Greyhill Incident Review – Classified: Awful

Greyhill Incident captured my imagination when it was first announced. A small American town playing host to little gray men from outer space? Sign me up. I’m into all of that—but not in a conspiracy theorist sort of way, I just find the whole lark entertaining, and the idea of intergalactic creatures zipping through space, seeing our little planet and thinking “let’s have a look down there, shall we, lads?” is a fun “what-if” scenario I’ve buried myself in countless times with movies and TV shows.

Rarely, though, has a competent video game come along and taken Hollywood’s go-to sci-fi premise and had a crack at turning the concept interactive. In fact, I can’t think of any such game, but I’m sure there are bound to be one or two, but for me, Greyhill Incident stands out. Sadly, for all the wrong reasons.

First off, the idea is sound and lays a solid baseplate for what could have been a fun B-movie horror game with the familiar grays stalking a sleepy town while its inhabitants board up their homes, don their tin foil hats, and pray a few of their cows survive the night for the morning’s milk.

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The game starts off somewhat strong with single-father Ryan at home with his rude little kid. The electronics whizz and whir, the television goes funny, and there are unusual sounds from the back garden that have caused the family dog to go into a frenzy. A quick mooch out the back and there’s definitely something in the garden shed. A few smacks and it’s open and… whatever was in there is gone. This moment came back to me repeatedly throughout my playthrough. Not because it was particularly well-done horror, but because it completely flies in the face of the rest of the game. Obviously, some little gray fella was having a play around with the toolbox, but when he was disturbed, he decided to do a runner.

Later on in the game, after a few tedious “go here, fetch that” tasks and the ominous landing of an alien spaceship, the game opens up with the grays freely walking around town, aimlessly wandering the streets, poking around in houses, and stalking the cornfields. Once they get sight of you, the chase is on, and they come speed-walking towards you as if you’re the last bus for the night. It’s just one of the many oddities in Greyhill Incident.

Another oddity is in the game’s presentation. The world itself kind of gets a passing grade, but that’s more due to the fact that the game is so miserably dark it’s hard to distinguish anything outside of the indoor settings. Dimly lit homes, barns, and businesses are scattered with little clues to the town’s history with the aliens, but outside, everything’s a mess of black and gray with the occasional flash of red as the skinny silhouette of an alien scans a random spot on the ground. I tried, in vain, to make the game a little easier to read by upping the brightness, but it didn’t really help and ended up looking like an odd Instagram filter had been applied to the game.

It works against the gameplay, too, not that anything really works in favor of it anyway. The majority of the game is just you running from one area to another, collecting bits of foil, helping people escape from their own stupidity, and twatting aliens with a baseball bat. Stealth is supposed to be a big part, but the aliens aren’t really all that scary. I will admit that my first encounter with one—a jump scare, no less—did perk me up a little and even gave me a false sense of hope. But after the sixth or seventh encounter, there just wasn’t any fear of the gormless-looking spacemen.

They’re not very threatening, though they are maddeningly hard to kill. The only way to kill them is to shoot them twice with your pistol. And no, you can’t be smart and shoot one through the noodle; headshots don’t work here. But you can, of course, shoot an alien twice in the foot and he’ll surrender to death’s embrace with no problem. And that baseball bat you carry around? The go-to weapon for thugs who want to do some real damage to property and/or people? Useless, both in execution and delivery. Smack an alien three times with the bat and they’ll fall to the ground, have a little roll around, and then get back up for another round of speed-walking if you’re still in sight. They can’t be killed with the bat. I tried for 10 minutes, and it just didn’t happen.

Obviously, it’s to push you towards the ammo-scarce pistol for live-or-die moments and to use stealth to avoid encounters. The problem is that there are no live-or-die moments. If you’re caught, the game literally tells you to “spam” R2—most games are a little classier and ask that you press a button repeatedly. Spam R2 enough and they’ll stagger backward, giving you time to either put some distance between you and Mr. Alien or to line up a shot from your pistol, providing you’ve got sufficient ammo. And what if they catch you and you just don’t want to spam anymore? They grope you until the screen fades to black and a message appears telling you that you’ve been abducted. Fade out, and return to the checkpoint.

My gripe is that there’s no real sense of purpose to it all. What do I lose? Nothing. What am I supposed to fear? Who am I supposed to care about? The story is laughably poor and delivered by some of the worst voice acting I’ve heard in any media. In fairness, the main character, Ryan, feels like a pro thrown among amateurs. He delivers his lines convincingly enough, but everybody else? Absolutely awful, and it’s all taped together with a script that was clearly written by a non-native English speaker, perhaps with the aid of Google translate. If not, then, ouch. It really makes it hard to get invested in the intrigue and mystery when it feels like you’re a bit part of a poorly produced hidden camera prank show.

Greyhill Incident’s problems are many and highlights are few, though I suppose the fact it can be done within just a few hours could be considered its saving grace? I clocked in just over four hours of play before I hit the abrupt ending and I can’t say I was displeased to be done with the game. I’m sure that if the game wasn’t so frustratingly designed, I’d have halved it, easily. There are no markers or task lists, so a good chunk of time is spent fumbling in the dark, hoping to stumble forward to the next beat.

I can’t recommend Greyhill Incident. It’s just not a very good game. It has some great ideas and I’d love to see the 50s horror-style alien invasion done justice, but it’s just not happening here. You’d have more fun sitting on your porch rooftop and sticking your bum in the air, hoping for a probing.

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