Weeping Doll

Some games probably look a lot better on paper than they end up turning out, and this is a prime example. Weeping Doll's designers managed to come up with a handful of interesting puzzles that involve picking up objects like doll heads and train cars and figuring out where they ought to be placed in the environment around them. And the dark old house is suitably atmospheric, its old wooden fixtures and furniture imbued with a natural sense of dread. But beyond that, it's a pretty big mess.

The "mystery" of what has happened in the house is all but given away early in the game through melodramatic scenes performed by a cast of middling actors whose put-on voices are often painful to bear. And moving around the mansion is both unnatural and frustrating, thanks to a weird locomotion system that involves teleporting short distances by controlling a floor cursor. This awkward means of movement actually resulted in a glitch during review that kept us from seeing the final scenes of the game, as our maid accidentally teleported past the figure of a running girl who was supposed to remain forever out of reach. This caused her to freeze in place and stopped the game from progressing, forcing a restart. Virtual reality is creating great opportunities for horror games, but Weeping Doll realizes almost none of them.