TRAILCAM Review: When Bird Watching Goes Horribly Wrong
Ever wondered what it's like to be the world's most incompetent wildlife investigator? TRAILCAM lets you live out that oddly specific fantasy, offering all the thrills of staring at grainy footage while questioning your career choices. It's like Pokemon Snap meets Blair Witch, minus the Pokemon, and most of the excitement.
Six Strikes and You're Out (In The Woods)
The game gives you six chances to mess up before sending you packing, which sounds generous until you realize you have "Can't See What's Right In Front Of My Face" syndrome like most of us. It's like playing "Where's Waldo?" except Waldo is a potentially murderous bear and you're stuck in a tower having an existential crisis.
The World's Slowest Game of Spot the Difference
The core gameplay loop is simple: stare at cameras, spot differences, question your sanity. Repeat until either something actually happens or you develop severe eye strain, whichever comes first. It's like working night security at a zoo, except the animals are suspicious and possibly supernatural.
Pacing: Time is a Flat Circle (Of Boredom)
Here's where things get about as exciting as watching paint dry in real-time. Between actual events, you'll experience so much nothing that you'll start wondering if this is less of a horror game and more of a meditation app gone wrong. The game drags harder than a sloth wearing concrete shoes, especially if you have to restart.
And oh boy, will you restart. A lot. Hope you enjoy that unskippable opening phone call, because you'll be hearing it more times than your mom's voicemail reminder to call her back.
Choose Your Own Adventure (But Not Really)
The game promises a "non-linear, discovery narrative," which is about as non-linear as a ruler. Unless that bear is supposed to dramatically change the story (spoiler: it doesn't), you'll see the same events play out with all the variety of a broken record player.
The Bad Ending: A Special Kind of Pain
Getting the bad ending is like being served a lukewarm microwave dinner after waiting two hours at a five-star restaurant. It deflates the experience faster than a balloon at a porcupine convention. It's not just bad – it's "why did I spend time on this" bad.
Graphics Settings: A Horror Story
Want to make the game harder? Change your graphics settings! Want to make it easier? Change them again! It's like playing on random difficulty settings, except you didn't ask for this and nobody warned you. The real horror was the graphics menu all along.
Conclusion: A One-Night Stand with Horror
TRAILCAM is like a first date that starts promising but quickly runs out of conversation topics. It's got atmosphere in spades and can deliver some genuine scares, but like a Instagram influencer's content, once you've seen it once, you've seen it all.
Is it worth playing? Yes, exactly once. Maybe twice if you're really determined to see that other ending. But like expired milk, it doesn't get better with age or repeated exposure.
Score: 6/10
We at NLM received a key for this game for free, this however didn't impact our review in any way. Our optometrist bills for squinting at grainy footage, on the other hand...