Blair Witch Volume I: Rustin Parr

Blair Witch Volume 1: Rustin Parr
Cover art for Volume 1
Developer(s)	Terminal Reality
Publisher(s)	Gathering of Developers
Platform(s)	Microsoft Windows
Release	3 October 2000
Genre(s)	Action-adventure game, psychological horror

Blair Witch Volume 1: Rustin Parr is a video game released in 2000, and is the first game in the Blair Witch video game series.

Plot

While Volume 1 is intended to take place within the fictional universe of the Blair Witch, the game is technically also a sequel to Nocturne, the game for which the trilogy's engine was originally developed. Elspeth "Doc" Holliday was a minor character in Nocturne, with several other characters from that game also appearing, including Master Khen Rigzin, Colonel Hapscomb, General Biggs, an unnamed secretary, Svetlana Lupescu, and The Stranger appearing at the start of the game. The Stranger reappears later in the game, on the fourth day, as the player's partner. Some enemies from Nocturne such as bat-like creatures and a werewolf also appear in the beginning of the game in the training session.

The story takes place in the year 1941, and with the exception of the opening section in the Spookhouse HQ, the game takes place over four days. Following her training, research scientist Elspeth "Doc" Holliday is dispatched to the town of Burkittsville by the Spookhouse, a fictional classified government agency charged with investigating paranormal occurrences. When given the assignment to look into the legend of the Blair Witch, she is partnered with the Stranger, but decides to go on her own as the Stranger is skeptical of the witches existence.

It is reported that during the early 1940s, a hermit named Rustin Parr abducted seven children from Burkittsville and, apparently without motive, murdered all but one in his basement. He forced the surviving child, Kyle Brody, to stand in a corner and listen to the screams of the children being tortured and murdered. Afterwards, Rustin Parr left his house in the forest, walked into town, and said to a local shopkeeper, "I'm finally finished."

The player must guide Holliday through her investigations, to see if there is any truth to Parr's claims that he was under the influence of otherworldly forces when he committed the murders. The investigation includes conversing with inhabitants of the town and analyzing clues. Action sequences occur intermittently in the woods where the legendary Blair Witch is rumored to live, as well as in nightmare sequences in which the inhabitants of the town seem to become Daemites (demonic zombies). The story of Rustin Parr, minus the involvement of Holliday, was described briefly in The Blair Witch Project, and more fully in the pseudo-documentary Curse of the Blair Witch, which accompanied the DVD release of the film.

Holliday's learns of the sole survivor of Parr's killings, Kyle Broady, who is seemingly catatonic from his experiences, and Mary Brown, a girl who claims to see the spirits of Parr's victims. Learning the history of Burketssville, she learns from a shaman named Asgaya, of an evil spirit called Hecaitomix, who is the true source of the curse, having influenced Elly Kedward and Rustin Parr, and is currently possessing Broady. According to legend, Hecaitomix has been keeping a child called the "Bleeding Boy" imprisoned in his realm to feed on and has now set his sights on Mary Brown. Holliday manages to exorcise Kyle, who reveals Hecaitomix is now using a local pastor to finish the job and murders a local judge, by claiming it to be the will of God.

Holiday knocks the pastor out and rescues Mary, but is nearly arrested before the Stranger shows up, claiming that he and Holliday are part of an FBI investigation and Mary backs up Hollidays claim. Holliday and the Stranger team up with a plan to enter Hecaitomix's realm. Upon entering, they find and rescue the Bleeding Boy, and are pursued out of the realm by Hecaitomix. After managing to escape and trap Hecaitomix within his realm, Holliday and the Stranger give the boy a proper burial.

The game contains references from David Lynch's Twin Peaks. There are several references in the game, most notably a Dale Cooper facsimile making a cameo appearance in the Burkittsville Diner, directly using quotes from the television show ("Damn fine cup of coffee... and Hot!"; "This must be where pies go when they die."). His name is given as "Hale" only when chatting to him while the town sheriff is present; during Holliday's nightmare, a possessed Hale exclaims that the diner "must be where pies go when they die" while actually sitting before a plate of writhing human intestines.

Reception

Reception
Aggregate scores Aggregator Score GameRankings 71.58%[1] Metacritic 73/100[2] Review scores Publication Score Adventure Gamers [3] AllGame [4] Eurogamer 9/10[5] Game Informer 6.75/10[6] GamePro [7] Game Revolution B[8] GameSpot 7.1/10[9] GameSpy 92%[10] GameZone 8.3/10[11] IGN 6.8/10[12] PC Gamer (US) 70%[13] Maxim 8/10[14]

In the United States, Volume 1 sold 49,000 copies by October 2001.^[15] On Metacritic, a site which aggregates normalized review scores, Volume 1 has the highest average score of the trilogy with 73 out of 100.^[2] GameRankings also gave it 71.58%.^[1] GameSpot awarded the game a 7.1 out of 10, praising its atmosphere but calling its combat "mediocre".^[9] Eurogamer also highlights the game's atmosphere but said this about the game's length:

"Sadly, there is one big crux as far as Rustin Parr goes, and that's longevity. Like a film or book with a twist in the tail and an engrossing story-line, you can happily read it again and the odd bit here or there will make more sense, but you'll never get quite the same level of enjoyment out of it as you did before. Add to this the fact that Rustin Parr is over in what seems like an instant and you have cause for some alarm."^[5]

ActionTrip was more critical of the game and awarded it a 5.9 out of 10. Cited are its "bad controls", "godawful camera angles" and its re-purposing of a classic adventure game engine for a more action-oriented game. On the positive side of things, the author approved of the game's story and mood.^[16] AllGame described the game as "one of the scariest games you're likely to experience on the PC in the year 2000" but that the greatest drawback was the controls, stating that "it takes what seems forever to re-center yourself after you turn around and also, when you look up or down, you can get disoriented before you realize you aren't looking straight ahead anymore. This can be very frustrating, especially when you are trying to fight off the many undead creatures in the forest." and that the game was short, taking only about 10 hours to finish.^[4]

Rustin Parr was a nominee for GameSpot's 2000 "Best Adventure Game" award, which ultimately went to The Longest Journey.^[17]

References