Pinstripe (PC) Review

Pinstripe drops the player into the shoes of Ted. Ted clearly has some religious ties, but that's not important. What is important is that Ted has taken his daughter, Bo, on a train ride that ends in sorrow. Instead of traveling together, having quality daddy-daughter time, Bo is snatched up by Pinstripe. Ted must venture into Hades itself to rescue her from this nefarious fiend. On his journey, he will meet some very interesting characters, slay monsters, and with any luck, be reunited with the one person he cares for more than any other in the world.

Pinstripe, if nothing else, is really creepy. From the dialogue, to the world, to the very inhabitants you stumble across, Ted has been dropped into a scary world. This world is unnerving. Pinstripe opens up with a line that is genuinely chilling, and the entire visual and verbal aesthetic follows suit.

Finding Bo isn't going to be simple, and Pinstripe manages to do a lot with such a small world. While there's not a seemingly infinite amount of space to explore, space is rarely wasted. Each screen serves a purpose, even if that purpose can be a bit cumbersome. While it can be annoying having to repeat actions over and over, it's interesting how the game even manages to make backtracking somewhat enjoyable.

The player will meet some interesting characters. The voice acting is occasionally cringe worthy, but in general it's pretty spot on. Pinstripe's voice acting is especially good, showing his uncontrollable malice with each word.

As it may be expected, not everything in Hell is quite as interesting, though. There are minor issues with the game that drag the experience down a bit. There are occasional frame rate problems, but they aren't so bad that it makes the experience unplayable. It's also hardly the game's biggest issue.

There aren't a lot of save points around, but they don't seem to really matter. Ted will just respawn at them. Anything he did after saving, but before dying, remains completed. This is actually kind of nice, because it means not having to worry about repeating actions over and over again. It does, however, beg the question, why are there even save points in the game?

Still, these pale in comparison to Pinstripe's biggest flaw. Navigating the world and even jumping around feels nice enough. Shooting, which is very prevalent in the game, is a completely different story. The player needs to use shooting a lot, and it feels very unnatural. The aiming reticule often stays up when you don't need it anymore, and causes Ted's movement to become difficult, as he's focusing on where he's shooting.