Martha Is Dead

Martha is Dead is an unflinching and utterly absorbing ordeal to be endured rather than enjoyed.

A good premise and gripping start is undermined by a second half of bugs, bad writing, and grossly overused clich's of mental ill-health.

Martha is Dead will leave you psychologically scarred. Whether you enjoy the process depends on your constitution and hatred of bicycles.

LKA made the best recreation of an Italian setting I’ve ever seen in a game and I wanted nothing more than to enjoy it. However, LKA’s love of Italy is the only warmth I felt in Martha is Dead. The rest left me feeling as cold as Giulia’s dead sister.

As long as you can withstand its often extremely disturbing content, Martha is Dead is a absorbing and atmospheric adventure with a brilliantly realised setting and a beautifully haunting soundtrack. We can’t stress enough that it won’t suit all tastes, however.

Clunky writing, ponderous pacing and a commitment to lingering gore shots make Martha Is Dead an actively unpleasant experience. Run for the hills.

While certainly an accomplished piece of storytelling, Martha Is Dead's gameplay is such blatant artifice that it does the narrative a disservice to partake in it. That sounds extremely damning, but there's a lot here to like: the languid pace and detailed nature of the photography sequences are a standout, the graphics are often impressive, and the sheer bloody chutzpah of the whole thing is appealing in a grand guignol sort of way. The game can be shocking in what it shows you, but it doesn't feel exploitative. Horror should be horrific, and Martha Is Dead is certainly that. Unfortunately, perhaps not always in the way it was intended to be.

Martha is Dead meets every expectation and exceeds most of them. It is a true ghost story, perfectly designed to demand you keep playing while making you want to stop. Its near-flawless design sets a new benchmark in the quietly, weirdly, horrible.

If the developers had reigned in some of the more grotesque aspects of the story (and sped up the gameplay) this could have been far better. As it is, Martha is Dead is a game that is sometimes easy to admire but often hard to like.

‎Martha is Dead is a walking simulator with touches of psychological terror that manages to turn its most controversial section into an element capable of enhancing what it intends to show, although there are times when it is exceeded without need. Although it has a somewhat rough playable section and a poor technical section, Giulia's story is worth living.‎