Would have worked better as a short film
The first thing that must be said to anyone considering purchasing the The Bunker is that it is a very short adventure FMV "game". If played through slowly and methodically it can be stretched out to a three-hour experience and I use the word 'experience' because in all honesty The Bunker barely qualifies as a game in the typical mechanical sense. Game play (such as it is) is limited to clicking a button to proceed from room to room; hunting for interact-able objects on static backgrounds, and QTE clicking events that can be 'passed' or 'failed'.
The game is set within a nuclear bunker and tells a story, mostly from the perspective of John, the player character. John is the bunker's sole survivor and also the only individual ever within in it to have been born there. Your quest is to make sense of his situation, and the way you do that is through a exploring the various parts of an actual British nuclear bunker (which was hugely interesting in and of itself to me). This exploration leads to the discovery of locations and items that trigger flashbacks to events that followed a combined nuclear and biological strike (presumably carried out by the USSR) in 1984, right through up to the present day in 2016 following the recent death of his mother (and hitherto sole surviving companion).
John has been living his life in adherence to strict routines as laid out by his mother prior to her death. As those routines break down, he is forced to confront the tough reality of his current situation, and the past events that led up to it.
The way this is delivered is hugely intriguing and perhaps the best way to describe this game is to say it is a fascinating short film that has been adapted for video game format. While the game play elements aren't especially interesting the narrative is engaging enough to hold attention.
The Bunker has two major redeeming qualities that distinguish it from usual FMV fare and save it from a lower score.
Firstly, it is evident right from the start that the production and acting quality is much higher than one might otherwise expect. Unusually for the genre, the acting is all played straight down the line. The Bunker takes itself very seriously.
Secondly the story, and its delivery, is very smoothly handled right up until last scene or two where things drop off a little bit due to some unnecessarily sensitive QTEs that, when failed, lead to multiple re-watches of several minutes of video.
Make no mistake about it, the premise and the story are the reasons you might enjoy this title. They are both intriguing but that's all there is. There's nothing else to The Bunker as an experience.
This is a quality product in terms of what is there, but as a game it becomes hard to see how it justifies a retail price of £15 (approximately twice the cost of going to the cinema to watch a full length film).
I think that in the end the game is worth the time required to play it but the price point is a little out of touch with what it actually is.
Check it out if it goes on sale and you have a couple of hours free.