![the vanishing of ethan carter graphics the vanishing of ethan carter graphics](https://www.dsogaming.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/The-Vanishing-of-Ethan-Carter-feature-2.jpg)
Interestingly, you’re able to walk right past any of these elements of the game without interacting with them. Here the game shines far more brightly, while still embellishing on Carter’s tale, and indeed his tales.
![the vanishing of ethan carter graphics the vanishing of ethan carter graphics](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/NnpJqrmt9SU/maxresdefault.jpg)
But it’s undeniably jarring.Īlongside these are much more subtle aspects, discoveries of oddities in the world, that when “sensed” pull you into brief fantastical settings. It’s rewarding to solve the sequence, and to see the resulting scene, certainly. It’s so peculiarly incongruous to the vividly wonderful setting, such a daftly clumsy system. Maybe the next has the axe in the back of someone’s head (this is made up, by the way), and you give that a “2”. Run up to a ghost waving an axe at another ghost, and select it, and a giant “1” appears over them. And it’s done without a degree of subtlety. Which is, you’ll note, the most gamey-game thing imaginable. You must then run between these visages, declaring a correct chronology between them, and when correct, watch the scene play out.
#The vanishing of ethan carter graphics series#
The most important memories, those of the tale behind the vanishing of the eponymous young boy, require you to restore scenes to their original state – perhaps moving a couple of objects – in order that you might reveal a series of ghostly stills. Your character – a detective of some manner called Paul Prospero - has a degree of psychic ability, meaning that certain items in the world can touched, revealing events from the past. I’ll be ambiguous with some of the mechanics too. Red Creek Valley is a large, sprawling space, albeit explored in a careful order. There’s an overwhelming foreboding sense of finality, but with former beauty still there to find. House still stand, but are worn, overgrown and dishevelled. Machinery still works, but there’s no one around to use it. The autumnal colour scheme drives home these thematic tones of a fading, dying place. Everything is so meticulously crafted, and so impeccably textured, imbued with sadness and loss. A church higher up the hill is of extraordinary architecture, with a haunting and noble graveyard, and unsettling crypts. The town’s few buildings are extraordinarily beautiful and tragic, abandoned, lost to their past. A vast, curved dam offers a path from the opening woods to a small, run-down town, all above what looks like it might be industrial buildings beside the river far below. What The Vanishing Of Ethan Carter does wonderfully is create a place. Who you are, what you’re doing, who Ethan Carter is, why in the opening moments of the game you’re discovering deadly traps set in the woods, and then the mutilated remains of a man by a train track – the uncovering of the experience is the experience, so I shan’t talk about the specifics of the story at all. This is one of those situations where to explain almost anything about the first-person exploration/adventure game is to take away from your experience of playing it.
![the vanishing of ethan carter graphics the vanishing of ethan carter graphics](https://rebekahlang.files.wordpress.com/2014/10/vanishing-of-ethan-carter-06.jpg)
I’m not sure if any game could live up to graphics this wonderful. No game since the original Far Cry has had me stop and just stare so frequently. Sumptuous forests, extraordinary vistas, old dilapidated buildings against a mesmeric sunset. It’s call-someone-in-from-another-room to-take-a-look gorgeous. There is no doubt in my mind that The Vanishing Of Ethan Carter is the most beautiful-looking game I’ve played. From the developers who brought us Bulletstorm (when they were People Can Fly), it couldn't be a more different game. The Vanishing Of Ethan Carter, the first game from The Astronauts, offers a strikingly beautiful haunting journey exploring the mystery of the disappearance of a young boy.