Ethan Carter....or How I Wanted to Test My New Graphics Card

The Vanishing of Ethan Carter is a very atmospheric game that looks incredible! There. I just saved you reading the rest of the post.

Walking through an abandoned train tunnel, generic worldly paranormal investigator #337 enters a valley that has seen better days. His biggest fan wrote letters to him that got more and more disturbing that finally warranted investigation. Paul Prospero fights for missing children everywhere, or at least in this valley he can't leave.

The Astronauts have created a total feast for the eyes. These environments are some of the best ever in a mid-tier/indie release. The amount of work put in into the rendering of the rocks, trees, water, buildings, and murder scenes deserve all the praise in the world. It feels like you are searching through an actual place called Red Creek Valley that may have been an important mill/mine/railway stop 50 years ago. Because the environment is the most fleshed out "character" in the game the actual character models leave a little bit to be desired. They look like game character models in an almost photo realistic setting. The experience may only last a few hours but you could spend just as much time treating the game like a virtual nature walk. Oculus, we're looking at you.

Gameplay is handled pretty well in Ethan Carter. You are a detective piecing together how an incident (likely murder) took place. Different snippets of the event play out in front of you like the image above and you must put them in the correct order to find out what happened. A few other points in the game you have to search an area for traps, drive a motorized mine cart, and avoid a ghost in an underground maze. Control is handled just like a first person shooter sans the shooting so anyone who has played a popular game in the last decade should be able to pick it up and play. The only gripe I have is when you have to duck under something 75% into the game and it's the first time you have to do so. Then again, crouching in a first person perspective game should probably be second nature by now.

The story of Ethan Carter is just as much part of the environment as anything else. It's always nice to see a story on the small scale. The story isn't small per say, just not affecting the entire world. It doesn't always have to be the entire universe in the balance with the chosen one reluctantly stepping up to save it. Restraint can be so much more powerful than going all out. 

In an age where there is an outcry against games that aren't games this is a good argument that this stance is something that no one will care about or remember in the next few years.