Mouthwashing

Mouthwashing is a psychological horror/thriller video game that well and truly left an impression on me! Let me start by telling you that to get the very best out of this game, you need to know as little about the story as possible going in. The way that the story is presented to you is very unique and it drip-feeds you parts of what is going on. If you love horror and sci-fi, this is a game that is going to grab your attention pretty much as soon as you start playing it.

Staring At The Sun!

I want to try and be as vague as possible about the story in Mouthwashing as this is the best thing about the game. We are on a space freighter hauling a ton of mouthwash and for whatever reason, the captain, a dude called Curly has gone kind of nuts and has ended up getting us stranded in space with no real hope of rescue! Sure we have some supplies and plenty of power, but that is not going to last and also the crew has their own paranoia and deteriorating mental state to deal with thanks to the fact that they are all essential on a death clock now.

A Timely Twisted Tale

I mentioned the captain, Curly, but Mouthwashing has several interesting and even disturbed characters that make up this crew. The thing about the storytelling in this game is that it jumps all over the place. The way it will just all of a sudden cut to another scene happening at another time sounds like it would make the story so hard to follow, but when you are in the thick of it, it all makes sense. The number of times something would happen and I would think to myself “this means bad things for the future scene that is going to be coming up” was off the charts. It is such a unique and interesting approach to telling a story! Plus, the more we find out about these characters, the more you will either love or just hate them!

In The Moment

Like the story, the time jumping stuff in Mouthwashing makes the gameplay quite unique too. You can all of a sudden be shutting a door or be in some other kind of perilous state or you may be tasked with making the remains of Curly a cake! The thing here is that they manage to make you feel like you are actually doing and involved with every task that needs doing to progress to the next scene. It may not technically be groundbreaking or anything like that, but it does give you a rather uneasy feeling the whole time you are playing it and I thought that was pretty neat. While I would certainly say that this is a horror game, it is not just throwing a ton of jump scares in your face. The gameplay will have you thinking things are nice and easy one moment and then scared for your life the next. It is a rather short experience, but that does work in the game's favor.

Creeping You Out In 128 Bits!

I love the whole visual style that Mouthwashing has going on. I have heard many people reference the original PlayStation, but I think this is closer to the Sega Dreamcast, perhaps a halfway point between the two. Anyway, despite the retro visuals, the game still manages to make you creep out. Once you see what is left of Curly, you will know that these low-fi visuals can still creep the hell out of you. The clever way that the scenes will cut and thrust you into another time is very well done and little details that change as the timeline changes are really cool and help add to the overall experience. Out of all the games I have played that have gone for this PlayStation 1 or early Dreamcast kind of visual style, this one here is easily the most striking!

Pros:

• The characters are interesting… JIMMY! That is all I have to say!
• I loved the sense of dread that made up the horror story
• I thought the mixture of sci-fi and horror was really cool
• The time jumping story is truly excellent

Cons:

• Jimmy is one of the grossest characters I have seen in a long time
• It is a slower paced more psychological horror that some may not click with