Haunted Hotel XV: The Evil Inside

Haunted hotels are about as common as regular ones nowadays, given the fact that simply stating that allows establishments to attract more customers. Naturally, the subject is very popular in the world of video games as well, especially when it comes to horror flicks. Even casual games take a bite out of this pie, even if they usually do not show too much gore on the screen.

Haunted Hotel XV: The Evil Inside is a hidden object adventure game in which you play the role of a man trying to rescue his cousin from a perilous situation. There are some horror elements in there as well, given the name of the game, but most of the scary situations are designed to be jump scares, which are not very psychological. The focus is still on the puzzles rather than the atmosphere.

As such, it all starts when James - the main character - is called upon to fill in for someone else in a crew for a paranormal TV show. However, things go out of hand when James’ cousin is abducted by something that is clearly not human. Hence, an investigation commences, and you must follow the clues in order to reach your cousin and maybe dispel the evil spirits along the way too.

The gameplay is nothing out of the ordinary, given the fact that all you have to do is pay attention to the environment, pick up the items that could come in handy later on, as well as tackle the puzzles that block your way. Every now and again there is also a mini-game to have fun with, but they usually do not require too much effort to solve. The same goes for the puzzles, which are pretty straightforward and even obvious.

The atmosphere is created through the use of sound effects and graphics, although it’s pretty difficult to do so with static environments. Thankfully, a bit of post-processing goes a long way, so you should be able to get in the proper mood right from the start of the game. The voice acting is not bad either, and the environmental effects contribute a lot to the overall atmosphere.

In the end, don’t expect too much complexity from Haunted Hotel XV: The Evil Inside, given its target audience. However, it just might catch you in its spell if you like solving riddles and following clues in order to solve mysteries.

NOTE: This is a downloader for the game. Once run, the application will automatically download and install the game on your computer.

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