ercles on 17/6/2006 at 02:23

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I never ventured into that cell, wow, that would be pretty creepy. Yeh I tried to complete that mission as fast as possible, and poked around as little as possible.

You're right about the over the top thing, the realism is one of the scariest parts of the cradle, because its hard to disconnect yourself from whats going on...

I was so relieved when I finally got to the window... Don't want to do that again anytime soon.

Tej on 29/7/2006 at 19:31

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Disappointed by the Cradle? No.

One of the reasons is probably that I wasn't expecting anything from this mission. Sure, there was talk about the place being haunted, but I've been down the Bonehoard, I knew what to expect from the world. Or so I have thought. So when I got inside the Outer Cradle, I was, of course, cautious, all those sounds coming from everywhere got me worried. I first stopped in the cellar with that cage, poked my nose in, and thought at myself, how I don't want to even try and get inside. But as I progressed inside I realised that the place was devoid of life (and of non-death, to be precise). Now, pounding on the attic door... that one gave me quite a knot in my throat. But nothing was behind the door, and I got over it (until the second time, anyway, when I just rushed in to get a fuse, and rushed out of the attic only to get hit by the sound of more pounding. :eek:).

So by the time I got to the Inner Cradle, I thought I had good reason to believe nothing moving was there as well. I crept inside, failed to see the dashing Puppet beyond the desk, and started poking around the dining hall. I opened a few doors and started picking the nearest lock, when I realised something wasn't right. I detached myself from the lock, started looking around, and saw my very first Puppet. I don't know how this was possible, I think I saw the flickering lights before that, but to encounter those twitching things... I guess I got lucky. And I was playing on Hard, meaning there were nine Puppets in that place.

So I was observing that thing moving erratically along with annoying light flickering, and was feeling quite upset. But I left it alone, avoiding any contact (yes, I Ghost my Thief missions), until a bit later when I approached one of the things from behind, and it was digging or doing something on the floor. I thought, despite the fact that I use non-lethal weapons (if any), that thing had needed to be put out of its misery, and backstabbed it. It went down and things got (odd, though) peaceful. To recover from my further feeling upset, I lingered about that bathroom place, examined the wax mask on the chair... and, what do you know, the Puppet sprung on its fit and started running towards me, along with its "friend"! Gosh, I thought while my heart was pounding, so these things are undead. I readied a flask of holy water, threw it at the nearest thing... and nothing would happen. I fired a fire arrow, and the Puppet hardly stopped. Oh dear. I died, I quick-loaded, and proceeded really really avoiding the Puppets.

As you can see, this was enough to get my adrenaline going. This only added to the feeling of how disturbing the whole place and its story was. And then getting into Cradle's memory only deepened the mood. The shortened focal length of the camera to distort the view, the green filter, and the "staff" that were mere shells of people, uttering sounds that a thing that doesn't speak would remember... brilliant.

The rest of my solving the tasks was undisturbed, but what went on through my mind was a thought that I am very lucky that I am in that asylum as an outsider, I do not need to stay, and once I free the little girl, I can be out and away from the accursed place. And when I would get out I would appreciate your regular guard and his mumblings much more, as long as I don't have to share the hallways with those Puppets. Yes, these were my actual thoughts when I followed that floating face of a ghost through the Lobby of the Outer Cradle. So imagine my (semi)surprise when I couldn't leave there and then. No. I was supposed to climb into that very cage I refused to go to during my more cheerful time in the Cradle. I naturally tried an alternative route - through the cellar door I entered in. But in that place an iron grating materialised, and when I frobbed it, Garrett only said in a very sad voice (that equalled my feelings) that it wouldn't budge, and how that wasn't good at all.

No, I wasn't disappointed by the Cradle. I agree that there could be more to it in terms of logs and story, and certain logs appear in a bit of an odd places (why, for instance, would inspector, when a child, leave a note of being moved to the Nursery because of arrival of new patients?), but overall I think in a game, that is not so much a horror story (ok, it may be, encountering what Gamall turned into), this place turned out well.