Sims Saga is a very interesting series. It is taken almost entirely from in game footage, a style which is highly reminiscent of Ben Drowned, and pays several tributes to the Slenderman Mythos from inside Sims 2 Apartment Life.
The story goes that an unmarried couple, Casey and Jen, make a 'post apocalyptic challenge' LP on Sims 2 Apartment Life. Apparently the main character was given the disk by his mom, who found it at a garage sale (which is already a bad sign). Our good friend Ol Faceless starts messing with the game from there on in.
The first two vids showcase the style of the vlog. First off, there are a hell of a lot of glitches and bugs in this game. Lag, flashing menus, a window keeps popping up, and then the relationships and motives crash. How they managed to put those glitches in there is beyond me, but apparently it's very hard to do right. Top marks for programming, and believability of the actors, from the start.
Entry 3 contains a not-so-subtle shout out to Marble Hornets, and more motive crashing. At this point, it's pretty clear that something's wrong, especially the Operator Symbol painting. Slenderman shows up on occasion, but you have to be paying real close attention to the background to notice when it arrives. The cameos of Tall, Dark and Slender are brilliantly subtle, and usually signal that bad shit is going down.
From there on in, it gets weirder and weirder. They randomly die, the Grim Reaper takes a shit in their toilet, Camtasia crashing, reversed colouring from the flipcam he uses to record whatever he can salvage, and numerous attempts to video Slenderman. When it allows itself to be recorded, it really starts to mess with them. The style of the audio and visual distortions isn't as ear-rapey as other Slenderseries, but they are creepy, and they are well done.
That being said, it's not a scary series. If you want to be scared shitless, this isn't the series for you at all. It is a brilliantly done and easily lovable series, however, and I have fallen for it. The idea of Slenderman fucking up the game is very original, and the way it fucks up the game is superb.
He empties their house of everything in Empty, leaving only the phone, with only one contact. Obviously, that contact is Slenderman, so they call him. What they are treated too, over two episodes, is bursts of static, distortion and what sounds like a TV growling, which makes for a horrifying pair of episodes.
They come back and try to talk to him in 'thexend.avi'. The distortions here are eye-rapey, and it's hard to tell what's going on at all, but that just makes it creepier, as Casey madly clicks buttons and Jen desperately wants to get out of the room. It appears to be messing with the players, the game and the videos. The horror sets in as you reach an epiphany: could he mess with the viewer as well?
Then it goes into the real world with 'backyard.avi' and the subsequent three clips. It goes downhill from here, as it's way too dark and pixellated, which makes it impossible to see what's going on. At the first part of backyard.avi, the main two characters and their friends are killing a moth in what is an utterly pointless little clip. They could have shown them drinking beer or eating something, but instead they show them killing a pest with an electric racquet. It's stupid, needless, and it detracts from the video. The other three videos appear to show cultists surrounding the guy, or something, but I really can't tell.
Return and Where Am I are a return to form for the series. It's just Casey now, and the lot is even more glitched than before. Tiles are missing and the character is laid out on the floor as the game crashes. Even the loading screens are broken, with creepy music being played and Jen's face being distorted. It puts the creepy right back up again.
All in all, it's a great slenderseries when it focuses on the game. It hooks you in from the start, and does not let go. The real life section isn't great, but hopefully there will be no more real life sections, and the rest of the footage will be in game footage.
Up next for review: The Tutorial and the start of Tribe Twelve. Hope you enjoyed this review, leave feedback in the comments, and sit back and wait for my next review!
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