Shaun Munro reviews Don’t Knock Twice…
Don’t Knock Twice is the most dubious of prospects; a video game based on a recent indie horror film that just about nobody saw (though I did, and reviewed it earlier this year). This adaptation of the mostly-panned Katee Sackhoff-starring movie was originally released for other platforms last month, and though I passed on the chance to review the PSVR version at the time – I’ve had my VR horror fill for now – the idea of playing it on the Nintendo Switch was far more enticing.
Though atmospheric to a point, and horror continues to be an intriguing genre for Nintendo’s scrappy handheld, Don’t Knock Twice is for the most part a disappointingly piecemeal proposition. With an over-adherence to genre tropes and touting an unforgivably bad framerate, this is ultimately little more than a brief time-waster when you’ve got nothing better to do (really, absolutely nothing).
Fans of the movie – they exist, apparently – will be underwhelmed from the outset that this game has only the most tenuous of links to the source material, hinting at its wider narrative but having zero involvement from Sackhoff or any other actors in the film. The game sees the player exploring a large house in search of their lost daughter, discovering clues in the environment in order to progress, all while being terrorised by a supernatural entity.
That’s the hook and it’s as basic Haunted House 101 as you can get. Unfortunately there’s not much more to the game than entering a room, looking around for clues and objects, trying the next room, hacking the occasional door knob off with an axe, completing a few fairly rudimentary puzzles and rinsing and repeating. There’s no real sense of conflict because though the jump scares might elevate your heart rate on occasion, there aren’t any death states in the game at all.
More than anything, Don’t Knock Twice is a dull game that borrows the most reviled elements of the genre while adding little to make it anything more than an ersatz, bite-sized imitation of effortlessly superior haunted house romps like Resident Evil 7 and Layers of Fear.
In addition to the boredom, the controls can prove rather frustrating; even opening a door or picking up an object is fiddly and awkward, while trying to juggle multiple objects at once is flat-out irritating. This is most likely because the game was initially designed for VR and the “flat” versions were then hastily churned out with the most basic, low-effort control solution possible.
Worse than all this, though, is the Switch version’s extremely troubling technical issues. The framerate appeared to dip below 20 FPS regularly (that’s an eyes-only estimate, by the way), though strangely, turning the game’s brightness up to 200% seemed to (possibly?) intermittently fix it. However, if you’re going to play a game like this at full brightness, you may as well not bother, because it immediately causes a lot of the tension to evaporate.
Simply, that a fairly visually undemanding game can run so horribly on the Switch is extremely surprising and disappointing. This seemed like an interesting fit for the platform, but unless Wales Interactive can patch it into shape, it’s impossible to recommend the game to even ardent horror fans at this point.
It’s also an incredibly short game, clocking in at 60-90 minutes depending on how much time you spend backtracking and figuring out how to trigger the next door to open, but either way, you’ll probably complete it in less time than the movie’s 93 minute length, hilariously enough. There are two endings to the game, but you’d need to really enjoy it above the odds to even consider playing through a second time.
So, what actually works? Well, some of the texture detail is actually pretty damn good, shoddy framerate be-damned; objects glint off your candlestick’s flame with an enticing verisimilitude, and the house does actually feel like a “real” object during the game’s better, smoother moments. The real highlight of Don’t Knock Twice, though, is the exceptional sound design.
For everything the game gets so, so wrong, it does sound fantastic throughout. I completed a playthrough of the game in bed in the early hours of the morning while wearing earbuds, and the immersive quality of the various bumps and taps, jump scares and ominous musical cues was undeniable.
Yes, the slamming doors, randomly thrown objects and other jumps do wear themselves out by game’s end – especially unfortunate given its short length – but playing with headphones truly enhanced the scare factor several-fold. If you’re going to play the game, I can’t recommend this enough.
Sadly that’s where the praise comes to an end, though. There are flecks of intrigue and entertainment throughout Don’t Knock Twice, and a patch would certainly elevate the game from bad to passable, but at launch the ludicrous technical problems mar an already pretty iffy, bare-bones horror “experience”.
Pros:
+ Excellent sound design.
+ Some nice texture work.
Cons:
– Terrible framerate issues.
– It’s incredibly short.
– Awkward controls.
Rating: 4.5/10
Reviewed for Nintendo Switch (also available for PS4, Xbox One and PC)
Shaun Munro – Follow me on Twitter for more video game rambling.
