Accident – Review

Just as the name suggests, Accident blindsides you at 60, but gives you the opportunity to right a few wrongs.

Accident is a strange game that falls somewhere between a simulation game and a crime scene investigator, with a fair amount of subtle education along the way.

You take control of a journalist who’s recently returned to work to find a new system in place that allows you to relive past accidents in the hope of figuring out exactly what happened.

Right from the start, you’re sat at a desk and introduced to the generation defying mix between CD’s and VR headsets to revisit accidents and it’s your job to work out exactly what happened.

you’re initially prompted to try the tutorial which is a crash-test simulation with a few dummies and a quick introduction to the basics, such as calling emergency services, securing the scene and checking if any victims are okay, it’s a little infuriating to fully test each area when sometimes a description would be enough, but thankfully the frustration is short-lived

You’ll soon be in the real world with your first case featuring an accident involving logs falling off the back of a lorry. You approach in your car to find a SUV that’s hit a tree and then a little further down the road, two more cars that had crashed into a pile of logs.

As with the tutorial, you start off by calling emergency services and marking out the scene with hazard triangles, securing each vehicle by turning off the ignition and then checking on the victims.

The first in the SUV has a small puncture from a branch that’s come through the window, with one car severely crushed by a falling log and another that had crashed into its rear.

You’ll check the airways of each victim and dress the wound on the SUV driver, the rear car driver has minimal injuries but sadly the two in the car crushed by logs are already dead.

its at the early point when you soon realise Accident isn’t afraid of reality, and you’ll soon come across more dead victims, or worst still have to make the decision of who to save, because sometimes you just can’t rescue everybody.

At the end of each scenario, you’ll have to find all of the available clues, and then place them in a timeline of events to show exactly what happened.

This parts pretty straight forward as a little common sense and the information that accompanies each clue is usually clear enough to work out the series of events, which is a shame, because its a missed opportunity to add a little more depth and investigation.

Finally you get a full re-enactment of exactly what happened as well as a nice little summary filling in some backstory on the victims and what happened after the incident, before heading back to your desk to start your next scenario.

There’s a total of nine accidents to work through, which always follow the same path, so unfortunately the replay value is low, but at only £12.49, the educational value is second to none.

While it plays very much as a game, it’s informative and educational and I’m sure most players outside of a first aid class, are likely to learn a thing to two.

the educational aspect is very subtle and doesn’t feel forced, but it’s there and helps make Accident a pretty unique game, there’s often small pop-ups at the top of the screen, explaining actions and how they’d be relevant in real life, it’s a nice touch which shows a lot of attention has gone into the delivery of Accident, without making it feel like a first response school video.

There’s also a decent puzzle challenge as you work out each problem and what order to deal with it, sometimes it’s trial and error, others common sense, but with the rewind function you’ll get there eventually..

Take too much time dealing with one victim and you might have another die, so while you can’t always save everyone, you’ll soon see the benefits from managing your time and the urgency of required aid for your victims, accompanied with that little backstory at the end, its a nice feeling to know that someone who would have died, had you done things differently, has gone on to continue a happy and healthy life.

Graphically Accident fits the normal “Sim” style, with average presentation that will give you the information you need, but won’t wow you with the visuals.

There’s no slowdown, judders or major pop-in, though you will notice some textures loading in mid-distance and the vehicles and details around the scene are all clear enough for you to progress without too much trouble, though it was a little disappointing that the screenshots on Xbox.com seem to be from PC (featured image at the top of the review), with the same level of lighting, details and Ray-tracing not as noticeable on my Xbox Series X (screenshots within this review).

One issue I did have was the twitchy controls, with settings obviously ported over from a mouse preference, but if you head straight to the options menu and reduce sensitivity down to about 10-15%, you’ll get a much smoother and more enjoyable aiming with a controller, which is important when you’re often trying to select small on screen prompts without wasting too much time.

The audio isn’t going to set anyone’s world on fire, but it does a good enough job of letting you know what’s what, but expect plenty of repeated sound bites for cars driving past, and the surrounding ambience, it’s mildly repetitive but never infuriating.

However, while audio and visuals might be average at best, the overall presentation is on a other level, combining these life-like scenarios with pretty accurate responses, that educational aspect is delivered in a smart and informative way, you honestly feel like you’ve learnt something without it ever feeling like a lesson or a test.

Another area that’s important to mention is, the vast majority of Accident was made by a single man, considering all it delivered at such a decent price, even with limited accidents it’s still great value.

Accident might not look or sound the best and it gets a little repetitive later on, so it isn’t going to please everyone, but it’s unique, rewarding and educational making it well worth consideration.

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