethical choices as seen in games like Dragon Age or Fable, here it purposely invites the player to engage or not with everything that’s on offer. There is opportunity to interact with as much or as little as is of interest which I found simultaneously empowering and agonising as I always felt I might be missing something. I did miss lots and perhaps a lot of what I did do had no relevance to the overall story or outcome at all but it was my choice, my game and it all felt personal. Drink until drunk and Vincent climbs faster in his nightmares, fail to talk to someone at the bar on a certain night and the result may be similar to signing their death warrant… gah, the responsibility is all too much! Here though, even sleep offers no peace.

Catherine risks becoming a very shallow experience if a player refuses to fully engage with the story. The nightmare block levels are included to be beaten or Vincent will never see the morning. Though some of the levels are fiendishly tricky (especially the panic inducing boss stages including a giant baby with dummy and translucent skin with throbbing veins networked across its face crawling up to grab Vincent shouting “Daddy, where ARE you?” - yes, I am having therapy to block out this hideous image), I found that after a few trial and error deaths, once I had mastered three or four failsafe techniques for how to slide blocks into the best positions to overcome sheer walls or ice/spike/bomb blocks, it all became a simple process of getting through. I suppose, this fits contextually with the overall story – Vincent has no choice but to climb if he wants to survive and there are religious/historical overtones to the tower puzzle as well, with some lovely male and female symbols making up the grill in the end of level confessional booth. It is also useful to meet and chat to other, familiar looking sheep on the way up to get a better sense of why this is happening or to motivate/push each other off but in the latter stages of the game, block scrambling can feel a bit laborious. The constant vertical racing to the incessant bell at the top still offers some win factor and of course means the next section of story is revealed but I would have liked a bit more variety of challenge.

As with any flirtatious, hormonal affair, ultimately Catherine may not leave players feeling good about themselves depending on the choices they’ve made or what they learn about themselves in the process, but it did leave me with a strange sense of completion and satisfaction. I’d got through the relationship and puzzle horror unscathed whilst diving into a dilemma worthy of a Take-A-Break feature and perhaps this is the whole point. There is certainly enough intrigue to replay it again and see what would happen when a totally different set of decisions, actions and attitude was made. Elsewhere the HD anime presentation is sexy and beautiful. The whole package felt unique – quite unlike anything I’ve played before and certainly an experience I’d recommend… just be careful when telling your girlfriends about it.