Rewind or Die Review (PC)

I’ll just come out and say it: Happy’s Humble Burger Farm did something to me, man. The fact that I can no longer enter a fast food restaurant and not envision a floating cow and a spatula-sporting pig is a tough thing. Sure enough, the emotionless vessels (also known as chefs) are still there, but ever since I parted ways with that peculiar and, let’s face it, horrifying survival-horror restaurant simulator, I’ve been rather reluctant about throwing myself into another kitchen, office, or any form of workplace environment where the folk are borderline hostile, and the objectives are anything but orthodox. And yet, here I am — on the cusp of exploring an entirely new career choice—a clerk at a video rental store, of all things. Thanks, Rewind or Die — I guess I’ll just have to button up and deal with it, I guess.

The reason why I’m bringing up Happy’s Humble Burger Farm is because, if you was to remove the basic ingredients from the menu—a generic store setting, for example—then you’d essentially have an almost identical recipe, one that includes the likes of sociopathic customers with violent tendencies, and a musical score that, while somewhat sprightly, ticks all of the same boxes as an unpredictable fever dream with one too many screws loose. It’s like a virtual Blockbuster, I suppose — only with less popcorn, and a slightly more stalker-like vibe. And it works; it has that certain Scream feel to it, in the conceptual sense that, horror movies forge killer instincts and, as a result of that, masked intruders with ill motives. The only difference here, of course, is that the protagonist in question isn’t the killer, but the one serving from behind the counter. Tough luck, kid.

The Graveyard Shift

It’s late, and the last of your co-workers at the local video rental store has called in sick. It’s also dark out, which means, in spite of the natural ambiance of the weather doing its best to shed light on the situation, it’s almost impossible to split the difference between a romcom and a dark fantasy tape. To make matters worse, there’s a serial killer on the loose—a natural-born stalker who, for some tragic reason, has recently decided to transform the boroughs that orbit the VHS store into the hunting grounds for a batch of fresh kills. In spite of all this, the fine print in your contract states that you must keep to your duties, even if it means having to deal with the watchful gaze of the ominous silhouette on the other side of the room. The shift has just begun, and death, rather unfortunately, is inevitable.

Rewind or Die is a hybrid product that fuses the general mechanics of a business simulation game with a deeply disturbing twist—a theme that primarily sees you acting out the day-to-day duties of a store clerk, all whilst keeping track of another, slightly more opaque story that operates from the sidelines. As the clerk in question, you are given several tasks to complete—mundane chores that involve taking stock of VHS tapes, serving customers, and keeping a firm eye out for irate messages from the outside world. There’s something else to keep tabs on, too: the killer, a prolific figure who, although vaguely known to the rental store, has their sights set on a new victim. And that, really, is where you find yourself in the journey: shackled to the checkout, and under the thumb of a soon-to-be gory tribunal.

Into the Time Capsule

Rewind or Die presents itself as a nineties throwback horror in which grainy images and fatigued memories go hand in hand. The game, while staying true to its chosen genre, adopts a series of familiar themes that, if you had been around to witness in the nineties, are far more likely to resonate with you on a personal level—low-poly textures, grainy shapes, and a subtle yet spookily vibrant slasher-type soundtrack, to boot. With all of this combined, you pretty much have a love letter to the PSX era—a time where questionable visuals and animations were commonplace and, dare I say, universally acceptable. That’s all here, and so, if you did have high hopes of strolling into a “new” generation of gaming, then boy, you’ve come to the wrong place.

Aside from it being something of an ode to a lost generation, Rewind or Die is also a puzzle game in disguise. Well, I say puzzle, when really the toughest thing that you’ll have to do as a store clerk is patrol the aisles and develop a mind map for the sake of knowing which tape goes in which section, and which areas belong to which odd job. The good thing about all of this is that you don’t technically have to worry about falling short on your duties or losing progress; the game is broken down into relatively short chapters, which means, if you do happen to find the short end of the stick, there isn’t a huge amount of backtracking to be done. And that’s great, because when all’s said and done, there are really only so many times that you can check out secondhand copies of Jaws.

He Who Watches

What confuses me most about Rewind or Die is that it’s far more centered around the act of building suspense over executing well-timed organic scares. For example, in one instance, you receive instructions to sneakily move around the store and complete a slew of A-to-B puzzles. The thing about this section, in particular, is that you don’t need to tiptoe from anchor point to anchor point, for there is no looming threat — just a sense that something could happen at any given moment. And I’ll be honest, once the novelty begins to wear off and the illusion of being in danger fades away, the game itself becomes a little less haunting—easy, even. Don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of quality moments to be found, but to say that it’s entirely wall-to-wall horror just wouldn’t be true.

As for the killer—a portly chap who goes by the name of Slaw—there isn’t anything particularly special about him, nor are there any major personality traits that I’d classify as being unique, either. Like Saw, the foe dons a pig mask — but that’s about it as far as standout features go, weirdly enough. Still, the suspense that the game does attempt to build over the course of the relatively short journey is arguably its greatest achievement—a phone call here or there, or even the odd knocking on the faraway window, for example. To say that it’s a “heart-thumping” dive into the time capsule might be a bit of a stretch, but I’m not about to dock points for its undying desire to capture the essence of it, either. It does enough, and surely that counts for something, right?

Verdict

Rewind or Die promised to deliver a “heart-thumping, blood-dripping blast from the past” — and I’m somewhat inclined to believe that it is exactly that. Sure, from a conceptual standpoint, it isn’t anything to write home about, for it isn’t much more than the horror counterpart of a business simulation game. With that said, it isn’t necessarily the theme that sets it apart from its competitors; it’s the fact that its gameplay loop forever evolves and scouts out fresh ways to keep you on your toes, whether it’s by adding the occasional jump scare to the mix, or providing you with mundane tasks that hold a much, much deeper connection to the world and its lore. Granted, it isn’t the longest horror on the market—three hours ought to do the trick—but it is a horror experience that generates enough material to justify the price tag.

If, like me, you found the likes of Happy’s Humble Burger Farm to be a “good” place to call home for a few short hours, then you might be able to reignite that same sense of nostalgia with Rewind or Die. Like its nineties-centric peers, the game provides a solid backbone that, while not technically perfect, conjures a hefty amount of gratifying moments and surprises. As for whether or not it does enough to keep you in the loop for dozens of hours, however, is another matter. Even still, I will say this: it’s definitely one that you’ll want to consider rewinding, if only for the sake of unlocking a slew of core memories from your adolescent years. Just don’t expect to find any popcorn.