HORROR WEEK: Special Comment

And now, as promised, a Special Comment about games.

One of the better compliments a baseball player can receive is that he 'plays within himself,' a phrase meaning that a batter who is a contact hitter doesn't try to hit homers and thus create more outs than runs. The term sounds derisive at first, as if to describe someone who is unable to do whatever is asked of him, but nothing could be farther from the truth.

Throughout history, the arts have struggled to find the best way to express emotions and ideals. The different humanities each have something that they do best. You don't see many movies about the internal dilemmas of a man coming to grips with his fading vigor in his old years because internal conflict like that plays out best in the context of a novel that can explore internal monologues; likewise, the action and bombast of a triumphant war movie plays poorly as a poem but makes for a fantastic summer blockbuster. The arts must learn to 'play within themselves.'

Starting with, probably, the last-gen systems the constant bickering over whether 'games are art' debate has been pretty firmly put to rest, pretty much on the back of Silent Hill 2, though rumblings of 'games are art is visible even earlier, in spook-fests like the original Alone in the Dark. And games, as an art form, have one genre that is really and truly "in their wheelhouse" so to speak: Horror. When games (no pun intended) play within themselves,' they do it best capitalizing on the Horror genre.

Every art plays on one or more essential connections to the human psyche. Video Games combine the visuals and storytelling language of movies, but lack their ability to control information to the viewer. The sense of controlling the action is unique to games, and this sense of power is where the ability of games to craft a sense of horror and dread come to the forefront. The general conceit of controlling an avatar's actions on screen plunges people deeper into vicariously living the lives of the characters onscreen, building a stronger bond with their representatives than even an epic novel can offer. This bond created between player and character is literally divine; you are both God and his will given flesh onscreen, a duality unlike anything else in the arts.

This bond is absolute; the character's victories are yours, and you feel a sense of pride about every one of your avatar's accomplishments. Similarly, your character's defeats sting that much more than the tribulations of a character on screen or stage. And the unique connection becomes all the more intense when the risks facing your avatar are increased, your challenges made Herculean, your resources depleted and your enemies made legion.

This risk and realization of triumph in the face of overwhelming, dooming odds is what the great games are made of. You are emotionally invested in your avatar in a way you aren't reading or watching a horror tale, because (for lack of a better term) you are living the horror as it unfolds; you scream as a door opens to reveal monsters and command your avatar to run away, just as you yourself would. The real risk to your continued survival is heightened as you run the real risk yourself of dying in the most unpleasant fashion imaginable (and sometimes even in fashions beyond imagination!).

With the continuing advances in sound design, control scemes, graphical capabilities and raw storage size, games get closer and closer to you living the events on-screen as they play out. While a convincing game that depicts human-to-human interaction is still as far out as a Turing-Test-capable AI, a human-versus-environment game is real now, and the most effective way to capitalize on it in a way that movies, stage, the written word, song and poem can never hope to do is to scare the pants off of the player.

HORROR WEEK: The Darkness

The Darkness

Sometimes it doesn't pay to spend your time being a virtual hero, fighting against things that go bump in the night. Sometimes, you just want to do the bumping. For those times, there's The Darkness. Written by Garth Ennis, based on his own eponymous comic, The Darkness weaves a twisted underworld fairytale as only the master of gratuitous violence and hilarity can. If you're not a comic fan, you've probably never heard of the mad Irishman Ennis, but rest assured he's one of the most demented brilliant writers working today.

Our game starts out as a extraordinarily generic first-person shooter: you're a Mafia hitman whose boss set you up, yadda yadda. But then you come into possession of a demonic entity's powers, and you use them to slaughter endless waves of Mafia mooks, crooked cops and undead Nazis in creative ways, all the while smashing lights and shooting streetlamps to keep yourself in good health. The suitably creepy Mike Patton provides the voice of both the angry entity (the titular Darkness) and its minions, the goofy yet ultraviolent Darklings.

The sound design is top-notch, and the graphics are grim and gritty (though a bit overdark, like a normal FPS's bloom-fest in reverse), with the storyline pulling no punches as it drags you through hell and back for the love of your girlfriend. There are collectables aplenty, handled in a unique way as you collect phone numbers and call them in on a pay phone, and the wit of Ennis really shines as many of them are darkly hilarious.

I'll admit, a console isn't the best place to play a first-person shooter, and this game is no exception to that rule. The autoaim is frustration, and you move and turn very slowly compared to the badass assassin you're built up to be; the sense of speed and urgency is missing from your normal interaction with the world. But the creativity with which the game delivers all the standards of the genre (phone numbers as collectables, a subway station for a warp hub) and the endless chatter available from people who have no impact on the game shows a lot of care was put into this game.

It was slept on by most, but The Darkness is a great single-player experience that deserves a playthrough, especially at the used prices it can be had for nowadays. The game's replay value is low (an atrocious multiplayer offering doesn't help), but for that twelve hours or so, it's a thrill ride with a lot to offer in terms of a richly-realized world, with fantastic voice acting and a spit-shine.

Graphics: Standard for this generation. Face models and speech are beautiful, but play on an SD TV at your own peril. 4.
Sound: Mike Patton is an awesome foil for our "hero" Jackie Estacado. 5.
Controls: Wonky and unresponsive. 2.
Tilt: Great, dark fun. It's a monster movie where you play the monster. 4.
Overall (not an average): 4.

HORROR WEEK: DOOM

DOOM

Way back when computers were new, there was no internet, no great hivemind telling people what to think. There was only your friends, telling you about this awesome game that Jimmy was playing last time they were over. And for 90% of us, DOOM was that game. While not the progenitor of the FPS, DOOM was such an influence that the term First-Person Shooter had to be coined because too many games were being described as "DOOM Clones," which begged the question to the customer: Why not just play DOOM?

What makes DOOM great, even to this day, is not the graphics (which are not just dated, but now painfully archaic) or the MIDI-based sound, but the level design. DOOM takes its cues not from what we understand of on-rails FPS's or even Light Gun games of the day, but of the text adventure games of the era, offering dozens of secrets, shortcuts and of course 'monster closets' that open up behind you at the most inopportune times. Levels are set up almost as puzzles, with the monsters serving as both an impetus to keep moving and an obstacle in the way of progress.

The lack of a Y-axis sorely hurts DOOM on a modern replay, even moreso than it lacking a true third dimension, as we have grown so used to it that not having it feels almost foreign and retarded (in the classical sense of the word), although the sound design holds up shockingly well. DOOM does an impressive job of making the player intensely aware of sound cues having a specific vocabulary of meanings, and although they are chiptunes at this point, the themes from DOOM are still effective at portraying the immediacy of each stage.

Replaying DOOM now, you realize, much as with a modern replay of the original Legend of Zelda, that these games were punishgly hard and rewarded memorization and repetition as much as playskill. The fun, however, is still present in force, as you attempt not just to make it through the stages, but with your sanity and ammo count high.

Graphics: No excuses, this game is disgusting by modern standards. Releasing a port onto XBLA without at least touching up the sprites is unforgivable. 1.
Sound: Aged like fine wine, and the monster sounds are suitably creepy to this day. 4.
Controls: They feel infantile, which is of course what they are, but no crippling deficiencies. 2.
Tilt: Still great fun to this day, either solo, deathmatching or co-op. 4.
Overall (not an average): 3.

HORROR WEEK: Penny Arcade Episode 1

Penny Arcade Adventures, Episode 1: On the Rain-Slicked Precipice of Darkness

There was a time when Penny Arcade was relevant and funny. Then World of Warcraft happened, and there was a fundamental shift away from jokes that were gaming-inspired to jokes that were gaming-derived. So it was with no small amount of trepidation that I started up OTRSPOD, fearing the worst. I was pleasantly surprised to discover a good old-fashioned RPG under the hood, quasi-real time combat mixed with levelling heroes and weapons and a decent-enough plot. Best of all, the comedy is derived from the source material, not from pop culture or in-jokes (with the notable exception of the presence and centrality to the plot of the Fruit Fucker 2000).

Tycho of PA is a brilliant if verbose writer, and his riffing on Lovecraftian themes, coupled with good, lowbrow humor and a sense of whimsy really plays into a great tribute to early 20th century horror author tropes, with genuinely laugh-out-loud jokes littered throughout. The graphics are gorgeous, hand-drawn everything that integrates your created character well. There are some sections that summon the phrase "chintzy Flash game" to mind but overall a positive impression, graphically.

Because the entire game is a throwback to text-based interactions, there's no voice-acting to speak of except for a narration at the beginning and end (and a credits song by MC Frontalot!), so the moody music and ghostly, repetitive monster attack sounds will have to serve you. And, being a throwback game at heart, get ready for lots of walking around, though the game wisely avoids "random encounters" entirely, making you full aware of what awaits you before each combat begins. The flow of the real-time attack meters and countering moves is an interesting combo; you have to wait for attack animations to finish, but at the same time pay attention as there is dexterity-based portions to each combat.

As part of a planned Quadrilogy, the price tag of $20 is a little steep, as the game railroads you pretty hard into the same planned progression each playthrough, offering no different experiences, and grinding is pretty much impossible as sections remain locked until you have finished a suitable amount of story ahead of it. While it isn't a scary game by any means, it does shamelessly and deliberately ape the stylings of H.P. Lovecraft and August Derleth, turning their monster's conventions on their heads and cracking wise, and for making you laugh during your fight with their version of Cthulhu, they get major props at least.

Graphics: Hand-drawn everything, with solid animations, but nothing really mind-blowing. 3.
Sound: A spooky soundtrack, but no voice work and reptitive monster sounds. 2.
Sound Supplemental: A credits song, by MC Frontalot: +1
Controls: The dexterity of blocking/dodging feels shoehorned into an otherwise classic turn-based RPG system. 3.
Tilt: Lots of jokes at the expense of mimes, fruit, carneys, urinologists and Lovecraft. 4.
Overall (not an average): 3.

HORROR WEEK: Dead Space

Dead Space

I am a gigantic sissy-girl when it comes to horror games. I'm not ashamed to say it, I have a lot of trouble playing 'scary games.' Which is odd, because I'm the biggest gorehound I know, and have an encyclopedic knowledge of horror movies and horror authors; I love the genre, but there's something about playing a game, where you are the one being chased, attacked or dismembered that makes it completely unnerving.

Dead Space is pretty much the scariest thing you will ever play. I am not exaggerating in the least when I say it is endlessly unsettling and outright terrifying. The irony is it is such a completely lame and overdone plot, but like the great horror films, it realizes the point is not an interesting storyline, but pants-crapping fear that matters, and the less "story" that gets in the way, the better. Horror and Comedy share these traits in cinema, books and games.

Issaac Clark (as in, Asimov and Arthur C., get it?) is a repairman who has to put together a drifting spaceship that has been ovverrun with the animated corpses of its staff, and his long-distance girlfriend is somewhere on the ship as well. What Dead Space skips in plot, it makes up for in jaw-droppingly gorgeous setpieces and extraordinarily intelligent design. The game's director very clearly takes influences from the standard tropes of monster movies, and learns his lessons well.

Shadows shift and change, monsters grumble and skitter even when they aren't attacking, and the ship groans and creaks like a dying behemoth you are trapped in the belly of. For the full experience, playing this game with the audio routed to a pair of headphones will set most over the edge.

The best touches are the little ones, what we call 'polish' in the games industry. Unlike a normal shooter, this game makes sure every time you have to go anywhere, there's not just one path. There's always an alternate route, one bathed in darkness, that even though your digital breadcrumb trail says is useless, you find yourself checking out "just to be sure." Whenever you walk up to a closed door, the icon reads "Open?", a question you don't really want to answer 'yes' to, since you know death awaits on the other side.

Graphics: The best you'll see this gen. Everything is coated in a layer of polish, showing off the details better that even Silent Hill's famously painted backgrounds, only in true 3-D. 5.
Sound: Better and spookier work than anything you'll endure elsewhere. Good luck playing this game after dark. 5.
Controls: Issac is just a bit too slow and lumbering, though whether this is by design or not is debatable. 4.
Tilt: White-knuckle thrill ride incarnate. 5.
Overall (not an average): The definitive survival horror game of all time. It's questionable that this game will ever bested in this gen, or even the next one. 5.