Enter the Survival Horror
The survival horror genre isn’t exactly one that I’ve had much experience with. Before I got a Wii, the only game I’d played that even resembled survivor horror was Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem (brilliant game), and that was more of an action/horror anyway. The first survival horror game I played for Wii, Resident Evil 4, only tentatively counts also, and the two subsequent games I played since, Resident Evil and Silent Hill: Shattered Memories, both make RE4 look quite tepid on the scare-o-meter in comparison. (This post contains moderate spoilers for the tagged titles. Source of above image.)
That’s not to say that RE4 is anything short of an excellent game. On a technical and gameplay level, RE4 far outstrips Resident Evil. It has improved graphics, a more expansive and varied world and, most importantly, simply better controls. But, it’s more “fun” than scary. The thrills make you jump, but they don’t really chill you and drain your blood the same way Resident Evil does. There’s this “camp” value to RE4… perhaps, at a certain level, it’s an embrace of the classic ’60s and ’70s B-grade horror films. Between Ashleigh’s “ballistics”, Leon’s smarmy dialogue (no, you’re smalltime), the bizarre and quirky antagonists (especially Salazar) all with thick Spanish accents, an evil-minded conspiracy plot, as intricate as it is convoluted, and the monsters, it’s not exactly rife with restraint. It’s the high levels of gore that makes the game scary. There’s nothing more satisfying than shooting a Los Ganados in the head and then decapitating them with a well-timed roundhouse kick. At the same time, the very sound of a chainsaw is enough to fill you with dread.
I got around to playing Resident Evil Archives (the port of the Resident Evil Remake for Gamecube) after I played RE4, and to take a line from the opening cutscene, what I got was a nightmare. The entire experience was a raised bar for me, a display of just what horror video games were capable of. For one, it surprised me just how difficult the game was. I started out on “Normal” difficulty, just as I had with RE4, thinking I’d be able to adapt to the ropes in due time. I was very quickly humbled. I fought the first zombie I encountered. Aiming was a pain itself (and not the smooth, responsive experience it was in RE4), and that was with auto-aiming, but taking down the zombie was an ordeal. One shot, then two, then three. Hang on, it’s still not dead? Then it bites me, so I run back a bit, slowly waddle my way around to face it again, and shoot at it three more times before it finally fell. Six bullets to take this son of a bitch down. And that was when I was lucky. So, here I was, running aimlessly around the mansion, trying to kill every zombie I met, and dying at every corner. I played as Jill first (who is mega-hot), and in my more desperate moments, I found watching her run up and down stairs much more enjoyable than facing the horrors of the mansion. Eventually I gave up and tried Chris. No luck either. Then, I bit the bullet, and changed the difficultly to “Easy”, something I only do when I’ve been utterly disgraced. I think this speaks volumes about how hard this game is.
The difficultly is only one component in what makes the game scary (some cynics suggest that the game is made even more difficult by its shonky control scheme). The threat of death lurks at every corner, and almost every monster you encounter is stronger than you, and will tear you limb from limb if you give them half a look. You’re also given very little in the way of ammo, which puts you at a further disadvantage when fighting them. It’s apparent why the game is called “survival horror”, because survival is all that matters, and not, as is the case is most other shooting games, your kill count. For me, trying to kill a zombie became a last resort, especially given the unpredictability of their behaviour, which is the other thing, on top of the incredibly eerie atmosphere of the zombie-infested mansion, that makes Resident Evil so scary.
You kill a zombie and that’s the end of it, right? Wrong. Come back to its corpse in due time and casually step over it and it’ll awaken in a meaner state than before. This time, not only is it significantly stronger than you, it’s also faster than you, so the running and dodging that you used to get through your previous encounters is almost useless now. So apparently incinerating a corpse will prevent it from coming back, so let’s burn another zombie we killed earlier. Good, it didn’t awaken when you walked over it, which is always a good sign… but just as you opened your lighter it woke up and grabbed you. Windows crack the first time you walk through a corridor, and rabid zombie dogs burst through them the next time you pass. Zombies jump out of filled bathtubs, hunters stalk you through caves and the vines of a mutated plant will reach through a cracked floorboard and grab your leg. Resident Evil has this incredible knack of being unpredictable, and just when you think you have a behaviour figured and know how to deal with a situation, it throws up something you weren’t expecting, which gives you a surprise just short of a heart attack.
I very recently played Silent Hill: Shattered Memories, my first experience with the Silent Hill franchise (this is probably where my video game amateurishness shines clear… after all, I’m that dude who’s only ever owned Nintendo consoles, with the exception of the Atari 5200 I had when I was eight). The thing that impressed me about it was that it was scary in a different way to REmake, which relies on atmosphere and surprise. Shattered Memories certainly has atmosphere up the wazoo. Aesthetically, it pushes the Wii to its limit with a snow covered world (more accurately, town) and expressive character models. Yamaoka Akira‘s soundtrack is just outstanding, and has something of a post-rock tinge to it, perfectly creating a mood of desolation, regret and, when the game calls for it, terror.
But “terror” isn’t the prevailing mood of Silent Hill: Shattered Memories, which is what makes it so affecting when it is scary. The nightmare scenes, where you’re chased by quick, and quick-witted, monsters through the ice-covered terrain are terrifying, in large part because you can’t fight back. Resident Evil may give you limited ammo, but Shattered Memories gives you no ammo. But rather than keeping you on edge, the game uses these brief moments to shake you up, before abruptly transferring you to much more serene, but no less intimidating, couch of the psychiatrist who is interviewing you as the game unfolds. Unlike either of the Resident Evil games I’ve discussed here, Shattered Memories is a psychological game… it’s plot isn’t about outlandish conspiracies involving engineering a race of super monsters for the goal of corporate-sponsored world domination. Shattered Memories is introspective in comparison… it’s an analysis of a single character, forced, through circumstance, to reflect on various aspects of his relationship with his missing daughter. The fact that the behaviour and personality of this character is programmed by input from the user in response to probing and sordid questions makes it a rather disturbing and chilling reflection of the player, himself.
There are things I would have liked to have seen done differently with Shattered Memories. The consequences for dying aren’t all that harsh, and I wasn’t a huge fan of the fact that you could save anywhere. The game was incredibly short, and while artificially lengthening it would have come off as token, I wouldn’t have minded a few more limitations in gameplay to make it closer to Resident Evil‘s punishing difficulty. The interesting question is, which of Resident Evil and Shattered Memories is scarier. Shattered Memories deliberately wages a psychological war on its player, abruptly swinging from terrifying to eerie and disturbing. The first time I was transported to the psychiatrist’s couch after an intense chase scene, and the doctor started talking about “inner child” and “happy family”, I was a quivering mess. But it sticks to a formula, and after a while, it becomes a more predictable. Resident Evil manages to remain both eerie and unpredictable all the way through, which is why I’d probably answer the question with that. That’s not to take anything away from Shattered Memories, which I think should be given huge kudos for trying to take both the franchise and the genre in a bold new direction.
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Eternal Darkness is a favorite of mine. The Lovecraft influence is awesome, the story is well-drawn and the effects and level design mesh well and are pretty damn creepy! The World War I-era level is what made my heart leap out of my chest the most, particularly the beginning when you garbage for weaponry (thanks, camera flash!) and are constantly beset by Bonethieves. Ick.
I’ve read a lot about how scary the Silent Hill games are — Silent Hill 2, especially, seems like it would give me nightmares, haha.
You know, I think video games really have the potential — when executed correctly — to provide a more horrifying visceral experience than any TV series, movie or even a book. In fiction, no matter how well-drawn and involving a story is, there is always going to be some level of personal detachment from the work because the viewer/reader/whatever is involved with the story by proxy. (Although with books, there is a bit less detachment because the imagination is pretty good at closing distance!) Most things are scarier when they’re happening to us than when they’re happening to another person.
Players still engage in the story by proxy in video games, but the level of emotional distance is cut much shorter because we’re directly in control of the character. The character is not us, but it may as well be us. I’m a big fan of horror stories, horror series and horror flicks, and I can tell you that the creepiest video games have scared me on a visceral level more than the creepiest books (though it’s close), and certainly much more than the creepiest TV shows and movies. (But scariness is not the only reason I like horror, so I can’t slam TV and movies too much, haha.)
I suppose I should give another tip of the hat the Silent Hill franchise (though 3 doesn’t exist). The opening of the first one still gives me chills down my spine.
As for the RE franchise, I honestly think that a largest reason the older (first two) RE games are so scary is because of how little power you have. In RE3, you start out with some of the best guns in the game so all the enemies feel less daunting. In RE4, you constantly feel in control and so you can approach each event with a good amount of confidence. In the older RE games, you run across the room muffling swears since you’re often low on ammo and the controls are so horrible that you feel like you’re one screw up away from death (or running through the rest of the game with a knife).
I find it funny that you happened to switch to Chris after Jill since I recall vividly that I first played the game as Chris, tried to run through most of the beginning of the game with only his knife (because that’s all you start out with) and then switched to Jill.
@Shinmaru
I really liked Maximillian’s chapter, and how his sanity seemed to evapourate much quicker than most characters. Sanity was an awesome idea. Some of the insanity effects are just brilliant. I loved the ones that reached through the fourth wall, like the volume decreasing. From memory, there was also one that reported that your memory card had been wiped. Now that’s scary.
What’s interesting about this conversation is that we’re essentially comparing different types of “scares”, which obviously effect people in different ways. The level of interactivity lowers a barrier between the viewer/player and what’s happening on screen, but, IMO, Shattered Memories takes the “psychological horror” aspect of it to another level by using indications from that interactivity to try to figure out just what scares the player and using it against them. I think that’s a great idea.
@Shadowmage
The first time I completed it I was playing as Jill. You pretty much have to. I think she has less health, and Chris has the better defensive items (and seemingly has a better chance of decapitating zombies as well), but it’s so much easier playing as Jill with more item slots (as well as the lock pick, but that becomes less relevant later in the game). You’re probably right about how RE4 is less intimidating, because you have more gear. The controls in RE4 are such a vast improvement over RE. There are so many times in RE where I was trying to dodge zombies and ended up walking right into them.
Shattered Memories was a good reimagining of the original Silent Hill. I mean, you don’t shoot enemies, you run from them. Although when it came to the Silent Hill franchise, it’s the second game that still gives me nightmares up to this day.
There’s indeed a difference between the first three and fourth Resident Evils – the mood. I felt more scared with the first three than the fourth (simply because the fixed cameras and tank controls add to it), although I say that the fourth is the most courageous move that the creators did. Too bad the fifth did not got that right.
But between RE and SH, the latter makes horror more apparent. It messes up your mind more than just making monsters chew your guts out, and I can’t forget that time that the radio static from the first SH won’t go away in my head in the middle of the night.