Kidnapped

While this game shouldn't be classified as "horror" (in my opinion), it is still worth playing. Many aspects of the story are cheesy, and some puzzles are downright illogical, but what do you expect from an RM game?

Visual: 3/5
You'll be seeing a lot of empty hallway in this game. If done correctly, this can be a good thing, but the lack of a spooky atmosphere, even some kind of flashlight mechanism, really kills the idea of having bland rooms. That being said, a lot of the stuff in this game is custom, which I appreciate very much.

Audio: 3/5
It was average. Didn't really instill fear, but didn't take away from any kind of experience either. Just average.

Story: 2/5
This game has an extremely cheesy story, and even more cheesy dialogue. The introduction is extremely long and painful to watch. I played this with a few friends for my birthday, actually, and we had a great time dubbing over each one of the characters in our own funny voices (my personal favourite being my friend taking on Bruno, making him sound like a gay stripper). There are many holes in the plot (WHY DID IT MATTER THAT THE DUDE HAD BEETHOVEN SHEET MUSIC?), but it ultimately ends up being just a normal game ending. I'm pretty confident there aren't more than just one, either, so the replayability is absolutely zilch.

Gameplay: 3.5/5
Let's start off with the good here. There is a very cool feature that you die (or, you are caught, I guess) when the "noise bar" maxes out. There's a cool-down timer and this can sometimes make you think twice before smashing down a door with Bruno's brute force. As far as I could tell, there are absolutely no flaws in that system, and it's is very nice.
You play as 3 characters, all of which have different abilities to solve puzzles in-game. One is musical and tall, one can solve puzzles extremely easy (of course, this character is a woman), and the other character (good ol' Bruno) is the strongest of the bunch. Guess he had to get ripped for all that male modeling. Anyhow, you can switch between the three characters to accomplish the different pieces of the puzzles, which adds for a cool mechanic not many games have. However, this can sometimes be game-breaking, as your character's position is remembered when you switch between them, but they completely disappear. Sometimes this leads to your characters getting stuck inside objects that another character has moved, rendering the game impossible to play, and you must restart from your last save. So save often! An easy solution to this would have been to make the character an event instead of a player when switching between them, so an object you can't pass through would not end up blocking you from completing the game.
The puzzles, for the most part, are easy enough, and typical for a horror game. This is not a bad thing by any means. There are a few challenging ones, but upon figuring them out you will realize they were hidden in plain sight all along! While most of the puzzles in this game are quite nice, there are a few that just flat out don't make any sense. Usually, interactive objects are marked with a glowing graphic, but in a few cases, you will find yourself randomly clicking on things without any idea what to do. This, among other things, is truly a mood killer, and will get you more pissed off at the game, and yourself, than anything else.

Conclusion: 3/5
You'll find that this is just an average game. Not much horror is added into it, and it seems more like JUST a puzzle game at most points. That being said, Kidnapped is still a game you should at least give a shot. If nothing else, bring some friends over and make fun of it, because there are some nice laughs to be had. There are some great things this game brings to the table, and some not so great things, but hey...
what did you expect from an RM game?