Gynophobia caused a bit of an uproar when its first trailer came out, since it showed footage of a first-person shooter in which most enemies were female monsters, which combined with the title of the game led people to believe it was some sort of tasteless commentary on the recent demands for better female representation in video games. While this seemed like a dangerous minefield to cross, I was determined to go in and find out if there was more to it than just that. What I ended up finding was… interesting.
In Gynophobia we get to play as a man called Mark, who has recently been diagnosed with the titular phobia, which explains why he has always felt uneasy around women. He also has arachnophobia, which is a fear of spiders. He lives on his own in an apartment that serves as a sort of hub during the game that fills the time between the actual levels and gives us some insight in the character’s life. This day is particularly bad for our protagonist, however, as there is a pretty big spider in his house and a large-breasted woman at the front door.
The game contains about five levels, two of which are introductory stages that take place when Mark retreats into a small room with a zombie game to play, and the rest all happen in his nightmares. The levels are usually linear tracks to the end, but some of them have an alternate goal or offer more freedom of movement. For example, the second stage starts you in the middle of a city district and has you collecting spare parts in order to repair a van while a gigantic, immortal enemy relentlessly chases you.
Even so, the quality of the levels varies immensely. The example above was actually quite fun, with lots of interesting scenery and props lying around, but other stages can simply be long, plainly-textured caves with a few cobwebs in it. One consistent issue I have here is that there aren’t any secrets to find, which is particularly weird since the game advertises itself as a “classic first-person shooter”. There are also no real environmental hazards, some bottomless pits and a few spikes can be found, but the game always has obvious bridges that lead you across, so it only creates a sense of danger (kind of like a haunted house).
Likewise, the gameplay mechanics feel under-designed as well. There are a total of three weapons in the game: a knife, a pistol and an assault rifle. All of these fill the roles you’d expect them to, except for the knife, which often didn’t respond to my button-presses. That leaves you with two useful weapons, but there is also no real strategy required to make it through any of the fights; almost all foes do melee-damage and move slower than you, so picking them off from a distance while backpedaling works all the time. This is probably for the better, since Mark dies pretty quickly when attacked.
That is not to say the monsters are terribly designed, their AI might be poor, but the designs are true to the themes of the game. Most foes are either arachnids or female monsters, which is supported by the occasional male zombie. The models don’t look stellar, but there is some nice variety and they are definitely okay to look at. It would just have been nice if the enemies had different attacks, so you would actually have to pay attention to what was happening. The final boss is the exception here and was enjoyably frantic to fight with, forcing me to circle strafe, jump around and hide behind pillars. If the game offered more of that, along with some secrets and hazardous environments, then I would have been more inclined to accept the “classic FPS” claims made in its marketing.
When I started reviewing this game, I worried about how many of my own opinions on the “women in video games” debate would shine through in my writing, but I actually found Gynophobia to be quite unremarkable, in both its dealings with the titular theme and just in general. I wish there was something about this game that made it in any way memorable, but it almost feels professionally sabotaged. It won’t even go into the history books as “that game in which all enemies are girls” because of the zombies and spiders.
Sadly, the game is what it is: a barebones shooter that I can only praise for letting me change the FOV. I hoped the story would do something interesting with the phobias, but though the conclusion is pretty funny, it doesn’t leave much of an impact and I feel it could have been pretty much any other theme and it would have been the same game. You could take out all the females, replace them with clowns and call it Coulrophobia, for example, and the story wouldn’t have to change at all to accommodate it. You can play Gynophobia, it’s about $4 on Desura, but there is nothing to find here.
(3 / 10)
Poor
(3 / 10)
