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  1. We all have that one neighbor we're a little suspicious of—the one that's coming and going at odd hours, or you heard something that sounded like a scream from their house. We've seen the formula plenty of times in films like Rear Window and The 'Burbs, and now developer Dynamic Pixels and publisher tinyBuild Games have brought the trope to video games with the stealth/horror blend of Hello Neighbor. Originally announced a couple of years ago, Hello Neighbor built steam in the fan community thanks to the variety of puzzles seen in Alpha builds, quirky art style, and the neighbor's ability to adapt to your actions as you play. But despite having a great premise for a unique game, the final product is riddled with problems, from clunky controls to insanely obtuse puzzle design. In Hello Neighbor you play as a young boy, bouncing a ball down the road, when you get to your neighbor's house across the street from your own and hear a suspicious scream, then see the neighbor frantically locking up his basement. From there your quest becomes finding out what is actually going on in the man's strange house full of odd contraptions and bizarre constructions like a ladder that leads to the roof and into a bedroom upstairs. Throughout all of this the neighbor will chase you down and throw you out if he catches you. One thing that Hello Neighbor perfectly nails is the creepy ambiance. The game's world is colorful and cartoony but everything about the neighbor and his house is unsettling—it perfectly captures that feeling, especially as a kid, of suspecting something weird is going on but never actually seeing it confirmed first-hand. As the plot progresses there are elements that become a little hard to follow, including what appear to be flashbacks in the neighbor's life, which makes the finale not quite as satisfyingly concrete as I'd like it to be, but during the game the mystery helps fuel the eerie vibe of the neighbor and his house. Gameplay-wise, Hello Neighbor combines stealth and adventure-puzzle solving—for example, in Act 1 you need to get into the locked basement, so you have to explore the house to find the key, which really means overcoming a variety of other smaller puzzle challenges to reach the key. It's a solid concept that completely falls flat in execution. On one hand it's neat that you can interact with most anything in the game. You can pick up boxes, books, picture frames, etc. and try to figure out inventive ways to utilize them to explore. On the other hand, the sheer openness of this kind of gameplay makes playing Hello Neighbor a total slog as you flounder about trying to figure out what to do. The game very rarely gives any kind of hint toward a solution, and some of these puzzles are completely wild. Sure, some things are fairly obvious—if you find a shovel maybe investigate that suspicious patch of loose dirt in the backyard—but it feels like more often you'll encounter an object that offers no explanation of what it's even for, like a button that activates something elsewhere and then you have to find its effect. It's trial-and-error to a completely tedious degree. Which still wouldn't be that frustrating of a concept if not for the neighbor's relentless pursuit of you throughout the house. Here the stealth aspect of the game comes into play: when the neighbor spots you he'll chase you down in what is truly a frightening sight and grab you, then you'll respawn outside of the house. You only get a small warning when the neighbor is near so he has a way of sneaking up on you as you explore, plus there are really only two options to evade him: run outside of the house or try to hide inside a wardrobe. The kicker is that the neighbor will adapt to your habits, so for example if he saw you coming through the front door he'll place a bear trap there to catch you next time (which is maybe an extreme response to a kid wandering into your house). Again, this is a fun, clever concept that just isn't put to good use in Hello Neighbor. Not only do these traps quickly add up, turning the already tedious process of exploring the house into an even more grueling task, but there are only a couple of things the neighbor even does to stop you. The concept seems to want to make exploration feel more dynamic, i.e. you can't use the same paths every time, but ultimately the new traps just feel kind of bland. The final nail in the coffin of Hello Neighbor is the controls. The game was originally built for the PC so it's not too surprising that there would be some awkwardness in translating the game to a standard console controller, but that doesn't excuse the level of stiff, finnicky controls found here. Interacting with objects is way more awkward than it has any right to be—especially small objects when you need to get the screen's cursor perfectly over the item. And since there are no directions in the game sometimes it's hard to understand how an item is actually meant to be used. The game's physics means you can use items in dynamic ways, such as hitting a distant switch, but it also makes just placing an object on the ground way more difficult than it has any right to be—not to mention the times when you toss an object and the physics freak out, sending the item bouncing around the room. Solving puzzles in Hello Neighbor is difficult enough as it is, but the biggest hurdle is just maintaining a concrete grip on the controls. Hello Neighbor also has some technical issues which is particularly disappointing since the game originally came out last year and such problems probably should have been ironed out by now. The game's wonky physics are again a common culprit as I got stuck in the geometry a few times—sometimes I even saw the neighbor get similarly trapped in the scenery. The game also crashed or got stuck on a loading screen occasionally, necessitating a reload of an earlier save file. In a game that already has a problem with making simple tasks more tedious than they need to be, these crashes only add to the game's frustrating design. As already mentioned the game's cartoonish art style makes for a perfect contrast to the game's creepy content. There's a 50s cartoon vibe to everything, from the exaggerated shapes to the vivid colors, and it really does make for a fun environment for the stealth and horror elements of the game. On a technical level though the game looks pretty rough. There are jagged edges over every object that do kind of take away from the unique style of the artwork, and ultimately the scenery does get a little repetitive since it's always the interior of the neighbor's house. And on one note for the design: it'd be great if whatever object you're holding didn't cover a third of the screen—that's just silly visual design. The game is split up into a few different acts, and if you know what you're doing you could potentially breeze through the game in just an hour, or even less. If you're playing without a guide though you're going to end up wandering the neighbor's house completely lost for hours upon hours sorting through dead-end paths and obscure puzzles. Regardless of how quickly you make it through the game's puzzles, the $40 price tag for the Switch version is pretty hard to swallow. Hello Neighbor is built upon a brilliant idea, one that is wonderfully tense and unsettling when you can play the game smoothly. The only problem is so much of the game seems to be battling against that. The neighbor's prowling pursuit of the player throughout the labyrinthine house makes even simple exploration more of a chore than a challenge, despite the fact that obtuse puzzle design and awkward controls demand a slow and methodical approach to the game—not to mention the technical issues the game encounters. As a proof of concept Hello Neighbor promises a delightfully eerie and exciting game, but the average player most likely won't want to pay a premium price to play what is essentially a rough draft. Rating: 4 out of 10 Neighbors Review copy provided by the publisher Hello Neighbor is available now on the Switch eShop for $39.99.
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