Big game, tiny screen?

I have a problem with the handheld market today. Whether it’s the result of the big boy consoles requiring larger budgets and longer development time, or simply because companies want to make a quick buck, there seem to be more and more games coming out for the handhelds when they should be out on the home consoles.

Remember what handhelds used to be? Something that all handhelds had in common was the fact that you could just pick up and play at any given moment, and turn it off whenever need be. Puzzle games like Tetris, for example, make for great handheld games. Games with no ultimate goal like Animal Crossing: Wild Worlds make for great downtime. Even games like Pokemon still work because although they have an ultimate goal, they’re still simple in nature, and can be picked up or put down at any time.

The games I’m talking about are the shooters. The full fledged RPGs with 20 hours worth of cutscenes. The “remakes” of games past that are really nothing more than ports because of their simple graphical prowess. Why are these games being put on the handhelds? I’m all for a few quick bucks in order to help keep the company running, but why not make more games like the aforementioned titles? I rarely play handheld games unless I’m on the go somewhere. And when I say 'on-the-go', I don't just mean to the supermarket.  I mean more like vacation or lengthy periods of travel. But when I’m playing a 30-hour story, I like to finish said 30-hour story. And I prefer to do it on a big screen tv, laying on a comfortable couch, surrounded by speakers, arms relaxed, fingers at the ready for the full cinematic experience. Not hunched over in a chair, squinting to see the finer pixelated detail of a two-inch screen with piss-poor speakers.

Handhelds are a rarity for me to come across. There’s plenty of series that I really enjoy that seem to want to release games for the handhelds, like Zelda, Resident Evil or Final Fantasy, but I’m really not interested in playing them because the quality receives a massive downgrade, and the story and character development suffers when you’re developing a mainstream title for a screen that can fit comfortably under your tongue. And now especially with the upcoming 3DS, plenty of companies are wanting to jump on that bandwagon with the new 3D technology. Granted, I’m not saying I want them to spend 5+ years developing the best possible graphics for the big screen (FFXIII…..), but I would still prefer even a bad experience on the bigger consoles. Because then I'll at least still have good vision and no back problems from having to hunch over and squint for a 30-hour title.

But maybe that’s just me.

Stay Out Of My Game

I was very disheartened to find out recently that Mortal Kombat 9 will be featuring Kratos from the God of War series. Now, I have to say that of all the characters in existence, Kratos has got to be the best possible choices for a Mortal Kombat crossover. He’s brutal, he’s violent, he has his own plethora of ‘fatalities’. Ripping off the head of Helios, impaling the hydra onto a ship’s mast, forcing a guillotine blade through Clotho of the Three Fates, the list goes on and on. However, to put it plainly, he just doesn’t belong in a Mortal Kombat game.

Firstly, didn’t Midway learn from Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe that Mortal Kombat shouldn’t venture outside its own franchise? That had to be the worst crossover series I’ve ever seen. Liu Kang vs. Superman? Shang Tsung vs. Batman? Lex Luther? Wonder Woman? The Flash? Why are these spandex clad superpeople sparring with Scorpion and Sub-Zero? I mean really, was that a joke? Because not even the Joker thought that was funny. In fact, the Joker was probably the only character that could have worked in that game, but the sheer idea of those two worlds crossing over was nothing short of ridiculous.

Now, as I said, Kratos, if anyone, would mix well in the Mortal Kombat universe considering his already violent nature. But you can’t come out with seven, count them, SEVEN titles in a series that stands on its own, and then just start doing crossovers because you’ve run out of ideas. MK1-4, DA, D, & A were all defined by their own lineup of ninjas, warriors, and otherwise bloodthirsty characters. So there’s really no place for any other series to be intruding upon them. Soul Calibur, for example, has always worked because aside from the original Soul Edge, every title has had a guest character. Yoshimitsu (Tekken) permanently made his mark in SC1. Link (Legend of Zelda), Heihachi Mishima (Tekken), and Spawn (Spawn) were in the Gamecube, PS2, and Xbox versions of SC2, respectively. There were no guest characters in SC3, with the exception of Yoshimitsu. And then Yoda, Darth Vader and the Apprentice from various Star Wars titles joined the fray in SC4, in addition to five original characters contributed by various guest artists. Finally Soul Calibur: Broken Destiny featured Kratos from the God of War series. Yes, Kratos has already been featured as a bonus fighting character, so what makes his appearance in MK9 so special?

Point being that Soul Calibur initially defined itself as a game with its own original roster of characters, with each game presenting a couple of game-specific characters joining the fray. Mortal Kombat did not. Mortal Kombat started running out of good character ideas after Mortal Kombat 3, and now feels the need to compensate by borrowing already-established characters like Kratos. And this is especially a shame, because although their past few titles have been pretty dismal, the new Mortal Kombat coming out was actually looking really good. I mean so far, only characters from the original three titles have been announced, plus tag team gameplay, returning classic stages, three [great] fatalities per character, I mean what were they worried about?

Collaborative fighting games need to be careful when making a crossover. The two (or more) clashing franchises need to clash together well. Recently, Tekken vs. Street Fighter was announced. I don’t know much about either, but physically they seem to work well because of similar visual styles, and they’re also arguably two of the most popular series out there. Marvel vs. Capcom is a series that you’d think would be as unsuccessful as MK vs. DC. However, I believe this worked because it was established as neither a Marvel game nor a Capcom game, but it’s own series entirely, unlike MK vs DC, which was really established as Mortal Kombat 8. Also, MVC characters match pretty well in terms of visual style. Marvel is gritty, and fewer of their characters fit the spandex and cape appeal like many of DC’s characters do. And just like Super Smash Bros, another phenomenal crossover series, there’s a huge variety in characters. Be it anywhere from X-men, to Megaman, to Resident Evil, to the Avengers, to Street Fighter, Marvel vs Capcom makes for a very broad range of character choices. Just as Super Smash Bros takes from Super Mario Bros, Legend of Zelda, Metroid, Fire Emblem, Kirby, Donkey Kong, Pokemon, etc.

Now, with Mortal Kombat 9 slated for release in Spring of 2011, I’m not too worried about it. Kratos in no way belongs in Mortal Kombat, and he really does pull away from the focus of what Mortal Kombat is. However, Mortal Kombat 9 has a lot more going for it, and one poor character choice isn’t going to ruin it. It just baffles me when a company makes a mistake like MK vs DC Universe, and instead of avoiding making that same mistake again, they openly try again just with an altered perspective. DC didn’t work because it was a terrible choice, but it shouldn’t have been a crossover to begin with. Now, that being said, I’m not saying MK can never enter another franchise fray. On the contrary, I think a Mortal Kombat vs. Street Fighter STANDALONE title could be great. After all, MK draws a lot of inspiration from the Street Fighter series, they’d clash well in terms of visual style, and they were rival series back in the day. But when making a crossover series, it must be its own new series. Mortal Kombat vs. Street Fighter =/= Mortal Kombat 10.

But can you just picture it? Chun Li versus Sonya? I’m there.

Finally There

For a change of pace, I’m not going to talk about things industry related. Not directly at least. It’s been about two weeks since my last entry, and for that I apologize. But there’s a good reason why. My personal life just pulled a complete 180 on me, and I am now situated in Los Angeles, CA. In fact, my last blog post was being written in Baltimore/Washington airport. Since I got here, I haven’t had the time or the resources (internet) to update, so that’s why I’m a little late.

But after a hectic first couple of weeks I can officially say that I am now a part of the industry I’ve been blogging about for the past eight months. I got a job doing stereoscopic conversion for a company called Stereo D, which is why I made the move to begin with. Now, for those who don’t know, which I imagine is nearly everyone, stereoscopic conversion is directly related to the new 3D craze all CG movies seem to want to be a part of. Basically what I do is take flat, 2D footage and draw shapes around the characters and environment aspects. These shapes are animated to follow their movements, so that they can be roto’d, or cut out and separated into layers, which is what creates the 3D effect.

Now by trade, I’m not a roto artist or compositor of any kind. However, I picked up roto quite easily and am doing well so far at the company. Traditionally however, I'm an animator, and anyone who reads this blog can find my work at http://www.chasecg.com. What I ultimately would like to do however is get my Master’s in Media Design because I want to be at the creative head of my own company someday. Whether I form the company or rise to the top of my own, it doesn’t matter as long as I get there. But I’ve always been interested in characters and story most, so I would like to work in character design and story development. Ever since I was a kid, I’ve created stories and characters in my head, so I already have multiple projects in the lineup.

In the argument of movies versus games, I’d really be fine working on either. What’s great about movies is that they have a larger audience, but I would rather develop video games solely because of the vast scale of world they bring, and the sheer length of story they tell. With a movie, you get two hours, three max. But video games are often praised the longer they are, and can get up to forty hours, or fifty hours before reaching their conclusion. These are immense stories that I want to tell because I have too many ideas to trim them down to a two-hour flic.

Another aspiration of mine is to be a voice actor. Once I’m more settled in, have some money to spare, and am not working an insane amount of hours, I would really like to get an agent and start doing voice work for movies, tv, and games. My biggest goal is to be a Disney villain someday. The 2D kind (no offense to Mother Gothel). I don’t simply want to provide my voice though, I want to provide multiple voices that all sound different. Christopher Sabat is a very talented voice actor who sounds completely different in multiple roles (when he doesn’t sound like Piccolo at least), and that’s what I want to do. I’m always making up characters, and alter-ego personalities, male and female, young, old, or otherwise that all sound entirely different, so I would like to provide voice work for various, “Disney-esque” characters if you will. Characters where the voice makes the personality.

Finally, related to that last paragraph, I would like to have a say when it comes to English dubs. While English dubs have gotten better by leaps and bounds over the years, I still keep seeing common mistakes when a great Japanese dub receives a less-than-stellar English voice over. But I’ll save that extension for another post. It’s probably too big of a dream to strive for my own dubbing company on top of my own game company and a professional voice acting gig, but hey, impossible dreams are the ones that keep us working longest. Either way, I’m finally here in the industry. The first job is the hardest to get, but it does get the wheels in motion. So for anyone that’s still struggling out there, and feels like their dreams will never be attained, they certainly won’t if you just sit around all day and don’t do anything about it. I applied to over a hundred industry jobs, both in and out of the country, related and unrelated to my craft, hiring and not hiring, and I finally got one. And that’s really what starts it all.

On Par With Aerosmith

With the recent release of Rock Band 3, I felt it appropriate to write my music games post. I would have posted it sooner, but then my four-part Halloween list crept up on me. Either way, up to the release of Rock Band 3, I’d heard the same negative criticisms everywhere I went. From hardcore fans of the original Guitar Hero, to casual fans who hardly even play the series and thus can’t afford their own opinion so instead borrow others’.

This particular criticism is that Music Games are getting too “realistic”, and you can only upgrade them “so many times”, and that you “might as well learn real guitar”. I’m here to defend Rock Band as a series, as well as music games in general. Firstly, music games are not getting too “realistic”. You’re still playing plastic instruments for a virtual audience with some of your closest friends in your parents’ basement because none of you actually have any musical prowess or stage presence. Even with Rock Band 3’s ‘professional’ instruments, you may be acquiring the talent; but playing a video game and performing the real thing are still quite different. Or do you think you’re ready to take on travel the world on tour, perform next to Aerosmith and take on Carnegie Hall?

Now it’s true that some games can only be upgraded so many times. This is why series end, but genres don’t. Shooters, RPGs and World War II simulations are a dime a dozen but they’re still around because the genre is enjoyable. Sometimes, you just can’t take a game any further without it being too much, and the series must unfortunately meet its end. This will likely be true for games like Rock Band and Guitar Hero (GH is struggling enough as is). However, was anyone else expecting a 107-button guitar in the next Rock Band? As well as an entirely new instrument? Because I sure as hell wasn’t, which goes to show that you never know what kind of tricks may show up next. How do we know Kinect won’t be incorporated in the next one somehow? They may have real people green-screened onto the stage, there may be ‘live concerts’ for others to watch and enjoy and rate. This is what makes the game industry so special. There’s really no limit to possibilities.

Now, it’s well known that many of these games are getting very realistic, and you ‘may as well learn a guitar’, but that’s exactly Harmonix’ point. Part of their marketing campaign is that with Rock Band 3, you can finally learn real guitar. Remember how before, people were criticizing that the Rock Band guitar is nothing like a real guitar? Well they’ve added that option now for the haters. However, not everyone has the finger coordination to learn an instrument with six strings and however many frets like a guitar. Rock Band 3 provides tutorials to help you learn the frets, so you can play the closest adaptation of an actual guitar to date. It’s not everyone’s cup of tea. It’s difficult, it requires a lot of dedication, and it’s more of a personal project than an option to try at a party. It’s not like every Sally Sue can pick it up at bachelorette party and rock out to Livin’ on a Prayer. For those who want to learn the instrument with a flashy, visual aid, this makes for a great, fun, alternative aid to a traditional class or teacher. For everyone else, there’s still the five-button alternative.

Ultimately, games like Rock Band 3 and the recently released Dance Central offer a more realistic experience because a) it’s the next step forward, b) it helps actual artists learn the craft in a fun, positive, lax environment, and c) too many people complain about the already unrealistic experience. But in reality, it’s all optional. This is why there are multiple difficulty levels to perform at whatever’s comfortable for the player. And really, even if Rock Band 3 does teach you how to be a professional guitar player, unless you want to dedicate years of private down time and practicing, these music games are the only realistic option where you and your friends can perform hundreds of number one hits together, one after the other, without having to stop and start over every couple of measures because Timmy’s third string needs tightened.

Halloween Top 20 (4/4)

Halloween is just around the corner. Actually it’s tomorrow, so let’s wrap this bad boy up with a few more games.

Silent Hill: Homecoming (2008)

I seem to be alone in loving this game. Most fans who played this said it was an abomination to the series, shouting that the game has little to no psychology in comparison to previous titles, and that the plot twist should disallow the character to be so skilled in combat. Well they’re not wrong in those aspects. However, while the majority of the monsters don’t have to do with the protagonist, Alex Shepherd’s nightmares, the bosses do, and they almost make up for that. The bosses in this game are some of the best, scariest, most challenging, and powerfully psychological the series has seen thus far. As for Alex’s abilities, no he probably shouldn’t possess his expert fighting prowess, but then Harry, James, Heather, and Henry all possessed decent fighting abilities when faced with mortal danger, so what makes Alex any different? But now I’m rambling. Silent Hill Homecoming has a really chilling story with a nice amount of twists, and a good mix of pop-up scares with terrifying ambience. As most Silent Hill games go, it makes you wonder what the hell is going on up until the final revelation, but the graphics of the 360/PS3 really make for some impressive visual effects the series wasn’t even capable of until this point.

Fatal Frame II: Crimson Butterfly (2003)

Fatal Frame as a series is a fantastically terrifying set of games. In my personal experience, they make for the scariest games out there. Fatal Frame II specifically follows the events of twin sisters, Mio and Mayu, walking around the woods until they stumble upon a haunted village. All of the villagers are dead and the village is cursed. Their salvation? They need to perform a ritual concerning twin siblings, where one twin has to murder the other, but surely these two won’t succumb to the village magic, right? Fatal Frame is your typical Japanese ghost story, but what sets it apart is the fact that your only weapon against these ghouls is an enchanted camera. Silly as it may sound, Fatal Frame takes a spin on the old saying of how a picture captures a piece of your soul, and uses this ideology to actually harm the ghosts. The better the picture, the more damage. This makes for an interesting parallax because it forces you to get closer to the ghosts, further terrifying the senses, in order to expel the creepy spectres. There are also a number of ghosts that aren’t hostile, meaning they won’t attack you, but you may still need a change of trousers after encountering them as they are no less scream-inducing. This game is beautiful when you’re not being haunted, surrounded by gorgeous Japanese-style visuals that will include zen gardens, wind chimes, and deer scares, with sound effects and ambience to follow. But otherwise the experience is in general horrifying as every corner you round could put you in mortal danger. 

American McGee’s Alice (2000)

Alright, so this game isn’t technically a “horror” title per se, though the environments fit it well enough. American McGee’s cult classic, Alice, takes a new spin on Lewis Carroll’s timeless novels “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” and “Through the Looking Glass”. The twist? Everything, as in the whole game is twisted. A young girl named Alice obsesses over the Alice in Wonderland stories. One night, however, a house fire causes her parents to burn to death while Alice herself barely manages to make it out alive. The event traumatizes her, and something in her fractures. She is sent to a mental hospital where they attempt to pick up the pieces and help her regain her sanity. That’s where you, the player come in. You play as Alice within her own deluded mind of what used to be a wonderland. In here, the Cheshire Cat bares a sinister grin, the Duchess is hungry for blood, and the Mad Hatter’s madder than ever. Murder is an everyday event for this new take on Wonderland, and the Red Queen’s tyranny must come to an end. This game has an incredibly interesting take on the various characters and locations of Wonderland, and the majority of your weapons, called “toys”, are just that. Demon Dice, Spiked Jacks, a Croquet Mallet, etc. After ten years, a sequel has been announced for the Xbox 360, so you’d better hurry up and play its predecessor l before this new one comes out.

Bioshock (2007)

This is the only title on my list that I haven’t actually finished. As such, I can’t say that I personally recommend it, but I’ve heard great things. Even though I don’t personally find first person shooters to have that same kind of scare that most survival-horror games possess. Plus the fact that it is a first person shooter by classification, and not a survival horror series specifically. In fact, I almost didn’t include this for those very reasons. But then I remembered the first time I played and pissed off a Big Daddy. He was really defensive over the Little Girl he walked around with, and I wasn’t sure how to progress any further, so I tossed a tin can at him. His yellow eyes turned blood red and he charged full speed towards me, drill at the ready, and I’ve never been more terrified in my life. I panicked trying to throw everything I could find at him, unleashing all the ammo I have into him, electrocuting him, anything I could think of but this guy was absolutely relentless. If the rest of the game is anything like that, I suppose it qualifies for recommendation. It was either this or another Silent Hill title (1 or 3), or Fatal Frame III, but I’m trying to keep it well rounded and not make the majority of the list split between three series.

Are You Afraid of the Dark: The Tale of Orpheo’s Curse (1994)

“Do you believe in magic? Is magic only an illusion created by a stage magician? Well, there’s an old saying, ‘seeing is believing’”. This is the opening line of one of my favorite childhood games. Based on the Nickelodeon show, the game centers around the midnight society inducting you as their newest member. But your test is to tell them a chilling ghost story. The story you tell involves a brother/sister pair entering an old abandoned theatre called “Orpheo’s Palace”. Rumored to have been shut down fifty years ago after it’s head magician, Orpheo, went mad and all of the staff, including himself, died during various magic acts, the theatre was shut down for good. Well it turns out those rumors are true, and you encounter Orpheo upon entering, and he’s still trying to get a magic act right, so he volunteers you for his next act. Tonight. The pair are separated, and you switch off playing as each, coming across the ghosts of the various assistants who perished long ago, including Felicia of the guillotine trick, Roberta who played the woman sawed in half, and the Amazing Aldo who escaped every trick but the water box. The music is chilling, and Orpheo occasionally stalks you or tells you how much he’s looking forward to your performance at midnight via the intercom. The environments are lush and there’s a ton of things to explore, though examining the wrong wax skeleton may initiate a chase scene, and you’d better know where to go if you want to live. There’s a huge amount of puzzles, a fair amount of chases (each with heart pounding music), and multiple endings depending on how much of the mystery you manage to solve. I doubt anyone reading this will actually have access to this game, and I realize it’s really old, but if you ever get the chance, please try it out. If for no reason other than to bring back nostalgia over the Are You Afraid of the Dark crew.

Making this list has really showed me something. Either I really haven’t played as many scary games as I thought I did, or maybe there just aren’t enough good scary titles that don’t already have day jobs of being a first-person shooter. But whichever the reason, this list was hard to make. But if you’re looking for a good, scary game experience, Resident Evil 3, Resident Evil 4, Eternal Darkness, Clock Tower 3, Haunting Ground, Silent Hill: Homecoming, Fatal Frame II, American McGee’s Alice, Bioshock, and Are You Afraid of the Dark: The Tale Of Orpheo’s Curse, all fit the cut. Happy Haunting!

Halloween Top 20 (2/4)

The Halloween Haunt continues. But this time with a few good survival horror games thrown at you. I’ll finish my movie coverage next time, but for now, let me throw a few good scary games at you.

Resident Evil 3 (1999)

The Resident Evil series as a whole is a good survival horror franchise, and I would honestly recommend RE 1, 2, 3, and 4. But for the sake of redundancy, I’ll not fill the entire list with Resident Evil titles. Despite Resident Evil 2 being my personal favorite of the old-school generation (and the series as a whole, really), what stands out about Resident Evil 3 is the fact that you’re being stalked by Nemesis throughout the entirety of the game. You play as Jill Valentine, one of the four primary protagonists of the series, and you’re caught in the middle of the massive T-Virus outbreak of Raccoon city. Jill tries to escape the city before it’s nuked via government missiles, but Umbrella Corp’s latest bio-weapon seems to be a constant blockade in your path. Nemesis tends to show up at the most inconvenient of times, and often forces you in a series of heart pounding, split second decisions on how to shake him, the outcome of which may effect your fate. You can never seem to get a moment of rest in this game, and just as you do start to feel comfortable, he shows up again, so it keeps you on your feet at all times.

Resident Evil 4 (2005)

As I said before, I won’t flood the list with Resident Evil titles, but I figured I’d recommend one more. Again, Resident Evil 2 is my personal favorite, but Resident Evil 4 is a close second. RE4 isn’t so much a scary title, though it’s not without its moments. There are some pretty horrifying enemies you come across (Regenerators, Iron Maidens, and Los Garradores come to mind), but there’s also that sense of panic you get when you enter a seemingly innocent village, only to have every villager swarm to you like you’re Thanksgiving dinner; which in retrospect isn’t that far off. The story is a bit of a departure from the past series, but the gameplay is a huge improvement. It’s a lot more tactful, and you can actually aim your guns to wherever you want to shoot. Not that I don’t appreciate the older titles, but since these “zombies” are smarter and more tactful, it makes sense that I would be too. Like the Star Wars series, RE1-3 and RE4/5 feel like two separate series, both having their share of positives over the other. RE4 sacrifices some of the scares for a more pleasurable gameplay experience. But unlike RE5, does not sacrifice the “Horror” in “Survival Horror” entirely.

Eternal Darkness (2002)

Eternal Darkness is not what you’d expect of a survival horror game. It’s not actually scary. I can count on half of a hand how many times I was actually spooked by something, and that’s attributed by a number of reasons. The lighting in the game isn’t very dark, there’s all of maybe two pop-out scenarios, and it’s actually a well written piece of work, showing off good story rather than focusing on scaring. So why on earth am I recommending it? Because it encompasses an incredibly genius sanity system. As you encounter supernatural beings, your sanity meter steadily depletes, and the lower it gets, the more “sanity effects” you endure. These effects range anywhere from visuals of bloody walls or upside-down rooms, to audio effects like screams or children crying, to 4^th wall effects like lowering the volume, pretending to erase your memory card, or a fake ending after only two hours of play. The list of effects goes on and on and is so vast, I rarely encountered the same effect twice, and this is a game that plays through the stories of twelve separate characters, each with their own story, location, time period and statistics; though all tie into the same story. It’s lengthy, the story is interesting, there’s a major choice made in the beginning that effects how the rest of the game pans out, and it holds a fantastic sanity system. Who cares that it isn’t scary?

Clock Tower 3 (2003)

The subject of actual terror has been addressed a few times already. Is Clock Tower 3 terrifying? Well the answer is yes, and then no. Unfortunately the best part of Clock Tower 3 is the first 25% of it, and it gets gradually less horrifying and more nonsensical throughout. So lemme dish the dirt. Clock Tower is a series revolving around a similar concept of Resident Evil 3. Not in terms of story, but in terms of getting the hell out of there. Clock Tower 3 involves six psychotic serial killers chasing you around London. Each killer is distinct, and allegedly more dangerous than the last. But the first one is the one I find to be most terrifying. He goes by the alias “Sledgehammer”, and as his name implies, his first appearance involves him bludgeoning a 13-year old girl in the back of the head. He’s horrifying. He has a creepy voice, a terrifying costume, strange habits like sniffing around for his prey, and he sometimes drops down from the catwalks, landing with a loud BANG, cutting your morning jog abruptly short. The gameplay involves, literally, trying to outrun these guys, but you can’t simply outrun them. You’ll be making use of hiding spots and evade points, which are mini cutscenes that involve you knocking them out in some manner. Again, after Sledgehammer, the game becomes progressively less scary, and the end of it is downright cheesy. But I’d recommend at least playing through the first level, maybe even the first two.

Haunting Ground (2005)

This game was made by the same people behind the Clock Tower series, so the gameplay is pretty similar. You play as a girl named Fiona who wakes up one night inside a cage in a castle basement, surrounded by meat cleavers, and raw steaks made out of things that we doubtfully hope are cows, and she’s clad in nothing but a towel. Throughout the course of the game, the various tenants of the castle stalk you for varying reasons, and it’s your job to progress in the storyline without getting killed by them. This once again involves finding hiding spots and using other methods of slowing them down. However, unlike Clock Tower 3, you actually have ways of harming them. Not to the point of killing them of course, but you can at least stun them. Also paired with you this time around is a dog named Hewie. You can train the dog by praising or scolding him whenever he does or doesn’t protect you, which will either increase or decrease his likelihood of helping in the future. You’ll need Hewie to reach areas you can’t reach yourself, and unlike Alessa in Clock Tower 3, Fiona was obviously on a track team at some point in her life, because this chick can actually run. And run she will, because also unlike Clock Tower 3, these enemies DO progressively become more horrifying. While most of them don’t physically look scary, they each have their own personalities, mannerisms, and attacks that really make you wanna get the hell out of there. The only cost of this development is the fact that each person’s section seems to last shorter than the previous. Aside from the very end of this game, I’d say this game is overall an improved version of Clock Tower 3. If they can take this concept and improve it again for a console like the PS3 or 360, I’ll be set for life.

That’s it for today’s list. Check back in a few days for the last five movies on my Halloween Horror list.

The Mass Effect of Mass Effect

Storytelling has long since been a part of the video game industry, but it baffles me just how intense the plotlines for video games are becoming.

Mind you, I for one have been an advocate for storytelling in games for a good many years anyway. A lot of people are more concerned with graphical prowess than actual substance within a game, but personally I’ve always preferred a dramatic relay to help push me forward. Though there certainly is such a thing as too much exposition (Square Enix’s last twenty titles), stories can be anywhere from a simple plotline serving as structure with sole intention of moving the game forward (Mario, Zelda) to a dramatic narrative where the gameplay is little more than the afterthought (Heavy Rain, anyone?).

Spoilers for Mass Effect are to follow.

The point I’m getting at however is the fact that video game plotlines have grown to have such an impact on the player that the player can actually feel conflicted over a character’s death. Of course we’ve all mourned the loss of Aerith (some are crying about as much as Cloud still is, and it’s a little embarrassing). But in Mass Effect, most characters are not required to die. However, I just finished my first playthrough of it, and I did it without once looking online to see what choices affect what. What ended up happening to me was that I lost two of my six party members, as in permanently lost them. They died.

The first person was killed by a different party member after having acted out of line and jeopardized the mission. The second was a much crueler scenario. There’s a point in the game where two of my party members are off doing separate things, both taking heavy fire, and I can only save one of them. This isn’t one of those Batman choices where the odds are against you, but with the proper aim and timing you can save them both. This is real, one of these people die. So I was faced with a difficult decision. Do I run off to save my romantic interest who volunteered for this suicide mission? Or do I save my friend and comrade who’s fought with me through the hard times? Regardless of their backgrounds and personalities, they were both members of team, and they both felt very much alive. The choice wasn’t easy, but I assure you, I did feel guilty afterward.

The storytelling is so well written in this game, and the relationships you build with these characters feels pretty authentic. Every conversation has multiple outcomes, so they don’t feel artificial. After losing my first team member, I felt responsible, as if I could have spared him if only I’d said the right thing (which turned out to be true. Turns out he can live with the right vocal input). And as for the second loss, even though I had no way of saving both of them, I still felt guilty for having to choose one life over another. It’s like being made to choose between a stranger and a friend. You’re obviously going to WANT to say your friend, but then you realize that isn’t exactly fair. It’s not the stranger’s fault he doesn’t know you. Plus who’s to say he doesn’t have his own family and friends? And what if he was in the same boat? Would he just throw you away because he doesn’t know you?

The game puts you in some cruel situations, and there are multiple points where you must choose to kill or spare an individual. But no previous moment actually made me feel as if I’d really lost a comrade. Although I know she was nothing more than polygons filled with scripted data, the loss felt more real than any canon character death I’ve ever experienced prior to Mass Effect. It just goes to show you have impactful interactive storytelling has become, and it makes you wonder how far they’re planning to push it.