Being a middle-aged gamer has its downside, not the least of which is having lived to play many decades of mediocre games; what we wouldn't give for those hours of our life back, in a room with a bottle of scotch and a nude supermodel... Okay, but as we were saying, the upside of playing games for almost 30 years is that we've been around for many of the great gaming trends. One favorite from the last decade was the rise of the survival horror game. Today, it feels commonplace, and we even get hybrid releases that feature DNA from various other genres spliced in to create fighting/horror or action/horror. If anyone remembers what pure survival horror looks like, it is Playlogic and Hydravision. Obscure: The Aftermath takes us back to the glory days of this genre, aided by thematic ties to a spate of more recent teen horror and slasher flicks. There's very little shock value in most images these days, but Obscure: The Aftermath pulls a few really good ones out of its hat. The floating succubus-style enemies especially will repulse you, and evil drips literally and figuratively in every area you'll explore. Cut-scenes flesh out the story as you explore, and help make some sense out of the connections between the game's many characters.

The scene-stealer in Obscure: The Aftermath is sound and music design. You'll need headphones to appreciate the work that was put in, but the payoff is a heightened sense of drama and fear throughout the game. Even mediocre scares, from enemies you've seen before, are notched up by the introduction of dramatic music. Your A.I. partner-character will often make stupid utterances, but at other times will creep you out, especially in already tense situations. The voice acting is really kind of good, considering the old Capcom model was so bad as to attain almost cult status. Surly or scared-within-an-inch-of-their-lives teens are always good fun, especially in combination. There are moments when the visual framing of each area does interesting things and inspires fear, but rarely does the camera break through the proscenium and become unpredictable. What is done especially well is a great variety of locations, from awesomely trashed (by teens, not monsters) dorms to creepy woods, to devastated towns. Gamers interested in a good scare on PSP will be able to slip on some headphones and enjoy Obscure: The Aftermath, in spite of its limitations.

The only thing scarier than a college dorm room is a possessed college dorm. At least once during our college days we were convinced our laundry pile was preparing to sprout legs and go mobile, and our brief attempt to maintain a dorm-room mini-fridge had the trappings of a Resident Evil experiment. All the same, we never had to face the level of terror reached by the kids in Obscure: The Aftermath. Bad enough they went through the events of the first game, and now the evil spores have come back to turn this campus and its surrounding area into a bloodbath. There is a thread connecting the two games apart from the hero characters, but we won't spoil that plotline for you. The basic premise of the first game and every other in this genre, survival, is back and more difficult to accomplish. The armies of mutated beings spreading between you and every goal may at first seem unbreakable, but that's the fun in the game... A good focus on puzzles and item collection keeps things from becoming too dull, although the puzzles are, for the most part, just treasure hunts within a prescribed area. Co-op gameplay is the best element to return, and keeps things especially fresh if you have a partner to play with. Tropes of the survival horror genre fill Obscure: The Aftermath, such as monstrous surprises, locked door puzzles, and weapons with ammo in frustratingly short supply. And, of course, it wouldn't be a teen slasher flick without the prototype jock, rocker, asian, and slut in play, now would it?

It's easy to poke fun at the typical stuff, but there's also comfort in the familiar when it's executed well. We kept coming back for more, and expect you will also. The twists and turns of the storyline, and the interest created by introducing new characters keeps it from becoming boring. As you move from location to location, you'll uncover new elements of the story and pick up lots of colorful text and dialogue along the way. The developer obviously went to great lengths to make Obscure: The Aftermath bigger and better than its predecessor, but you'll still find navigation easy. Each area has a tendency to guide you or close off exits, making it impossible to backtrack if you don't need to. When you do need to, characters will even make helpful comments like, "I don't think we're going the right way." Sure, it lacks subtlety, but this entire genre is about as subtle as being kicked in the head by a mule. What we didn't like was the relatively thin cast of enemy characters. More variety would have no doubt added to the level of challenge, but also would have increased the replay value a great deal. As it stands, there are some out-of-the-way locations you don't have to explore, but can if you want to get more local color. You can also take a relatively straight line and get through the game quickly. It's a nice balancing act that's pulled off with aplomb.

No survival horror experience will be without its thrills, and by "thrills" read "frustrations." There's no question this just isn't a casual genre, but too often we see games get in their own way and force characters to do stupid and repetitious stuff. The puzzle elements also fall prey too often to simple mechanics that fail in many games to go beyond matching colored cards and keys with the same color doors. Obscure: The Aftermath does a better-than-average job of rolling a mix of straightforward seek-and-find puzzles with word jumbles and environmental obstacles. Additional twists are introduced when you factor in multiple characters, each with unique skills. The strong characters are good at moving large objects, but rely on other characters to hack electronic locks; you'll also find a character that can jump to out-of-reach places and pull smaller characters up, making for some interesting environmental challenges. The option to bring another player in and do full-blown cooperative play is great, and helps alleviate frustration with generally weak A.I. You'll catch your death frequently from relying on an A.I. partner to tackle a crowd of rushing mutants, but a human player as your partner will clean house more consistently. At times, your A.I. partner will just get in your way, but you can overcome this by switching back and forth between characters. There are some other unintentional frustrations with navigating the environment and the aiming system, all caused by some questionable design. Perhaps the sentiment was to make these characters feel more "real" and less like black-ops mercenaries, but we just don't like replaying areas again and again, regardless of the underlying motive. Thankfully, these moments are rare.

The PSP has already proven itself capable of hosting a wide variety of game styles, and Obscure: The Aftermath is hardly a rough workout for Sony's little system that could. Shoulder buttons are mapped to enemy lock-on, for ease of use during battles. You can't do much in a battle other than lock on and fire your selected weapon, but you can toggle items quickly using the opposite shoulder button and one of four hot-keys. Items are connected to specific keys via the Select button, which also allows you to view objectives and pivotal items you've gathered along the way. Tapping the (Triangle) button switches characters, useful when you have one character involved in solving a puzzle and need the other to fight off incoming bad guys. There are any number of contextual buttons, brought up helpfully on-screen when you have the right character selected at the right time in the right place, and all mapped to the PSP's face buttons. We mentioned the sluggish controls earlier, mostly tied to the analog stick for movement; an annoyance, but not a surprise, considering how many survival horror games seem committed to being all anti-dexterity with their heroes...

In the end, my friend, Obscure: The Aftermath doesn't fail to deliver. Critics may say there's not much novelty here, but the number of good portable survival horror games isn't high enough on this system for us to be that picky. Other games may deliver some creepy, but Obscure: The Aftermath is going for full-blown scares. Considering it's almost the Halloween season, this game couldn't come at a better time. Obscure: The Aftermath will appeal to the younger crop of gamers accustomed to lots of superficial fun at the movies, watching over a tub of buttery popcorn as scared teens are creatively exsanguinated and disemboweled for 120 minutes. You'll get more bang for your buck with this game, and not spend much more than you would taking a date to the movies, and that's hard to criticize.