Game Review: Goosebumps Dead of Night (Xbox One)

Developed and published by Cosmic Forces, Goosebumps Dead of Night looks to cash in on the brief rise in popularity that came with the release of 2016 movie. While its sequel in 2018 wasn’t quite as big a hit, it still did very well and confirmed that a whole new generation of kids were enjoying stories that first appeared in 1992.

A whole new generation for unscrupulous companies to try and take advantage of.

Harsh? Maybe, but very few people won’t have much of a different view once they’ve experienced the joke that is Goosebumps Dead of Night.

There’s very little fun to be had writing a review that is predominantly negative. Normally, we’d find that we just wouldn’t bother. However, as fools who parted with our money to play this game we feel it is our duty to warn others about it. It is not hyperbole to suggest that Goosebumps Dead of Night is one of the biggest ripoffs of the last 10 years.

Its story is impossibly lazy and sees Goosebumps writer R.L. Stine (voiced by Jack Black) trapped inside his typewriter. How? It’s all the work of the evil dummy, Slappy. He has escaped his book and unleashed a selection of famous Goosebumps’ monsters. Your character, who is given the name of Twist, must stop the evil dummy before his plan to unleash monsters on the world is complete.

Across 3 chapters, players will have to collect pages, find clues, hide from monsters, complete puzzles and battle Slappy’s minions. All of that sounds perfectly fine expect the execution is so poor and the game’s length is simply shocking.

The stealth sections are hilariously bad and frustrating. You’ll spend far more time than you’ll want to running and hiding from monsters. Although they can be inches from you and still not react when you dive into a hiding place. Running would be less of a problem if Twist could move fast but the character has stamina that is akin to a 40-a-day smoker.

Then we have the puzzles, all spelled out to such a degree the game might as well have completed them for you. The only challenge coming inside Nikola Tesla’s tower and even that stuff just gets annoying.

So many segments rely on trial and error. Move around, die, repeat, find what you need to do, die, repeat and so on.

Then, suddenly and abruptly you’re at the final boss. An easy win once…you guessed it…you’ve worked out the pattern. The credits start rolling and the realisation sinks in that you’ve spent over £30 for a game that lasted less than 2 hours. On a first and death-stricken play through too.

A second play through? Less than an hour with absolutely nothing to keep you coming back afterwards.

If that isn’t enough to tell you Goosebumps Dead of Night is one to avoid then the average visuals, lacklustre sounds, music and occasional minor bugs should do it.

If it was a £10 game we’d call it below average and leave it at that but the egregious price has to be taken into account. It feels sinister and is simply a level of unacceptable greed not often seen outside of the free to play market.