Review of Madison: You're crazy, kid

Our Verdict

Madison review - a spine-tingling psychological horror with a deliciously demonic story and a palpably tense atmosphere, Madison is an all-out spooky vibe fest. It makes great use of both its polaroid camera and puzzle elements, all carried by a perfectly paced plot full of chilling secrets and morbid mysteries. Fans of the genre would be mad to miss it.

Since I was a small child, I have had an obsession with horror movies. I watched any scary movie I could get my hands on, even though I was much younger than I should have been given the subject matter. And I've always been a sucker for the supernatural and demonic; the stranger the better when it comes to spooks. That's why I knew I had to see theMadison trailer as soon as I saw it. Sadly, the Switch version is still not out yet, so for now, my review is based on the PC version. As soon as I've got a chance to test it on Switch, I'll update it.

With its bizarre visuals, love of chopped limbs and disembodied eyes, and enigmatic secrets that alluded to some kind of demonic menace, the intriguing storyline drew me in right away. But even though I love horror films and could watch a scene in which Madison is left alone in a dark, empty home without a second thought, I'll be honest: I'm a bit of a wimp when it comes to horror video games.

More than any other horror media, a good horror game always manages to make me feel viscerally and immersively alarmed. This is probably because controlling the character and having to put yourself in their shoes increases the level of involvement. A well-designed video game just won't let you separate yourself from a book, movie, or TV programme the way that you can from any of these. Madison uses this to her advantage, just as the titular devil does its victims.

You wake up in a dark room in Madison's narrative, with just the flickering light from an ancient CRT television. Someone is banging on the door and making the scariest noises—is that a scream or a laugh? It is immediately evident that the latter is the case as your father bemoans, absolves, and begs you on behalf of whatever alleged crime you have done. Subsequently, you see that your hands are covered with blood, and you stumble into two photographs that show a severed arm and a severed leg.

You quickly find out that you're named Luca and that there's a very slim possibility that you killed someone. And your father believes you are possessed, and he may not be entirely wrong. From here, equipped only with a Polaroid camera, you have to piece together the mystery around you and your family by exploring the deteriorating, frightening chambers of your recently departed grandfather's maze-like home.

Along the way, you fall into a devilish maze of macabre secrets, the majority of which centre on Madison, a serial killer who is purportedly dead. You learn about her motivations and state of mind, as well as her connection to the occult, and how all of this might have more bearing on poor Luca than you could have ever imagined.

Madison has a fantastic mood from the beginning that is well maintained. A great blend of extreme claustrophobia, stuffy, stale nostalgia, and "oh god, why are there so many doors, why did that TV just turn itself on, oh crap, that statue is moving" can be found in the house's construction and room design. As you delve further into this insane mystery, the mansion alters constantly, which makes Luca doubt his own sanity. All of this together, and I really believe Madison can ride the wave of sheer creepy emotions on its own and still be considered a gosh dang, spine-tingling experience.

But that's not what it does. This is a serious game, oh no. Even though the narrative is perhaps obvious to horror fans, it is really captivating and has excellent pace. The dreadful, sluggish march towards answers pushes and tugs you in various ways as you pick up tidbits of information from apparently harmless objects like cassette tapes, police radios, graffiti, and odd notepads.

In terms of gameplay, Madison may be compared to a point-and-click game with additional phases. I found myself thinking of Layers of Fear a lot, which is another great horror experience where you wander slowly around the home and look for everything you can interact with. But because to several very well-thought-out gameplay features, Madison undoubtedly feels more invested in Layers of Fear.

First of all, solving puzzles is emphasised heavily. Naturally, this kind of psychological horror experience is far from unique and has long been a staple of the genre. But for me, some of these riddles were really hard, particularly when you feel like demonic activity is breathing down your neck and creeping into your ears via eerie background noise.

It's also more nerve-wracking than your typical puzzle game because you have to piece together codes and answers from random objects and messages scattered throughout the house, gather everything you can in the hopes that it will help you advance, and fiddle with combination locks and safes while feeling like you're going to die.

The camera comes next. Of course, cameras have long been used in horror games; Fatal Frame is only one example. However, Madison makes excellent use of this mechanism, putting it to various uses throughout the game and creating a bond between Luca, his family, and Madison herself.

Your camera can be your worst enemy as well as your best friend because of how intensely it can light up a room with a camera flash, ward off spooks, carefully shake the picture to reveal what you've captured, and more. A quick snap can also occasionally cause the entire room to tremble, picture frames to break, or even concrete to explode.

Madison has extremely basic controls: you may snap pictures, shake the camera to develop them, stroll at a slightly quicker pace, and interact with objects. Most of the time, that's all. Although the controls and instructions are clearly marked, everything seems responsive and rather simple to use, however I sometimes found it difficult to aim and interact with tiny items.

Although it is a laborious procedure, opening doors, cabinets, and drawers using your mouse just heightens the suspense of discovering what's behind them. There are generally a few choices available when interacting with an item: rotate, zoom, and sometimes grab or read (which, incidentally, displays a typed version of the text, which is a lovely touch).

When you grab anything, it is added to your inventory, which only has so many spaces in it. As you advance and find new areas, this limitation might get annoying, but it only serves to heighten the suspenseful tempo. It makes you hurriedly walk back and forth, shoving keys into locks, tapes into recorders, and slides into projectors to make room for the next possibly helpful item that strikes your sight. One slot is constantly occupied by the stack of pictures you've taken, and you may flip through them to review your work, which is helpful for recalling certain details.

In a traditional point-and-click interface, you may browse through your inventory and test various combinations to see whether they work well when interacting with certain objects around the home. The correct combination of goods is usually rather evident, but the true challenge lies in actually locating these items; there are several obstacles you must overcome before you can solve or unlock some doors, and many that stay closed until you do a certain assignment. You have no idea how many times I wanted to simply slam the hammer into different things, like those stupid clocks.

Madison is an expert in the field of sound design. It deprives you of music, depending instead on background noise that magnifies every small brook, creak, or thunderclap that trembles around you. To further enhance the atmosphere, Luca's voice acting is delicate and properly expressive, and your camera bobs in sync to the sound of his breath.

As you advance, the tension thickens to the point where a knife could cut through it thanks to the fully voiced cassette tapes, TV news clips, and gramophone songs. The jumpscares are, of course, accompanied by sound effects that will cause your body to momentarily erupt in flames.

And speaking of which, I really need to talk about the jumpscares. There are quite a number of them, which is really damned unnerving, in case the trailer didn't make it clear. Jumpscare horror isn't really my thing since I think it's often cheaply made and badly done. But Madison is virtually always the beneficiary of it. I thought they were very effective, whether it was a frightening nude woman rushing by you at supersonic speed or a six-foot-tall statue of the Virgin Mary racing down a hallway (not as amusing as it sounds).

It's a thrilling experience when you manage to get a picture that you can look at later, and they just provide enough information to keep you interested without giving away the ending. Additionally, there aren't any genuine fake-outs—instead of yowling cats or pals patting you on the shoulder, this game substitutes a strange, demonic grandmother frolicking about in her birthday suit.

Madison has a gorgeous appearance. Particularly when Luca remembers his good times spent in this once-happy home, the messy appearance of the house evokes that delightful feeling of warped domesticity. Its objects, textures, and surroundings are very lifelike. Additionally, when Luca has queasy and dizzy spells, the camera periodically tilts and blurs, giving him a more human face and emphasising his own (and your) mortality.

It's a masterful use of lighting, with each chamber having flickering lights and dimly lit bulbs that provide just enough shadow for you to always feel like you need to watch your back. The lighting is also used to indicate particular changes in the surroundings and occasionally shifts to a different colour to highlight particular events. This is a really clever touch that enhances the mood and communicates a subliminal message to the player without feeling like handholding. Let's face it, we all know what to do when we see blood-red light in a room.

Madison's Steam version performed well on my PC in terms of performance. Everything seemed flawless, and I didn't encounter any problems or visual issues throughout the game—with the exception of one really quirky kitchen cabinet door that decided to have a little party and kept vibrating. Naturally, I'm not sure how well it will work on the Switch just yet, but I'll be sure to update this review as soon as I do.

Madison, in my opinion, is a brilliant addition to the psychological horror subgenre. It challenges you and keeps you interested with its well-paced story and well placed puzzles, all the while making you feel completely human and preying on your vulnerabilities with its goryly gloomy atmosphere and unnerving images.

I wanted to push myself to stop playing the game so I could go watch some cartoons and forget about my worries, but it also successfully captured the eerie mansion haunted by demonic activities. After all, isn't that the whole point of horror games?