07.30.07
Posted in games at 12:12 am by Rob Fahey
The quest Choco and I have embarked upon to play every horror game in the world ever continues apace, with the completion of Silent Hill 3 (a previously gaping hole in my gaming experience) and tonight’s commencement of a play through Project Zero 2: Crimson Butterfly.
Previous games on the circuit have included Silent Hill 2 (mostly punctuated by Choco shouting at me for being rubbish at the controls), Siren 2 (which was ace and caused an impressive level of screaming) and Resident Evil 4 on the Wii – which is bloody brilliant, greatly enhanced by the wonderful Wii controls, but still not very scary once you get the hang of it. The early section in the village remains one of the finest pieces of gaming I’ve ever experienced, though.
All this horror gaming has given me pause to reflect on how intensely personal the experience of “horror” is to different people. To some extent, it’s a simple question of storytelling, and how each story resonates with you; Silent Hill 2, for example, is considered by many people to be an incredibly affecting, sad and powerful story. For me, I lost sympathy with most of the characters by the end of the game; I recognise its quality as a piece of fiction and its wonderfully atmospheric storytelling, but in me the emotions provoked were largely anger at the characters rather than empathy.
I think the very fact that people can have such differing reactions to game characters probably means that on some level, the medium is Growing Up. Were I writing this as a feature on game storytelling, one of my favourite drums to bang, I would declaim this as being Important.
On another level, however, our reactions to horror games are more primal; they’re a question of what we, individually, find scary. Silent Hill 3, for example, scares the pants off plenty of people I know; it simply didn’t have that effect on me (although I recall honestly, genuinely sleeping with the light on after playing the original Silent Hill many years ago). It was enjoyable and interesting, but not frightening.
Project Zero 2, though (that’s Fatal Frame 2 to Americans in the audience) – well, this is a rare one in our play-throughs, since I’ve played it before but Choco hasn’t. As such, I should presumably be more immune to its horror tricks. No such luck; about an hour in, all that it has done is to remind me of how bloody creepy, shocking and disturbing it can be. I think I’m finding it far more scary than Choco is, the exact reverse of the situation with games like Silent Hill and Siren.
I think a large part of this is simply down to the question of imagination and empathy. What scares me isn’t a ghost on screen, but my mind’s own insistence on reconstructing what it is that made that ghost, the story behind its suffering – and Project Zero is wonderful at hinting just enough at that to make it disturbing. The story you build up as you explore the world is genuinely harrowing, if you allow your imagination to run free with it – and each new revelation just defines the mental image more clearly.
Similarly, Silent Hill – the original game – only gradually revealed the true horror of what had happened to Alessa and the results of her torment. Both games do a great job of keeping you confused, gradually revealing the meaning of hints that have been dropped throughout the environment; as I recall, the first Project Zero game was great at this form of storytelling too. (I remember almost dropping the controller when I found the incredibly nasty Blinding Mask, and realised just what the ritual the game was leading up to actually comprised.)
For some people, horror is about being shocked or disgusted, a visceral, basic response – and one which I generally only get to spiders, so I guess I should be thankful there aren’t more spider-based horror flicks about! For others, myself included, it’s about injecting the framework for a harrowing fiction into our minds, and letting our imagination fill in the pain, suffering and tortuous details in a deep and personal way.
Where films do the former, and books the latter, games can cross between both approaches to horror. I do wonder whether there’s scope for someone to create, some day, a game which actually encompasses both; something that sets off that visceral, skin-crawling reaction along with stoking our own capacity to imagine the macabre and empathise with the tortured.
On the other hand, perhaps it’s best if such a game never exists. If it had spiders in it too, I may well actually die.
Technorati Tags: horror, Project Zero, Fatal Frame, Silent Hill, videogames
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07.24.07
Posted in games, work at 3:33 pm by Rob Fahey
Peter Moore resigned from Microsoft last week. He’s not leaving the games industry – he’s off to San Francisco to work as head of EA Sports – but he’s dropping out of the platform holder game, and I can’t help feeling a little sad about that fact.
For a start, it brings an end to an extraordinary era when the top guys at two of the three platform holders were British. Moore doesn’t sound it (unless he really tries), but he’s actually from somewhere in that odd little corner of Britain where north Wales melts into Merseyside. (Sony boss Howard Stringer, of course, is Welsh, and one of PlayStation’s most high profile figures, Phil Harrison, cut his teeth working at the former Psygnosis, latterly SCEE Liverpool, studio.) That was cool while it lasted, just from a “what are the chances, eh?” point of view.
On a more personal note, though, I think Peter Moore is probably the executive I’ve enjoyed the most in the last few years. I interviewed him several times at Microsoft, and he was challenging, interesting and prepared to cross swords and actually argue properly, unlike many other console executives who will spout a marketing line with glassy eyes until the cows come home. You walked into an interview with Peter without knowing in advance exactly what all his answers were going to be, which for a journalist used to far less confident executives who only act from a prepared script was a godsend.
It was also a wonderful challenge. Peter was prepared to depart from the script because he was certain that he was sufficiently in control of any interview to be able to do so. Mostly, he was right. Sparks flew a couple of times when I interviewed him, which is a great credit to him, because most executives clamp up at the first sign of sparks – but his answers always remained intelligent and composed.
In negative terms, I guess I’d call him a tricky, slippery customer. In the real world, I know full well that it’s his job to be a tricky, slippery customer, while pretending to be everyone’s friendly, favourite uncle. He did his job admirably, and all my interactions with him as a journalist were great fun as a result.
I wrote a somewhat less personally focused profile of his departure for GamesIndustry.biz last week;
Unexpectedly, given his somewhat acerbic reputation at Sega, Moore has turned out to be superb at public relations – a master at ruthlessly promoting his product and his company’s vision while appearing at all times to be balanced, reasonable and even humble.
In political terms, if Moore joined Microsoft a mere politician, he leaves with the air of a statesman. In more practical business terms, Moore’s tenure has seen the Xbox take important steps forward.
Peter actually dropped me an email after the article was published, thanking me for writing something that just looked at the facts of his departure rather than indulging in the wild conspiracy theories currently doing the rounds – none of which, as far as I can gather, are remotely true.
I often regard praise from executives for anything I’ve written with deep suspicion, since it probably means I haven’t been remotely harsh enough in my assessment – but on this occasion, I’m taking it in the spirit in which it was intended. Although, I suppose it’s a sad indictment of the state of online games journalism when my piece is singled out as being good simply because it’s not full of crackpot, tin-foil-hat theories postulated by writers whose actual understanding of corporations and business practice is almost nil. Kotaku and its ilk have a lot to answer for.
So farewell, then, Peter Moore. I’ll be interested to see how his replacement, former EA development supremo Don Mattrick, fares in his place – especially on the international front.
(I’ll also, incidentally, be interested to see when my Xbox 360 actually gets back to me. Currently about three weeks since it was sent off for repair, and still waiting. I guess that 25 working day estimate might not have been far off…)
Technorati Tags: Microsoft, Peter Moore, Xbox, videogames, Xbox 360
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07.11.07
Posted in games, work at 9:31 pm by Rob Fahey
Three conferences into this year’s E3, and colour me underwhelmed. Or at least, only middling-whelmed. Sony’s software line-up looks significantly more solid these days, Nintendo is still walking a fine line between appealing to a wider audience and pissing off the hardcore for once and for all, and Microsoft… Well, Microsoft didn’t really have much to say for itself actually, aside from “Halo! Woo! You all like Halo, right!? Woo!”
Actually, probably the most interesting things on display were Nintendo’s weird step-based controller, which some people are writing off as a glorified weighing scales (but which in my mind, is perhaps the absolutely perfect controller for a new 1080 Snowboarding or Waverace game…); and Sony’s casual mention that it’ll be allowing people to port UT mods to the PS3 by making them available on PS Network. Now that could be very cool indeed.
Overall, though: meh. Not exactly the thrill-ride of E3s of yore.
On a distinctly more interesting note, I got to play Silent Hill Origins last week and it wasn’t shit. In fact, it was very good:
…By the age of about 16, I was pretty much past that; unflappable in the face of the cheap scares and shocks which movies and games of the time could muster. That self-confidence and certainty is probably, in retrospect, a major part of why Silent Hill was such a shot to the gut. Beautiful, disturbing, melancholy, eerie, inexplicable and overwhelmingly terrifying, Silent Hill opened a dreamlike world of nightmares. I slept with the bedside light on for several days, although I could never have told you exactly why…
Actually, one rather good thing from E3; the new model PSP with TV-out capabilities means playing through Silent Hill Origins with other people. Huzzah.
Technorati Tags: E3, Silent Hill, videogames
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07.01.07
Posted in politics at 7:24 pm by Rob Fahey
I’d like to apologise to the good (but somewhat damp) people of the north of England; it would appear that I’m responsible for the floods which have recently driven many of you from your homes.
That’s according to senior bishops in the Church of England, who have decided that the recent inclement weather is a sign of God’s anger at Britain’s “pro-gay” laws, and our ongoing tolerance of things like DECADENCE and SODOMY, which presumably go hand in hand because decent lubricant doesn’t come cheap, you know.
The obvious response to this is to point out that this isn’t so much a consequence of God’s wrath as a consequence of over-building on flood plains with inadequate drainage. However, the obvious response has already been done as eloquently and angrily as anyone could hope by the wonderful Ministry of Truth.
Instead, I’ll opt for the even more obvious. These floods happened in the week of the enormous London Pride gay event… But at the other end of the country, in towns like Sheffield. You know, the kind of towns that gay people leave as soon as fucking possible so they can get to London, where the wrath of God manifested itself in the form of scattered showers that probably ruined a few drag queens’ makeup.
Tell you what, religious types; your God may be all-powerful, but he fucking well flunked Geography.
Technorati Tags: atheism, politics, idiocy, religion
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