Another day, another indie-developed horror game. This time, I’m looking at Apartment No 129 from Dead Witness, which is said to be based on real events.

“Emir, who has an interest in mysterious events, steps alone into the abandoned apartment known as “Apartment No 129″ to trace the trail of a paranormal event that occurred in 2009 and shook the country. However, he will find himself in an unexpected confrontation within this horror apartment.”

I need to cover a few things before I get into this review. The claim of this being based on real events is bogus. I have done a ton of research and there is no such real story, at least not one with any credible source. It is based on an urban myth, at best. Also, I do need to make it clear that I played the Xbox version for this review, for reasons that will become very clear, because the Xbox version is totally unplayable.

Full disclosure, I had to give up playing after over two hours because it is a broken mess on the Xbox. My first issue was with the lighting, it’s awful to the point where most of what I played was in total darkness. You may not believe me, so I took a screenshot.

Total darkness. Now, your character does have a torch (flashlight) and a lot of similar games do the same thing, but the torch is supposed to be an occasional tool. You have to play Apartment No 129 with the torch on for 90% of the time, because the lighting is way, way too dark. You may be thinking what’s the problem with using a torch? Well, it uses batteries and there are only a finite number found in the game. So you need to search the map to find more batteries to power your torch. Great, I do like a game where you have to search for and manage resources. However, this mechanic is broken in this Xbox version.

(If you were wondering about the better lighting in that screen, that’s the PC version, not Xbox) You can’t search for items. I went into an apartment in the game, found a kitchen, there are cupboards and drawers. I looked at them and the option to interact came up, I pressed the correct button, there was the sound of the cupboard door opening and… nothing. The cupboard door did not open. I tried a drawer, same thing, the sound, no animation of the drawer opening. I know that you can open cupboards and drawers, because I decided to watch someone play the PC version on YouTube and they did just that. But you can’t do it in the Xbox version. This means that you can’t find resources, and so you can’t play the game. There’s another point I need to raise that I need another screenshot for.

That’s me looking at a blank wall. See the subtitles that say “seek the light hidden in the darkness” at the bottom? Do you know why that subtitle is there? Because the game is supposed to have messages, graffiti, and clues on the walls that help guide you and let you know where to go, what to do. Those messages are not there on the Xbox version. The subtitles for them are there when you look at the blank walls, but you’ll have no reason to look at the wall… because there’s nothing there to look at. I only found that one by pure accident. How do I know that the game is supposed to have messages and clues on the walls? Well, you can see some of them in the trailer above, none of those are in this Xbox version. I also saw them while watching the previous YouTube playthrough I mentioned.

Still, even with these obstacles in my way, I played Apartment No 129 for about two hours, I restarted three times because something felt off, and I thought I had missed something (lots of fumbling around and such because it is broken), and I eventually found both an axe and a handgun. This is where I have to bring up how the combat is awful. After finding the axe, the first enemy I came across was a zombie-like dog, I swung at it with my axe and I had no idea if I was hitting it or not because there was no feedback, no reaction from the dog being hit. It was like I was just swinging the axe at thin air. Apparently, I was hitting the dog though as it eventually went down after five or six hits and after the dog had taken 70% of my health. The first enemy! The less said about the gunplay the better, it is atrocious and it doesn’t feel like you are shooting a gun, water pistol, maybe.

This is why I have had to quit playing the game for this review, because it is totally broken. The PC version I watched on YouTube does have far better lighting and I have used a couple of PC screenshots here (no, you can’t adjust the lighting in-game), it has the search mechanic working, it has the helpful messages on the walls etc. There’s also full-video cutscenes in the PC version that are nowhere to be found on the Xbox.  I can only assume that this Xbox version is either massively bugged, or it is an earlier one and that the PC version has been updated since then. Perhaps the Xbox version will be updated later to make it actually playable. However, I have to review the game that I have been given and it is unplayable right now. If you’re interested in this, I’d suggest you try the PC version and stay away from the consoles.