Hysteria Project feels like just that... a project. A media project for school which gives a chance for the plucky young student to practise using his expensive camera and his new video editing software his Dad paid so much money for, whilst being able to re-enact his favourite horror movie sequence. In fact, it's not much of a game at all, more a series of cut scenes and image tomfoolery with options in between, but as it turns out, this simple format can provide an unusually compelling experience, despite the obvious downfalls of releasing it for minis.
As far as horror films go, it's nothing special; just your run-of-the-mill evil entity chasing after you with a health-and safety-hazard, but put in the form of Sega CD style FMV 'game', it works remarkably well. It's akin to skipping the first hour of boring exposition of any horror movie and going straight to the escape scene. And that's part of the intrigue: you have no idea where you are, how you got there or who/what's after you.
A lot of the game is spent running through the woods (well, watching a video of your character running through the woods), but the video will occasionally be interrupted and you'll forced to make some sort of a decision, such as hide/keep running or set trap/stay hidden. In the latter half of the game, these options are mostly trial and error with a lot of them resulting in cheap deaths; at least the game has the courtesy to include retries.
Surprisingly, 'puzzles' also make an appearance in Hysteria Project (the term being used lightly.) In keeping with the whole 'running away from death' aspect, the 'puzzles' are just a different way of telling you which route to take, thrown in with a timer to make things a good deal more irritating.
Gameplay is limited to just choosing an option, or pressing 'X' or 'O' during the games video sequences, but I have to give Hysteria Project credit for the way it includes its quicktime events. Like most people, I'm not a fan of button prompts, but in Hysteria Project, they're only used when they're necessary: usually during the game's action sequences. They're never distracting so they help keep you immersed as you're watching your character try to sneak quietly from one place to another.
For a game which focuses so heavily on these FMV sequences, the video is very important. Unfortunately, as you might expect from the file size limitations, the video has been compressed quite a bit. The bad quality is much more noticeable in the faster, action sequences and does let it down somewhat; but then I guess you could argue that the unclear video adds to the shadowy atmosphere... if you're one of them 'games-as-art' types.
The audio is one of the best parts of the game. The soundtrack is eerie and much like what you'd expect to find in a full retail release. On top of the music, there can be any number of creepy and expertly produced sound effects, most notable being the 'scream' that resonates around the woods whenever you turn to face the creature chasing you. This experience is slightly marred however; upon start up, the game recommends using some headpones, however with some scenes I found there was a distinct clicking sound alternating between ears. It could have been an intentional way of trying to immerse you (somehow) but, more likely, it was due to the compression on the audio.
So, to wrap this up in a nice, neat package, minis are both perfect for, and a substantial detriment to Hysteria Project. At 80MB in size, it seems they could have spent an extra 20MB improving some of the video sequences or the audio; after all, the recently released "Monsters (in all likelihood, given previous gaming conventions) Stole My Princess" was 300KB over the limit. Still, it's a unique experience, which wouldn't really work if it was released on any other platform: petty nuisances aside, there's a lot of enjoyment to be had. There are worse ways to spend £1.20/$1.99 and with the prospect of a sequel, this could turn out to be great property for minis.
