The Greyhill Incident is a first-person story-driven survival horror game from the folks over at Refugium Games. Focusing on an alien invasion during the early 90s period, you play as Ryan Baker armed with a baseball bat and a revolver trying to figure out what the government is clearly covering up.

Tin Foil Hats!

Uncover The Truth

First of all, the atmosphere and setting are pretty good and whilst I didn’t hate the voice acting, it wasn’t the best either. Personally, I think they’ve nailed the setting and environment for an alien invasion-type game, sadly it lacks fun and frustration is rampant throughout.

It starts out with an eery vibe. Your son is fixated on a static television screen and there are weird noises coming from the shed out back but unfortunately, it’s downhill from here. I wasn’t made to care about the characters at all and when they do show up it’s for very brief moments. Getting to these moments is where the frustration kicks in, as the game doesn’t provide you with a mini-map and will just tell you to “go to so and so’s house” as if you know where some guy called Dave lives. It’s a rather dark game and yes, of course you can turn the brightness up, but that only serves to ruin the atmosphere of a horror game for me personally.

Anyhow, the game managed to ruin its own atmosphere for me, as it expects you to just know where you are going at all times. One part requires to gain entry into a house to get some nails, except you have to do so by searching around in a dark corner for a fragile wooden fence you can bust down with a baseball bat. Multiple moments like this killed any tense emotions I had and just replaced them with pure frustration as I spent way too much time in places trying to figure out what to do. If internet guides didn’t exist, I would have given up completely.

A lot of the “missions” boil down to speaking to someone, finding an item, and returning, but with a load of frustration in the middle due to it not being made clear about where exactly you need to go. Not only this, but I found myself in the correct place multiple times only for a gate to not respond to my button presses, leading me to believe I’m actually in the wrong place and sending me on a wild goose chase.

A Cute Cat?

Small Green Men

Whilst the alien design is spot on and reminiscent of the “little green men” that’s about all they’ve got going for them. The “combat” is tedious at best, requiring you to spam the right trigger should an alien get close enough to grab you. This becomes a chore when they grab you near a wall or object as you can’t move away quickly enough once you get out of the first grapple before they do it again, so it’s easier at this point to just call it a day and reload a checkpoint.

You can of course shoot them, but this takes two bullets and ammunition is VERY scarce, which begs the question, is there a point to me having a gun? You do have a walkie-talkie to keep in contact with other townsfolk which just dampens the experience even further, as you can be in the middle of talking to an NPC, your character decides he’s going to start talking to himself whilst the NPC is talking and then a guy on the radio starts throwing his dialogue into the mix also, leading to some pretty jarring overlap.

A Great Setting

Don’t Beam Me Up

Overall, Greyhill Incident doesn’t have a lot going for it at all and, after initially being quite excited to try this out, was left with a sour taste in my mouth. As I mentioned, the setting is spot on but it lacks any substance aside from this. You’re not made to give a crap about the characters, progression is a chore without a map and the story is so barebones it can’t pick up any slack for the many other shortcomings. It also crashed on me multiple times, sending me back to the dashboard. Not only that but I also missed out on the majority of the story-related achievements, finishing up with only 340G.

It’s a basic, bland, and very short “survival horror” game that I can’t recommend, especially at a £25 price point. If you’re absolutely dead set on trying it out, I can only tell you to wait for a sale. An excellent idea but a poor execution, Greyhill Incident is a game worth missing, sadly.