Misery Nights Review (PC)

It should’ve been a means to an end. Clock in, clock out, and cash a quick paycheck. But it wasn’t. Instead, it was a battle of the mind—a juggling act of emotions and strenuous tasks. A failing generator; a ventilation shaft that just wouldn’t emit oxygen; a multi-tier camera system that required more hands than I could dare to give; and an entire shopping mall of colleagues who had a lot more to present after the shutters went down. For all the while I figured a night security job in a seemingly harmless place with the name of Mall Nice would be a smooth ride, there was something much, much darker skirting around the complex. I just didn’t have the gift of clairvoyance to understand it or, after so long, how on earth I’d survive till dawn.

Take the fundamentals of Five Nights at Freddy’s’ original camera-oriented gameplay style and add a dozen extra problematic components to the mix, and you’ll have Misery Nights, in a nutshell. The idea is as equally simple: survive the night shift and make it till dawn. The problem, however, is that the mall that you happen to find yourself in isn’t a stranger to technical issues. Here, everything requires constant attention, from the generators that power the building to the flashlights and radios that suffer from irritably low battery lives — and just about everything else that you could dare conjure up. Herein lies the objective: to maintain the mall’s shoddy infrastructure and to ultimately fend off the “colleagues” who transition from friendly to sinister once the clock strikes nine.

Either alone or with up to five friends, you must face a rather formidable challenge: banding together to either hold the security room and keep the mall from falling into the wrong hands, or equipping yourselves with whatever tools you can to turn the tide and tackle whatever monstrosities that roam the corridors from dusk till dawn. Here’s the catch: everything is likely to go awry, and nothing you do will prevent the mall from getting a lot of unwanted foot traffic. Your role, as the security officer, is to figure out how to conquer the night shift whilst tackling various tasks and odd jobs around a fairly complex shopping mall.

Misery Nights isn’t a game that you’ll want to play alone, as doing so is a bit like juggling fourteen balls at once. It’s possible, but it comes at a price: it isn’t as viable, and it certainly isn’t as fun as it sounds. With a great variety of things to do around the mall—a world that is fairly beefy, all things considered—a team of three, maybe four people is better equipped to face the horrors that roam rampant here. This isn’t to say that it’s a bad single-player game, but it is one that puts a harsher emphasis on its multiplayer experience. It brings about a few arguments, naturally, but it does make for a surprisingly engaging co-op affair, more so when you collectively work together to formulate a well-oiled machine that can juggle all of said fourteen balls simultaneously. It’s a rare occurrence I’ll admit, but one that also feels oddly rewarding to find once the wheels of motion are aligned and the workforce starts to find its feet in an act of compliance.

For a fairly compact mall that houses a lot of corridors and facets, there is a good amount of replay value to Misery Nights, despite the objectives remaining mostly the same throughout. Thankfully, due to the nature of the situation and the uncontrollable curveballs that you have to endure, you do have a unique experience that’s made to feel like a different world with each new shift that you take. Granted, there are only so many hours that you can pour into it before the whole process begins to feel a little stale and lacking in surprises, but it warrants the price tag, nonetheless.

From an audiovisual standpoint, there’s isn’t anything particularly special here, despite the game boasting a “realistic” atmosphere. That said, where the game falls short of a clean and somewhat sophisticated visual palette, it does make up for with its integrated stealth and audio detection capabilities. And that’s a pretty big thing here: the stealth-based mechanics and the voice recognition technology. It isn’t as fleshed out as it could be, though it does add a layer to an otherwise textbook tiptoeing excursion with a few unprovoked jump scares.

While I personally wouldn’t go back to Mall Nice to reboot the horrors for a second time, I can see the appeal in it. If you’re hoping for a quick solo journey, then you’re sure to find it here, though you’ll also be missing out on a lot of what the game has to offer, too. However, if you have the companions and the mental capacity to withstand a world that’s constantly on the verge of collapse, then you’re sure to find a solid fright fest with a good amount of longevity here. Just, eh, don’t expect an award-winning experience.

Verdict

Misery Nights might not live up to the standards set by Five Nights at Freddy’s all those moons ago, but it does, on the other hand, make for a pretty thrilling co-op experience that would no doubt benefit any late-night romp or stream. Again, it isn’t the most polished horror game, and it still has a couple of loose screws that could do with a little extra tightening in the near future. That being said, for what this is—a quick and exciting throwback horror flick that has its best foot in all the right places—it ought to make it into your catalog for a night or two. Don’t expect a seamless experience with a lot of near-perfect components. You should, however, expect to be able to lose yourself in the chaos of it all. It’s the little things that matter here, really.

For a small independent co-op horror game that has a good amount of weight to it, I’d say that Misery Nights makes for a worthy investment. It might not be the greatest horror game you’ll ever get your hands on, but if you can take it all in your stride and with a huge pinch of salt, then you’ll likely get your money’s worth here.