July's PSN Freebie, Erica: An Amateur Review

Hello hello.

When I was browsing for another game to get recently, I obviously checked on my PSN free games page just to see if there's anything good to retrieve (and to play) during this pandemic shitshow. There it was, Erica. My husband and I watched the trailer and found that it was one of those 'movie but make it game' kind of game. It looked promising and interesting and more importantly, it was free. So I had nothing to lose by downloading it.

It allowed you to play on your phone as an alternative to your Play Station controller for a better game experience, their words, not mine. So I did. Already, I've never played anything like this before. If I was playing a Play Station game, I would have played through my controller, that was all I knew.

There will be spoilers from this point onwards, so if you don't like that, you may click away!

The game started out pretty strong with all the goriness happening just about 5 minutes into the gameplay and it just kept on coming. Opened up (no pun intended) by Erica's dad being slashed open on the chest by a mysterious woman that us players could only see standing in front of an opened door pointing her gun at our daddy and us both as a silhouette. We'll later find out who she is like we'll actually meet and join her (well, it depends, if you desire a good ending but we'll unpack that later).

Not long after the goriness continues with the now slightly older Erica who apparently lives alone receives an anonymous package on her doorstep that is, drum rolls please, a box of decapitated hands holding what seems to be the same cultist logo that we see on her dad's chest when she's younger.

Okay at this point I'm just gonna talk in bullet points lmao,

1. On goriness, the game seems to love doing it to you. I'm typically staying away of gore scenes, be it in movies, games, or anything and I judge horror games/films/scenes that over indulge on goriness just to brand it horror as tacky and distasteful. The ones found in Erica is a little crazy but it wasn't too overwhelming. It just frankly looks nasties since the game isn't one of those animation ones but instead a movie-like type where some sequence or gameplay reminds you of those vintage flash horror games like The House and Hotel 626 (anyone remember them?). It looks and feels just like that. Some will probably disturb you more than the others, I will say.
2. As someone who enjoys cinematic experience and AAA games the most, Erica is shot in a beautiful beautiful way. I cannot tell you how much I love the Delphi House flower gardens and the dining room or the piano room. Since it's a movie, meaning that everything except for some gameplay sequence that I'm guessing is done in a flash engineering, everything feels real and so when you stop seeing all the vibrant happy colourful scene and wander into an odd set of shelves or walked into another person's murdered body, it just feels terribly creepy. Good camera work overall.
3. The actors and actresses are incredible at doing their roles! Goodness I wish I recognised at least one of them but these people are unfamiliar to me. I love their performance and portrayal of their characters.
4. The duration of the gameplay. So this game is only 2 hours long, uninterrupted. Pretty much a movie but playable/interactive at this point. While it is good for when you want to play something that you can finish in one sitting, it also leaves a lot to be unexplained. It kind of feels like it ends abruptly. A lot of potentially interesting questions and background stories and plot holes left unanswered mainly due to time constraints. More on the next point.
5. The weak and very limiting storyline. I guess this goes hand in hand with the duration issue mentioned above. It's a circle. There are a lot of side details and stories that the game does not explain deeper making it less immersive for us players to play as Erica. I was so intrigued as I explored the places/scenes with a lot of details I discovered and knowing me, I could've been more infested in it had I received a closure for all those little details throughout the game at least. For example, what was the point of the medical treatment the Delphi House doctors did to the girls there? Why did the girls have to die eventually? What was that cult for actually? And our mother, can she be less engaging in the story here?!
6. Eventually, the ending(s). There are said to be 7 different endings and I managed to get all three. Husband got the worst ending the first time around and we got the best on next by burning down the whole building and escaping with our bffs. The endings do not really make sense and remain inconclusive. What did our mother want actually? Did she actually wanna be saved? Is that really what the game implied? Did she want us to save ourselves instead? Did she really die? We don't know!
7. Final verdict. Despite all of its shortcomings, mainly on story plots and duration, Erica is still a compact fun game that offers new exciting experience to me. I don't regret playing it (I mean it's free too) and I like that I can finish it in one sitting. Even played it multiple times to explore different paths and endings in also one go. It's still doable when the game is only 2 hours long. I would recommend this.

Making Another Homemade Brownies Cake: Revisited.

Due to its popularity in my household (or apartment-hold?), which mainly includes only my husband and I, my husband demanded me to make him another brownies cake

A challenge I easily embraced by retorting "yeah, I was actually thinking of making it today actually", the day he begged me to make another batch of ir. And boy did this sister do it.

This time, I was using another premix type. It wasn't the one I typically used since I was feeling adventurous. Oh and before we continue, if any of you thinks that I'm writing this in an overly excited thrilling fashion, please understand that we live in a studio apartment with no baking oven. So, making a homemade "bakery" food item is considered a wowy activity.

Okay, continuing on. I use a different pyrex/glass pan and different premix since I want to test out: 1. How the pan fares to the other glass pie pan that I used on my previous batch (see the previous post for reference) and 2. What the other premix cake would give me, and whether I would like the first or the second one better. Fairly said, we have two objectives for this experiment.

This time, the premix requires 4 battered eggs as opposed to one. I was expecting it to end up as a huge cake but I just kept on following their direction label. It also doesn't require any water????? The previous premix kinda makes me drizzle 4 drips of water there. Interesting. Now let's see how it turns out.

 Nicely and well surprisingly raised and cooked all the way through. Very puffy.

And above is what the brownie looks like inside. I did add some shredded cheddar cheese in the batter.

Final verdict:

I. Love. It. I am happy with how it turns out so beautifully texture-wise and taste-wise. It's good to note that the texture does differ from the last one though where the last one was more gooey (no matter how long you steam it, I've tried) and just thicker inside whereas this one is dryer, fluffier, and more porous all the way through. In the end, you'll have to decide which kind of brownies batter you prefer the most. As for me, I enjoy both, so I don't mind either of them.

Happy baking (steaming)!