Well, this is a random and slightly surreal digitally-edited gothic painting that I made to celebrate the fact that summer is almost over 🙂 And, yes, I’m more of a “cold weather” person.
As usual, this painting is released under a Creative Commons BY-NC-ND licence.
“Summer Falls” by C. A. Brown
Well, it’s the end of the month and this means that it’s time for my usual round up of links to the ten best articles (plus a few honourable mentions) that I’ve posted here during the past month.
This month’s “horror videogames series” articles went reasonably well, although I did start to run into the problem of running out of horror games in my collection to play. Still, I was able to get around this by re-playing an old favourite and also by playing a famous horror-themed action game that I’d previously been avoiding too. Although I don’t know how much longer this series will continue for, I’ve already prepared articles up to late September at the time of writing.
As for reviews, this month was an interesting one. Instead of an “ordinary” Doom II WAD, I reviewed a “de-make” of “P.T.” (2014) called “GZ PT” that had been made using GZDoom. I also reviewed three ultra-low budget indie horror games called “Shadow Seeker (v1.1 Demo)“, “Blackout” (2021) and “Bitterroot“. Oh, and I also finally got round to playing and reviewing “Resident Evil 4” (2005) too.
Anyway, here are the lists 🙂 Enjoy 🙂
Top Ten Articles – August 2021:
Honourable Mentions:
Well, this is the third and final picture in a short series of wintery digital art pieces I made whilst feeling uninspired due to hot weather. And, yes, the title is a reference to this absolutely ancient song.
As usual, this picture is released under a Creative Commons BY-NC-ND licence.
“Winter Is Icumen In” by C. A. Brown
Well, for this article in my series about horror videogames, I thought that I’d talk about how awkward controls are an integral part of what gives classic survival horror games their distinctive “feel” and atmosphere. This was something I ended up thinking about when I decided to take a chance on a retro computer game from 1993 called “The Legacy: Realm Of Terror” during the summer sale on GOG in mid-June.
This is a screenshot from “The Legacy: Realm Of Terror” (1993).
Even though – at first glance – this game looks more like an old-fashioned first-person perspective role-playing game than a survival horror game, I was surprised at just how much it felt like a classic survival horror game. And, considering that this first-person perspective game was released a mere year after “Alone In The Dark” (1992) set the template for third-person perspective games the genre and three years before “Resident Evil” (1996) seriously popularised third-person perspective survival horror games, it’s a really interesting snapshot of the experimental formative years of the genre.
Anyway, one of the main reasons why this first-person game felt so much like a classic third-person survival horror game was because of the awkward controls. Movement is done via literally clicking on buttons and I still haven’t completely figured out how the combat system works yet. Yet, this “awkwardness” just adds to the horror. Although not ultra-terrifying, I was still surprised at just how frightening this ancient game could be. In the half-hour or so that I’ve spent with it so far, I’ve fled from monsters a couple of terms, felt nervous/apprehensive, hid and waited for monsters to pass etc…
The slowness of the movement screen – with the small first-person window looking more like a collection of pre-rendered “slides” than a genuine 3D location – and even just the very slight awkwardness with picking up items all adds to the classic survival horror feel of the game. Because, with old survival horror games, awkward controls are very much a feature rather than a flaw.
Of course, awkward controls were also often something of a practical necessity in old 3D survival horror games. The “love it or hate it” tank controls in many of these older games are designed to work well with the fixed camera angles used in older survival horror games. Often, these camera angles were used because these games used 2D pre-rendered backgrounds in order to allow for more graphically-impressive locations on older hardware, albeit at the cost of not being able to move the camera. Still, these games used both the “awkward” tank controls and static camera angles to their advantage.
Tank controls are – even if you’ve had a bit of practice with them – slightly disorientating and confusing, making more frantic moments where you have to flee monsters feel even more suspenseful and tense. They also make it feel like the game itself is slightly hostile towards you, adding to the challenge and the “struggle for survival” mood of these games. Likewise, far from being a limitation, early survival horror games used their fixed camera angles in some brilliantly dramatic and cinematic ways in order to really add atmosphere and creepiness to their locations.
Of course, the best type of combat system in a game that uses tank controls is a slightly awkward one where the player has to manually raise their weapon and then swivel around on the spot until they have lined up their attack. Yet, this “awkward” type of combat system also works really well – not only does it require conscious thought from the player, preventing combat from turning into an “instinctive” action game-type thing (thus reminding the player that running away is also a valid option, and that they should conserve ammunition), but it is also pretty much only suited to close-range battles. This allows these games to make virtually every combat encounter a slightly claustrophobic and suspenseful thing.
Awkward controls are one of those things that is integral to the “feel” of a classic-style survival horror game, compared to a modern one. Modern survival horror games will often try to make their controls as “intuitive” as possible – and, yes, this is good for easing new players into the genre. However, for all of the added fluidity and control that modern controls schemes allow, these games lose something as a result. Intuitive controls – by their very nature- push the player to rely more on instinct than anything else. This also encourages slightly faster-paced gameplay too.
On the other hand, deliberately awkward controls are NOT instinctive. The player actually has to think about what they are doing, to make conscious survival decisions rather than just reacting. This instantly adds a more drawn-out feeling of nervousness and danger to these game. Older survival horror games will usually compensate for their awkward controls by making the gameplay slightly slower-paced too. This slow-paced gameplay is absolutely perfect for building suspense.
Whether it is the slow way that zombies lurch towards the player in “Resident Evil” (1996), the crackling radio static and drilling bell noises that foreshadow monster encounters in “Silent Hill” (1999) or even the way that, in “The Legacy: Realm Of Terror” (1993) the main character will literally scream (complete with a sound effect and a cartoonish animation) when a monster is close, the slower pacing of these older games allows for a very particular type of drawn-out suspense.
In contrast, modern indie “run and hide” survival horror games – like “Remothered: Tormented Fathers” (2018), “The Coma Recut” (2017), “Monstrum” (2015) etc.. – will often go for a more intense and immediate type of suspense. But, even though this is a lot more frightening, it changes the general atmosphere of these games. Everything seem a lot more unpredictable, danger could appear at any second and the player must rely on their reflexes and instincts a lot more. Again, it is MUCH more frightening than most older horror games – but this comes at a cost. The exact type of fear these games evoke often feels pretty much identical from game to game.
Older survival horror games – with their slower pacing and awkward controls – had a lot more freedom to frighten the player in unique ways. Whether it is how “Resident Evil” (1996) uses numerous strict artificial limitations (eg: how many items the player can carry, how often they can save etc…) in order to build suspense, or how “Silent Hill” (1999) carefully foreshadows monster encounters and adds an extra level of visual/audible “ugliness” to the cumbersome combat in order to add an unsettling feeling of moral ambiguity – old survival horror games feel distinctive and different to each other on an emotional level. Each game evoked a very subtly different “flavour” of fear, compared to the more uniform “intense heart-pounding” suspense found in virtually all modern-style survival horror games.
Finally, awkward controls also just make the player feel less confident too. The idea of just picking up a game and immediately being able to play it proficiently – because it uses a “standard” control scheme – is very much a modern invention. Yes, it’s probably good in some ways. But, as “The Legacy: Realm Of Terror” (1993) recently reminded me, there is something distinctly unsettling about starting up a horror game and then suddenly thinking “How do I work this thing?“. And “intuitive” modern horror games have really lost this element.
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Anyway, I hope that this was interesting 🙂
Well, this is another random piece of wintery digital art that I made when I found my enthusiasm for making art being drained by hot weather.
As usual, this picture is released under a Creative Commons BY-NC-ND licence.
“Blue Moon” by C. A. Brown
Well, I always knew that this day would come. It is time to review “Resident Evil 4” (2005). And, yes, I played this game for the very first time in 2021.
Back in the day, I avoided this game both due to it being new (and therefore expensive) during the tail end of my intense Playstation 2-playing days and also because I’d heard that it changed pretty much everything I’d come to know and love about “Resident Evil” games. It also led to this classic horror series focusing almost entirely on “over the shoulder” camera action games for about twelve years after it’s release too – and influenced a lot of other “AAA” horror games at the time too. Seriously, this one game pretty much single-handedly ended the glorious era of fixed camera survival horror games! So, I had a bit of a grudge against it….
But, due to a combination of realising that I can play this game with minimal use of my PS2 controller’s creaky analogue sticks (because the D-pad can be used for aiming) and the fact that it was probably one of the least worst games in my slender pile of “horror games I’ve got, but haven’t played yet“, I reluctantly decided to give it a go.
Luckily, this is one of the few early-mid 2000s horror games that can still be picked up relatively cheaply second-hand on the PS2. I paid about £10 for a copy of it on eBay a couple of months before writing this review. Likewise, due it’s sheer popularity – it has been ported to pretty much every console under the sun, so finding a re-release that will work on modern hardware shouldn’t be too difficult.
I should probably apologise for the variable quality of the screenshots in this review though. Although I played through the whole game on the PS2, my plan to also play through parts of it on an emulator to get footage for screenshots mostly fell apart thanks to my computer’s Intel HD 2500 integrated graphics, which made this game run at a borderline-unplayable speed (with a mild graphical downgrade too!). So, I took a small amount of early game footage/screenshots with the emulator and then took some mid-game screenshots the old-fashioned way (by literally pointing a camera at the TV screen). As such, the screenshots here don’t always fully reflect the visual quality of playing this game on original hardware. Sorry about this.
Anyway, let’s take a look at “Resident Evil 4”. This review may contain mild SPOILERS.
Amusingly, the BBFC rating information on the back of the box mentions “moderate horror”…. which isn’t a good sign for a game in a famous horror franchise…
The game begins with a brief voice-over segment explaining how the events of the previous games have led to the nefarious Umbrella Corporation finally being shut down. We then cut to Leon S. Kennedy from “Resident Evil 2” (1998), who is now a burly special agent answerable only to the US president, being driven along a remote rural road in Spain by two local policemen.
Pictured: Leon looking noticeably un-frightened due to all of the “action hero” training he has had since “Resident Evil 2″….
The US president’s daughter, Ashley, has been kidnapped and Leon has been tasked with single-handedly rescuing her. Yes, I still don’t know why Spain and/or the US didn’t send in a military team instead of just one guy initially armed with little more than a weak pistol. Anyway, when the car stops at the small village where she was last sighted, it quickly becomes obvious that there is something…. wrong… with the villagers.
Yes, they’re modern-style “fast” zombies instead of traditional slow-moving ones! How terribly wrong!
One of the first things that I will say about this game is that – whilst it isn’t that much of a horror game – it is one hell of a fun and compelling action game. Yes, it damaged the “Resident Evil” franchise for over a decade but – on it’s own merits – it is a really fun game. If you want a thrilling action experience, with some mild-moderate horror elements and a gloriously goofy story, then this one will certainly do the trick. Again, it’s a really fun game, even if it isn’t really that scary.
Seriously, for a game in a famous horror franchise, there’s relatively little in the way of genuinely scary horror here. Most of the game’s “horror” consists of melodramatic body horror, sci-fi horror, suspense and gory horror. Yet there are two brief segments that – briefly – recapture the feeling of playing a classic “Resident Evil” game. One involves playing as Ashley, who is unarmed and has to dodge monsters and solve puzzles. The other happens when Leon is briefly defenceless against a genuinely scary slow-moving monster type called “Regenerators”. This genuinely frightening segment actually feels like old-school “Resident Evil”… for all of about three minutes or so.
Seriously, the total amount of “It actually feels like classic Resident Evil” in this game is maybe ten minutes worth of gameplay at most…. unless you get stuck with the puzzles.
Still, taken on it’s own merits, this is a really fun game. Consisting mostly of suspenseful claustrophobic combat encounters with larger numbers of faster-moving enemies, this is a thrilling faster-paced game that is challenging enough to be fun but also forgiving enough not to get too frustrating most of the time. The game is constantly throwing new monster types at you or doing something creative, so it is definitely one of those “just another few minutes…” types of compelling games.
The game’s story is wonderfully fun too – seriously, imagine the most goofy, “over-the-top” cheesy action movie and then multiply it by two. Not only is there a stylised villain with a convoluted plot for world domination, but there are also things like chanting robed cultists, the old-fashioned “film noir” trio of hero/damsel/femme fatale, explosions, numerous knowingly cheesy dialogue lines, an evil lair or two, ridiculously large boss monsters etc…. Seriously, this is probably one of the most enjoyably silly blockbuster movies that you’ll ever play.
And, yes, this is a literal lava room with fire-breathing statues. Still, at least it isn’t boring, I guess.
On a thematic level, it’s different from classic “Resident Evil” though. Not only does it contain some commentary about US dominance of world politics, but the theme of mind-control can also be seen as either political satire and/or a subtle satire of religions (eg: zombie-like people lurching towards a church, evil monk-like cultists etc…). The real world context of the time – the “War On Terror” – is also a theme, with the villains being presented as political terrorists.
Interestingly though, this game ditches the slightly left-wing “wealth corrupts!” theme of previous Resident Evil games, instead presenting a wealthy character (Ashley) in a surprisingly sympathetic way – and the game as a whole also having a slightly more conservative sensibility than many previous games in the franchise too. Ironically, it’s a game that those who dislike “politics in games” would love and one that those who support “politics in games” would possibly dislike.
In terms of the gameplay, it is an “over the shoulder” third-person shooter – with an emphasis on precision aiming. In fact, it popularised this style of gameplay during the mid-late 2000s. Ditto with the gloomy brown/grey colour palette that is used throughout the game, and the quick-time events too. It’s an influential game….unfortunately. Still, some vestiges of the classic “Resident Evil” gameplay remain here 🙂 Not only does Leon have to stand still whilst shooting, but there are also some inventory management elements too. Your inventory is more generous, but you have to fit items into it in a “Tetris”-like fashion.
And, honestly, this is a better inventory system than the “You can only carry 6-8 items, regardless of size” system in older Resident Evil games. Still, it’s practically blasphemy for a “Resident Evil” character to be carrying THIS much weaponry though.
Likewise, to balance out the greater number of weapons Leon can carry, you can only reload them when they are drawn. Since reload speed is one thing that you can upgrade on each weapon, this also makes sense from a gameplay perspective too. And, yes, there is an upgrade system. Basically, you find in-game currency (by actually playing the game, no micro-transactions here 🙂 ) and can use it to buy things from a mysterious merchant. In a genius twist, you cannot directly buy ammunition from the merchant (although capacity upgrades will re-fill your weapons) and can only buy a limited number of healing items from him too.
Not to mention that the merchant is kind of a character in his own right too. And, again, this is a game with a currency system that rewards actual gameplay too 🙂
Still, in classic action-game fashion, enemies will now sometimes drop supplies for Leon after death. You can also find supplies if you explore and break open wooden barrels and boxes. Plus, unlike classic “Resident Evil”, the knife is actually a vaguely useful weapon in this game – with it’s own dedicated button that allows Leon to draw it quickly too.
Still, exploration in this game is a lot more limited than in previous “Resident Evil” games. This is very much a linear game, with only the most infrequent and limited backtracking. Yet, given the greater focus on thrilling action, this actually sort of works and helps to prevent the player from getting “stuck” – and the game also massively cuts back on puzzles too, only including relatively simple ones. Again, it’s a streamlined fast-paced action game, rather than a more cerebral and slow-paced survival horror game.
Seriously, this basic slider puzzle is probably the most difficult puzzle in the entire game. And, as someone who is terrible at puzzles, I can’t say that I entirely disapprove. Still took me WAY too long to solve this one though…
One cool feature of this game is the fact that it uses adaptive difficulty. If you get a “game over” – and you probably will – then the game will progressively make itself marginally easier. This is done in a subtle and temporary enough way not to feel patronising, and it actually came in handy at least a few times. Still, expect the occasional moment of frustration – but, thanks to the generous checkpoint system, unlimited saves at save points and the fact that you can be back in the action within seconds of reaching the “game over” screen, this game never gets too frustrating.
And, talking of frustration, the game’s notorious “escort mission” elements weren’t as bad as I had expected either. Yes, having to protect Ashley or failing the game because you didn’t respond to her cries of “Leon! Help!” quickly enough can be frustrating. However, not only is Ashley a relatively well-written character but you can also tell her to hide or wait during most segments too. Likewise, there are large segments where she gets re-captured by the villains and Leon is on his own again – allowing for more thrilling and focused action gameplay. Seriously, this “escort mission” element is handled a lot better than the one in “Silent Hill 4: The Room” (2004).
Seriously, I’m surprised how non-annoying this game’s “escort mission” elements are most of the time.
Still, I have to praise the monsters in this game. In addition to the genuinely scary “Regenerator” monsters later in the game and several spectacular boss battles, there’s a really good level of visual and gameplay variety to the “ordinary” monsters. For example, you’ll start to get good at landing headshots… only for this to cause monsters to occasionally turn into more powerful mutated versions of themselves or for the game to throw a monster wearing a protective helmet at you.
Likewise, there are monsters that can only be killed with headshots, monsters that can wipe you out with a single attack, weaker monsters with ranged attacks, semi-invisible monsters etc… And there is a lot of visual variety too – with even the “basic” monsters not only being split into three categories (eg: villagers, robed cultists and soldiers) but also containing lots of subtle variety (eg: costumes, weapons etc…) within each category too. Seriously, THIS is probably one of the main reasons why this linear action game never feels monotonous or boring.
“Crudox Cruo!”… Ooops! Wrong game again! Still, robed cultists automatically add fun melodrama to a game.
Likewise, this game contains an amazing armoury of weapons too – with Leon also being able to carry more of them and upgrade them too. The best weapons in the game are probably the pistols – not only does this game include at least TWO “magnum” guns (one of which has a really cool reload animation too), but Leon can also get his hands on an intriguingly quirky WW1-era pistol called the “Red 9” that is surprisingly powerful for a “basic” gun (albeit at the cost of reload speed, capacity and firing rate). Likewise, the shotguns – yes, there are three – in this game come in surprisingly handy during claustrophobic monster battles too. Seriously, I cannot praise the weaponry in this game highly enough.
Plus, the game’s reload animations are surprisingly detailed and well-animated too.
As for graphics, this game looks ridiculously impressive for a PS2 game. Yes, it uses a rather muted palette – often consisting of brown and grey, which fits into the vintage WW1-era feel of some earlier locations – but this game is still surprisingly good-looking for something that runs on a console that was released about two decades ago. Ok, compared to the timelessly realistic graphics in the amazing 2002 Gamecube remake of “Resident Evil”, it doesn’t look as good – but, on it’s own merits, this game still just about holds up visually these days.
This is probably one of the few games where the “mid-late 2000s muted brown/grey colour palette” actually sort of works in dramatic terms.
And, yes, this game follows the “Resident Evil” tradition of including at least a few ornate locations too.
Although the music in this game didn’t seem as “iconic” as in previous entries in the series, it still fits in well with the game and adds atmosphere to it. Likewise, although the voice-acting is a little bit on the corny side of things, it fits in well with the game’s “larger than life” story and the numerous moments of witty repartee, corny villainous gloating and/or badass action hero one-liners really help to add personality and fun to the game too.
In terms of length, I completed this game in seventeen hours and forty-six minutes, with infrequent walkthrough use (mostly just boss battle tips). Compared to the classic “Resident Evil” games, it is really long. And I haven’t even started playing all of the unlockable bonus games or the “new game plus” mode (complete with extra weapons) yet – and, yes, these are actual rewards for gameplay, rather than *ugh* DLC. This is truly an elegant game for a more civilised age.
Still, the game sometimes feels like it goes on a bit too long – with numerous moments when you’ll probably think “not long to go now” only for there to be literal hours of extra gameplay to go. Some may see this as a good thing, but don’t expect this game to be anywhere near as concise as older RE games are.
All in all, this is a really compelling and genuinely fun action game. I can see why so many critics loved it when it was released and why it is still considered a “classic” too. Yes, if you’re a fan of traditional survival horror games, expect disappointment here. But, purely on it’s own merits, this is a good game. It’s just… fun.
If I had to give it a rating out of five, it would – begrudgingly- get four and a half. Still, I wish they would bring back fixed camera angle horror games!
Well, due to hot weather, I was feeling uninspired – and eventually ended up creating this wonderfully wintery piece of digital art.
As usual, this picture is released under a Creative Commons BY-NC-ND licence.
“Frozen Monastery” by C. A. Brown
Well, for this article in my series about horror videogames, I thought that I’d talk about another serious horror moment I found in “Resident Evil 4” (2005) and what it can teach us about good monster design in a horror game. Needless to say, this article will contain some mild-moderate SPOILERS.
If you haven’t played it, “Resident Evil 4” (2005) was very different to the “Resident Evil” games that were released before it. Instead of being a suspenseful slow-paced survival horror game, it pushed the series in much more of a thrilling and fast-paced action genre direction instead.
Still, despite being more of an action game than a horror game, “Resident Evil 4” still pays lip service to the horror genre by including a small number of genuine horror segments. But, in addition to a mid-game segment featuring an unarmed character avoiding robed cultists and solving puzzles, I noticed an even better horror sequence later in the game. This part of the game – for about two or three minutes – genuinely felt like I was playing a classic “Resident Evil” game again 🙂 It was suspenseful, tense and actually scary.
I was exploring a slightly dilapidated laboratory on a mysterious remote island, when I happened to find an ominous note warning about a mutant creature called a “regenerator” that was almost impervious to conventional weapons. The note pointed out that it could only be killed by destroying several small parasites clinging to its body. Instantly, I felt a strange sensation…. could it be? Yes, it was actual suspense!
After finding a key, I left the room and a door suddenly opened. A tall nude humanoid creature – reminiscent of the final boss from “Resident Evil” (1996) – slowly lumbered into view. I tried shooting at it, in the hope of hitting one of the parasites I’d read about. But, my weapons did little more than just temporarily stagger it. Not only that, when it attacked, literal spikes emerged from it’s body in a seriously creepy way! So, for one of the first times in this game, I realised that it would be best to RUN AWAY! Like dodging a zombie in a classic “Resident Evil” game, I dashed to the nearest “loading screen” door.
Whew! With my newfound key, I began to backtrack through a series of narrow utilitarian corridors to get to the door I needed to use it on. Of course, the game then did the classic survival horror trick of spawning a new monster into a previously “safe” area. It was another slow, lumbering “regenerator”. With little room to dodge, I found myself frantically weighing the risks of running away and waiting somewhere away from the door or taking a bit of damage by trying to squeeze past it. Eventually, I chose the latter.
After this, I ran like hell to the nearest “loading screen” door and finally used the key to unlock a creepy refrigerated room. The gruesome results of a bio-experiment of some kind lay on a table. I examined it and then had to find a switch to activate a machine at the end of a tiny narrow corridor. So, I went over to the machine and used it to get a keycard to the neighbouring room. Then a cinematic played. The door to the refrigerated room locked and one of the dangling bodies in the corner suddenly came to life. Yet another “regenerator”! And I was trapped in a room with it! I actually felt a scintilla of genuine fear and tension.
…Then the game randomly dropped an infra-red rifle scope in front of me. After attaching it to the rifle, the game looked like something from the movie “Eraser” (1996) and – when the “regenerator” lurched into view – I noticed four glowing red hotspots on its body. Four well-aimed shots later, it leaned forwards, swelled up and exploded in a melodramatic way. This was cool, but I suddenly realised that this terrifying monster no longer felt scary any more.
Yes, the game briefly managed to make this monster mildly scary again a little while later by hiding one of the glowing hotspots on it’s back – leading to a brief “I’ve shot all the hotspots, WHY is it still standing?” moment of sudden dread. But, after the infra-red scope appeared, most of the horror was gone and the game returned to being an – admittedly rather fun – action game again.
Still, this segment can teach us a lot about good horror game design. Aside from the obvious fact that not being able to fight back against a monster instantly makes it seem ten times scarier (a lesson that the very best modern indie horror games have well and truly taken to heart 🙂 ), it also did something that all of the very best classic survival horror games do. I am, of course, talking about slow-moving monsters.
There’s a good reason why the zombies in the classic “Resident Evil” games (1996-2004) slowly stumble and lurch towards the player. There’s a good reason why, for example, many of the monsters in a game like “Silent Hill 3” (2003) are slow-moving ungainly things that gradually waddle or stagger towards the player. Not only does this allow for slow-building suspense, but it is also the game telling you that the monsters don’t need to move quickly in order to be a threat to you. Kind of like how the villains in slasher movies often walk slowly, rather than run, towards their victims.
In classic survival horror games, you can usually defend yourself – but this is limited in all sorts of clever ways. Whether it is by making the combat system deliberately awkward and cumbersome or even by just limiting the amount of firepower that the main character has access to, combat in these game is a decision rather than a reflex. Often, you can just run away from monsters – although these slow-moving monsters will often be placed in claustrophobic locations that make trying to dash past them genuinely suspenseful. In other words, almost every monster encounter is a nervous drawn-out “fight or flight?” type thing.
Of course, one of the other reasons for including slow-moving monsters in a horror game is that it makes the fast-moving monsters seem scarier and more threatening by comparison. In the classic “Resident Evil” games, distance is your best friend. If you keep your distance, then you are usually safe. Of course, these games then ramp up the danger by including fast-moving monsters like the Hunters in “Resident Evil” (1996) or monsters that can attack from a distance, like the Bandersnatch from “Resident Evil: Code Veronica X” (2001).
Intriguingly, “Resident Evil 4” (2005) does the exact opposite to this with it’s “regenerator” monster. It is literally the only slow-moving monster in the game. Most of the other monsters screech or shout loudly as they stride or run towards the player, leading to lots of fast-paced claustrophobic fight sequences that are more thrilling than scary. As such, suddenly seeing a relatively quiet monster slowly lumber towards you can really catch you off-guard and evoke genuine feelings of fear. So, yes, I guess that this technique can work both ways.
But, yes, things like a monster’s movement speed and how well the player can defend themselves against it have a huge effect on the scariness of monsters in horror games.
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Anyway, I hope that this was interesting 🙂
To my delight, I was feeling slightly more inspired and ended up making this “early-mid 2000s music festival” style digitally edited painting.
As usual, this painting is released under a Creative Commons BY-NC-ND licence.
“Festival Tent 2003” by C. A. Brown
Well, for this article in my series about horror videogames, I thought that I’d talk briefly about one interesting side-effect of playing these games that I noticed recently.
But, before I go any further, I should probably point out that this is just personal observation and introspection, rather than any kind of “proper” psychological study. My reactions to playing horror games might be different to yours and what I’m talking about here might also be context-dependent too. Everyone’s minds, personalities, sensibilities, experiences etc…. are different. This is just something cool that I noticed, rather than any kind of “wellbeing” advice.
Anyway, let me set the scene. The night before I prepared this article, I was in a moderately stressed out mood – filled with all sorts of worries and fears about the future. As regular readers of this site know, the horror game I’m “officially” playing at the moment is “Resident Evil 4” (2005) – which is more of a thrilling action game than anything genuinely scary. Anyway, I realised that I also needed to prepare this month’s “Doom II” WAD review (since I usually like to review fan-made levels for this old game at least once a month. It’s sort of a tradition).
I had the sudden instinct to look online to see if anyone had made “Silent Hill”-themed levels for this game. Although the first one I found didn’t look that good, I then stumbled across a fan-made 1990s-style “de-make” of the famously rare “P.T” (2014) – a briefly-available demo for a then-upcoming “Silent Hill” game that was never completed. Since this was the closest thing to “P.T.” that I’ll probably ever play, I decided to give it a go. And, to my surprise and delight, actually playing this “de-make” was even scarier than just watching second-hand Youtube footage of the real thing.
Although I got stuck with parts of the “de-make” and couldn’t actually complete it, one fascinating thing that I noticed was that – after playing this genuinely scary horror game – my real-life worries and fears had just melted away. I just felt a lot more… relaxed…. about everything. And I think that I know why.
In short, the low-medium strength real fears had been replaced with the more immediate and intense “fake” fear that the game evoked.
By playing a scary game with immediately frightening things in it that evoked an intense feeling of immediate terror and dread – it was enough to overpower all of the more nebulous and uncertain real-life worries and fears that had been troubling me. I think that the key factor here was immediacy. The fictional “certain danger” that I felt whilst playing the game was something that – due to it literally being right in front of me – my mind prioritised over more distant or uncertain worries. Effectively blocking those worries out, or making them much less of a priority to think about it.
Again, this might be more of a context-dependent or personality-dependent thing (for example, I enjoy more intense music, games, films etc…) and it may not work for everyone. Still, it was absolutely fascinating that a terrifying horror game actually made me feel less afraid than I’d been feeling before I played it.
And, yes, the horror genre as a whole is interesting like this. For a genre that is famed for being frightening, disturbing, disgusting etc… it can actually do a surprising amount of good. One of the more famous examples of this is how creative interpretations of the concept of a “monster” have often been used as a brilliantly cathartic and reassuring metaphor for those who don’t “fit in” with mainstream society. Classic examples of this include the vampire genre in general and also Clive Barker’s 1988 novel “Cabal” (later adapted into the movie “Nightbreed”) – where the monsters are actually the good guys and mainstream society is instead realistically presented as frightening, intolerant, ignorant etc….
Horror is a genre that is primarily about strong emotions. And, well, it wouldn’t have remained popular for ages or even be a defined genre in it’s own right if it didn’t have some type of emotional benefit for those of us who enjoy it. So, yes, the horror genre isn’t really the “bad” or “evil” thing that historical moral panics – such as the “Video nasties” one in 1980s Britain, the “horror comics” one in 1950s America etc… – have made it out to be.
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Anyway, I hope that this was interesting 🙂
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