Softstar Entertainment, PQube, and Gamera Games have released the second instalment in The Bridge Curse franchise, The Bridge Curse 2: The Extrication, an action, horror game where you are stuck in the halls of Wen Hua University, and not everything is as it seems.  

Located in Taiwan, Wen Hua University is famous for its horror ghost tales, and you’ll play as one of four playable characters. The first is a news reporter trying to make her big break. Alternatively, play as one of three university students making a film about the University’s history, but they find themselves stuck in the middle of the story. One character who stuck out to me was Sergeant Huang, mostly because of how stupidly oblivious he was. He always seemed to appear at the worst or best times, and his naivety added a nice amount of humour. 

I won’t dive too far into the story, as that is something I want you to experience for yourself, but I will say that you will need to make sure you are checking each corner. The story requires you to complete a number of puzzles placed around the university, and you’ll need to solve these to progress. For the most part, the puzzles really get your brain juices flowing, and you really need to think about the solution. I did have to resort to Google in order to find the solution for one of them, but they aren’t so difficult that they make you want to throw the controller through your TV out of frustration. 

The main thing that negatively affected my overall score for The Bridge Curse 2: The Extrication was the audio. It was very obvious that it was an English dub, and the voices didn’t really match the characters, leaving me feeling like it would have been better to use the original voice actors with subtitles. I also would have loved for some more loud noises to really lift the thriller and horror aspect of the game.

There is the occasional scream or the sound of something running up behind you, but these didn’t put me on the edge of my seat. If you could look past the English dubbing, the dialogue is great, really helping to drive the thrilling story home, it just hasn’t been delivered in a way that supports the urgency, and the same can be said for the ambient sounds and haunting audio. It really brings the overall experience down. 

Controls are super simplistic, and I think I spent most of my time running around pressing “X” on anything I could interact with, and once I found that the right trigger would perform a quick 180-degree spin, I found myself quickly and easily “nope” away from something I spotted out of the corner of my eye. Not having to think about what I had to press next allowed me to get deeper into the storyline and really enjoy it. These are also adjustable, so if you’re not happy with the mapping, you can switch it out to something more suitable, but given how simple and familiar they are, I don’t think this was a necessary inclusion. 

Graphics had me on the fence. Character models, both good and bad, looked fantastic, and the ghosts in particular benefited from a significant amount of attention to detail. When you get up close and personal with the ghosts and monsters, they look like something you could only dream about, but when it came to the environmental designs, it felt like these were a bit of an afterthought.

I never thought I would say this, but I would have loved for the game to be a little darker, especially in the shadows, with the lights a bit brighter so that they obstruct your vision. It would add to the suspense, helping you feel like something was about to jump out and scare the hell out of you.

The Bridge Curse 2: The Extrication is a great title that draws you in, making you want more from the game. Even with the disappointing English dub, the dialogue makes you want to get involved more with the story, and it keeps you wondering what is next in line. There were some great jumpscares, even with the less-than-thrilling ambient sounds, and the ghosts and monsters looked truly menacing. Small negatives aside, I enjoyed this title so much that I’m going to purchase the first one so that I can compare the two. 

Written by: Hayden Nelson