In July of 2000, PC Gamer, in place of their monthly demo disk, released a CD-ROM containing thirteen classic games from the late eighties and early nineties. Many of the games were not new to me. I had already fallen in love with The Secret of Monkey Island and King's Quest, I had watched my brother play through quite a bit of Descent, and Terminal Velocity was really pretty much the same thing as Fury3. However, there were three games on that disc that I would say truly changed my perspective on gaming: X-COM: UFO Defense, Duke Nukem II, and Ultima I.
I would love to talk about X-COM and Duke Nukem and how they shaped how I think about games today, but that's not what this post is about. This post is about Ultima.
Ultima was not the first Western RPG I ever played. In fact, as I mentioned before, I was pretty well-versed in games by that time. Monkey Island had taught me that video games could make me laugh, Final Fantasy VII had taught me that video games could make me cry, but it wasn't until Ultima that I felt like it impacted me. Before, games were stories about other people, and while I was certainly immersed in some of them, I never felt like I was part of the world. Ultima had this huge world to explore with so many things to see and do. You could steal, and fight, and explore, and go to space, and go back in time, and cast magic, and save princesses, and it all felt like it was something that you were doing. I never referred to The Stranger in third-person. I was the Stranger.
The reason I bring this up is that last Tuesday, I saw Richard Garriott (Lord British; The creator of the Ultima series) speak on a panel called The New World of Gaming hosted by the Rice Alliance at UT. Now, it's been a pretty crazy couple of weeks for me, since the Tuesday before last I saw Neil Gaiman, Adam Savage, Paul and Storm, and the Red vs. Blue guys at W00tstock 2.9, and this weekend I'm going to get to see Billy Dee Williams, Adam West, and Lou Ferrigno at Austin Comic Con [Note: This post was written before I went to Comic-Con, which I can now say was totally awesome.]. However, I have to say that getting a chance to see Lord British in person really takes the cake.
But I really had no idea what I was signing up for.
I went with two friends, neither of whom had played Ultima, but were interested enough to go. They both wore polo shirts and at least semi-nice pants. I wore an over-sized Playstation 3 T-Shirt and a pair of dirty black jeans. For some reason, I thought I would be the one to fit in more. The first thing that we noticed upon arriving was just how many old people there were. Now, granted, Ultima I came out thirty years ago, but even then, the age gap didn't work out. Most of them were also wearing suits. I also found it strange that they would give us vouchers for two free drinks at the bar, though I certainly didn't mind. There was also a buffet included with the price of the ticket ($10 at the door) that had a rather impressive assortment of things to munch on. The vegetable wantons were quite tasty and there were some sort of Italian-fried-cheese-somethings that were absolutely delicious. It was actually while I was eating that I heard a very loud voice directly behind me talking about NASA and space exploration. I didn't really need to turn around to verify that it was, in fact, Lord British standing no more than two feet away from me, but I did anyway.
It was surreal.
Richard Garriott's was the first name I ever heard connected to gaming. He's really an icon in the gaming world, and most of that is due to his real-world persona. He's grotesquely rich, was the first second-generation astronaut, was the first mainstream video game developer in Austin, owns an awesome mansion with secret rooms, and in 2009 he officiated the first-ever wedding on the zero gravity plane. On top of that, he made Ultima! The man just exudes cool. You can imagine how I felt standing right next to him. I nearly choked on my Italian-fired-cheese-something.
I didn't go up to him because I truly had nothing to say. All I could do was sit by the door to the auditorium and wait for the panel to start. When the panel did start, I discovered that there were three other Austinites joining him, none of whom I had ever heard of. One was an investor, another was the CEO of a social gaming company (the creator of Qrank), and I can't really remember who the other guy was. It didn't take me very long to realize that this panel was not at all what I thought it would be. In his opening statements, Richard Garriott split the video game timeline into three segments. The first was an era single-player games, mostly played by nerdy males in their mom's basements, the second was a shift towards multiplayer games which incorporated a bit more of a mainstream audience, and the new dawning age was one of social casual games like Farmville and Qrank. He talked about the fact that games are "reaching all of humanity" through Facebook and mobile devices, and about how that was where the money was. He said that the "Great Equalization" that everyone was hoping that the Internet would bring about didn't happen, and that the only way to succeed as a gaming company was with capital, superior numbers, and top talent; Not necessarily good game design. "Big companies win," he said.
I was a bit taken aback. This wasn't the Richard Garriott I thought I knew. This wasn't the man who took me to Sosaria, has a dead guy in his basement, and fought off a deranged fan with an uzi. This wasn't Richard Garriott the dreamer. This was someone else.
Now, I'm not a starry-eyed romanticist. I know that if you're going to be successful in business, you need to have some sort of business sense. In addition, I know that you need to follow trends and patterns to see where the money is. In this sense, he's right. Social, casual games are making a lot of people a lot of money. But he's right about another thing too:
Gaming is reaching all of humanity.
Call of Duty: Black Ops sold 5.6 million copies on its launch date. More than 10 million people play World of Warcraft. There is a reality TV show called the Tester about people vying for a video game testing job that is being renewed for a second season. There have been video game weddings, video game proposals, video game museums, video game concerts, and extensive video game-related communities with people of all ages, races, genders, backgrounds, and beliefs. Gaming is finally being accepted as a legitimate art form. This is the era of gaming in which it realizes its true potential. Games are now able to tell their stories and share their experiences with a massive whole new congregation, and the man who could be at the forefront of that wants to make another Farmville?
The rest of the night went on in a similar fashion. Questions were asked by the audience, but none of them were about games. At one point Richard Garriott mentioned that he had never employed a game designer that he felt was better than himself, and it took pretty much all I had not to mutter, "Well, that explains Tabula Rasa."
I hate to sound bitter, and in all actuality, I had a great time. The food was great, I learned a lot, and I got to see a childhood hero in the flesh, even if he was a bit different than I expected. I still have an enormous amount of respect for the man, and if he ever decides to do a repeat of the '94 Descent Into Darkness Adventure at Britannia Manor, I'll be first in line, but if I need someone to help me push the boundaries of gaming, I think I'll ask Edmund McMillen.
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
Saturday, November 6, 2010
Bad For Thinking
In light of my previous post, a friend of mine asked me to post the original list of my top ten favorite scary games. Here they are:
10. Amnesia: The Dark Descent
9. System Shock 2
8. F.E.A.R.
7. Aliens versus Predator 2
6. Doom 3
5. Silent Hill 3
4. Half-Life
3. Eternal Darkness - Sanity's Requiem
2. Resident Evil - REmake
1. Silent Hill 2
Note that these are my "favorite scary games," rather than "games that have scared me the most." I found Doom 3 to be a much scarier game than Half-Life, for example, but Half-Life is definitely my favorite of the two.
Aquick anecdote about a game I feel should get an honorable mention:
One of the very first real games I ever played as a kid was Star Wars: Dark Forces, a Doom-style first-person shooter. It was passed on to me (along with the CD-ROM version of the first two Prince of Persia games) by my brother when I was eight. I had never played a first-person shooter before, so it took me a while to even beat the first level, but when I did, I really got into it. In the third level, however, Kyle Katarn (the main character) visits the sewers of Anoat City to track down an Imperial weapons designer. With the exception of a couple of interrogation droids, the only monsters in the level were the dianogas that lived under the water. You couldn't see them, you couldn't go under the water, and the only hint that you had that they were there was the occasional eyeball stalk that would pop out of the murky water to look around. The sewer would be quiet for a while, and then suddenly you would have have this in your face:
To my knowledge, as of today, my mother has only ever played two video games: Dance Dance Revolution (a completely separate, yet fun story) and the third level of Dark Forces. I would stand behind her, facing away from the screen and she would describe her surroundings. It took us a good chunk of the summer, but together, we navigated the labyrinth-like sewer, and while she never actually beat the level herself, she got me close enough that I was able to make a mad dash for the exit.
Of course, Dark Forces isn't a horror game. In fact, while Anoat City is still pretty horrifying to this day (I had to play it in order to take the above screenshot. I won't lie, my heart was racing a bit), the rest of the game is pretty tame. It's for this reason that it only gets an honorable mention, but it has a very special place in my heart.
10. Amnesia: The Dark Descent
9. System Shock 2
8. F.E.A.R.
7. Aliens versus Predator 2
6. Doom 3
5. Silent Hill 3
4. Half-Life
3. Eternal Darkness - Sanity's Requiem
2. Resident Evil - REmake
1. Silent Hill 2
Note that these are my "favorite scary games," rather than "games that have scared me the most." I found Doom 3 to be a much scarier game than Half-Life, for example, but Half-Life is definitely my favorite of the two.
A
One of the very first real games I ever played as a kid was Star Wars: Dark Forces, a Doom-style first-person shooter. It was passed on to me (along with the CD-ROM version of the first two Prince of Persia games) by my brother when I was eight. I had never played a first-person shooter before, so it took me a while to even beat the first level, but when I did, I really got into it. In the third level, however, Kyle Katarn (the main character) visits the sewers of Anoat City to track down an Imperial weapons designer. With the exception of a couple of interrogation droids, the only monsters in the level were the dianogas that lived under the water. You couldn't see them, you couldn't go under the water, and the only hint that you had that they were there was the occasional eyeball stalk that would pop out of the murky water to look around. The sewer would be quiet for a while, and then suddenly you would have have this in your face:
Okay, so kids today may have their Flood and their Locusts, and I'm sure that they all make the dianoga from Dark Forces look laughable today, but to an eight year-old in 1996, this was what terror looked like.
So, I had this problem. I loved the game, and I wanted to continue, but I was too afraid to even start the level, let alone finish it. So I got this brilliant idea: I would get my mother to play it. After all, any other time that I was afraid of something, I would just get Mom to take care of it. I remember quite vividly what it was that I told her to convince her to come upstairs to see Dark Forces. I said, "Hey Mom, have you ever wondered what the monster that dragged Luke under the water in Star Wars looked like?" And my poor, sweet mother who, at the time, was lying on her bed, peacefully reading a book and drinking tea, looked up at me and said, "You know, I always have."
It is one of my most cherished summer memories.
Of course, Dark Forces isn't a horror game. In fact, while Anoat City is still pretty horrifying to this day (I had to play it in order to take the above screenshot. I won't lie, my heart was racing a bit), the rest of the game is pretty tame. It's for this reason that it only gets an honorable mention, but it has a very special place in my heart.
Friday, November 5, 2010
Restless Dreams
Since Halloween was last weekend, I was going to use this post to talk about my top ten favorite horror games and what I think makes them both scary and good. However, after making my list, I discovered that the only thing I had any real interest in talking about was the game at my number one spot: Silent Hill 2.
In addition to being my favorite horror game, Silent Hill 2 is present on my short list of greatest games of all time. It tells the story of James Sunderland, a somber, estranged man who has lost his wife to an unspecified incurable disease. Three years after his wife's death, he receives a letter from her, beckoning him to the town of Silent Hill. Upon arriving, James finds the permanently foggy town completely abandoned save for a little girl, two emotionally unstable characters, and hordes of hellish, grotesque monsters. In addition, he finds a woman named Maria who looks exactly like his dead wife, only younger and sexier. Each character is an interesting addition to the roster, wandering around in their own little world and dealing with the emotional baggage that plagues them. It is strongly hinted at throughout the entire game that while Silent Hill is definitely a place where one faces demons, they aren't always the kind that go bump in the night.
There are many things that make Silent Hill 2 special. Here's my top five.
1. James
James' story is one of self-discovery. He has secrets locked away in his mind that he can't bear to remember. Everything in Silent Hill drips with symbolism and insight into his psyche. In fact, even the other characters seem to exist solely to highlight James' story. Learning the truth about Angela and Eddie's pasts gives the player insight into the kinds of people that Silent Hill attracts and makes them question what kind of a character they've been controlling. Each monster is specifically designed to bring out an aspect of James' personality, including the villain that the series is most known for: Pyramid Head. It all comes together to create the most personal story I've ever seen in a game. During the course of the story, you become very connected to James, which is both fascinating and very disturbing. It's particularly interesting because even at the end of the game, we know very little about his life. A short blurb in the Silent Hill 3 strategy guide mentions that he was a clerk, and we know that he took vacations with his wife to Silent Hill, but that's really all we know about his past. And yet, at the end of the game, I felt like I knew everything about him. The game focuses on James so heavily that at times it just feels like a character analysis, and if you've got a character that's interesting enough, that's definitely not a bad thing.
2. Horror
I feel like good horror can make you scared of anything. Silent Hill 2 made me scared of fog, rust, water, sewers, prisons, museums, hospitals, mannequins, nurses, straitjackets, stairs, meat lockers, the dark, and Pyramid Head. That's quite a laundry list for one game. What makes it even more impressive is that Silent Hill 2 does not contain a single scripted pop-out scare in the entire game. Every scare in the game is executed by means of atmosphere, superior design, and a tense, gnawing feeling that the game is messing with your mind. Oh, and Pyramid Head.Towards the end of the game, there's this really long boat ride out to a hotel in the middle of a lake. You control the boat the whole time, and the ride goes on for so long that at first you start thinking that you're missing something. Then, you start thinking that something is going to pop out at you any moment. There's no shadows in the water, no dramatic music, but you feel it, like hot breath on your neck. The ride continues, soundless and static, and you start to grind your teeth, bracing yourself for the coming attack, but none ever comes. When you finally arrive at your destination, you breathe a heavy sigh of relief. Silent Hill spared you this time. Of course, in retrospect, there was nothing in the lake. I KNOW there's nothing in the lake, and yet every time I get through that segment, I feel as if the town itself is letting me go; allowing me to live, so that I can face my demons at the hotel. It's the kind of stuff that stays with you. A while back, I was driving through Houston pretty early on a weekend. I was the only car on the road, and a deep, thick fog hung over the city. I put on the Silent Hill soundtrack and drove right through. It was one of the creepiest things I've ever experienced.
3. Emotional Atmosphere
If I could pick one word to describe Silent Hill 2, it's 'melancholy.' It's a strange departure from most horror, which is tense, adrenaline-driven, and exciting. Silent Hill 2 is slow, sluggish, and feels emotionally draining. James, in particular, drives this feeling forward with an estranged, alienated attitude that really makes it seem like he has nothing to live for. He cares about finding his wife, but never really gets passionate about it. It always feels as though he knows that his wife is dead and that he will never find her, but just can't let it go. I really applaud the designers for their attention to detail in this respect. Everything from the voice acting, to the writing on the walls, to the fact that James doesn't even close his car door when he goes into the town accentuates the feelings of loneliness and despair that the characters all feel. Long before you know the ending, you know it can't go well. There is no light in Silent Hill.
4.Bending the medium
Silent Hill 2 really pushes the gaming medium for all it's worth. It defies convention at every turn. In fact, just as a video game, it's actually kind of terrible. The controls are clunky, there's not a lot of weapon variety, combat is boring, and the pacing is slow. Oddly enough, however, it all seems to work in its favor. In the "Making Of Silent Hill 2" documentary they mention the fact that it takes ten minutes of running down roads just to get into Silent Hill. Then, there's another five minutes before you see the first monster. It was a stylistic choice to make it seem like the town was really, truly isolated. There are very few games that have the guts to withhold combat for fifteen minutes, but they knew that they were taking risks by bending the rules, and it worked. The clunky control scheme and the bad camera actually heighten the tension in scary situations, and the non-conventional story really makes it stand out as one of the best game narratives of all time.
5. Silent Hill
Silent Hill is more than just the name and setting of the game. It's also a main character. It pushes James in the direction he needs to go and guides him down his path of discovery. Sections of the town are often blocked off or completely missing. The town is in control at all times and it makes you feel very small and powerless. For me, one of the things that makes the town so interesting is that while you know that it's powerful and that it attracts a certain type of psychopath, you never really know what it is. Is it a place of punishment or redemption? Does it have a mind of it's own or does it just manifest what's in its occupants' heads? Is it somehow a benign force or does it have true malicious intent? This ambiguity is addressed in the game's six endings. In most games with multiple endings, which ending you receive is based on a decision (sometimes two) that you make in the story. Silent Hill 2, however, gives you an ending based on how you play the game, and it takes in a lot of factors. What you choose to look at, how much time you spend in certain areas, and even how much time you spend with low health all affect the ending you receive. This doesn't just shape the character of James. It changes what the town means to James through every choice he makes.
If you're a gamer who has never played Silent Hill 2, you really owe it to yourself to give it a shot, even if you're not a horror fan. It's one of my favorites, and when Roger Ebert comes knocking on my door to prove him wrong, it's the first thing I'm going to show him.
In addition to being my favorite horror game, Silent Hill 2 is present on my short list of greatest games of all time. It tells the story of James Sunderland, a somber, estranged man who has lost his wife to an unspecified incurable disease. Three years after his wife's death, he receives a letter from her, beckoning him to the town of Silent Hill. Upon arriving, James finds the permanently foggy town completely abandoned save for a little girl, two emotionally unstable characters, and hordes of hellish, grotesque monsters. In addition, he finds a woman named Maria who looks exactly like his dead wife, only younger and sexier. Each character is an interesting addition to the roster, wandering around in their own little world and dealing with the emotional baggage that plagues them. It is strongly hinted at throughout the entire game that while Silent Hill is definitely a place where one faces demons, they aren't always the kind that go bump in the night.
There are many things that make Silent Hill 2 special. Here's my top five.
1. James
James' story is one of self-discovery. He has secrets locked away in his mind that he can't bear to remember. Everything in Silent Hill drips with symbolism and insight into his psyche. In fact, even the other characters seem to exist solely to highlight James' story. Learning the truth about Angela and Eddie's pasts gives the player insight into the kinds of people that Silent Hill attracts and makes them question what kind of a character they've been controlling. Each monster is specifically designed to bring out an aspect of James' personality, including the villain that the series is most known for: Pyramid Head. It all comes together to create the most personal story I've ever seen in a game. During the course of the story, you become very connected to James, which is both fascinating and very disturbing. It's particularly interesting because even at the end of the game, we know very little about his life. A short blurb in the Silent Hill 3 strategy guide mentions that he was a clerk, and we know that he took vacations with his wife to Silent Hill, but that's really all we know about his past. And yet, at the end of the game, I felt like I knew everything about him. The game focuses on James so heavily that at times it just feels like a character analysis, and if you've got a character that's interesting enough, that's definitely not a bad thing.
2. Horror
I feel like good horror can make you scared of anything. Silent Hill 2 made me scared of fog, rust, water, sewers, prisons, museums, hospitals, mannequins, nurses, straitjackets, stairs, meat lockers, the dark, and Pyramid Head. That's quite a laundry list for one game. What makes it even more impressive is that Silent Hill 2 does not contain a single scripted pop-out scare in the entire game. Every scare in the game is executed by means of atmosphere, superior design, and a tense, gnawing feeling that the game is messing with your mind. Oh, and Pyramid Head.Towards the end of the game, there's this really long boat ride out to a hotel in the middle of a lake. You control the boat the whole time, and the ride goes on for so long that at first you start thinking that you're missing something. Then, you start thinking that something is going to pop out at you any moment. There's no shadows in the water, no dramatic music, but you feel it, like hot breath on your neck. The ride continues, soundless and static, and you start to grind your teeth, bracing yourself for the coming attack, but none ever comes. When you finally arrive at your destination, you breathe a heavy sigh of relief. Silent Hill spared you this time. Of course, in retrospect, there was nothing in the lake. I KNOW there's nothing in the lake, and yet every time I get through that segment, I feel as if the town itself is letting me go; allowing me to live, so that I can face my demons at the hotel. It's the kind of stuff that stays with you. A while back, I was driving through Houston pretty early on a weekend. I was the only car on the road, and a deep, thick fog hung over the city. I put on the Silent Hill soundtrack and drove right through. It was one of the creepiest things I've ever experienced.
3. Emotional Atmosphere
If I could pick one word to describe Silent Hill 2, it's 'melancholy.' It's a strange departure from most horror, which is tense, adrenaline-driven, and exciting. Silent Hill 2 is slow, sluggish, and feels emotionally draining. James, in particular, drives this feeling forward with an estranged, alienated attitude that really makes it seem like he has nothing to live for. He cares about finding his wife, but never really gets passionate about it. It always feels as though he knows that his wife is dead and that he will never find her, but just can't let it go. I really applaud the designers for their attention to detail in this respect. Everything from the voice acting, to the writing on the walls, to the fact that James doesn't even close his car door when he goes into the town accentuates the feelings of loneliness and despair that the characters all feel. Long before you know the ending, you know it can't go well. There is no light in Silent Hill.
4.Bending the medium
Silent Hill 2 really pushes the gaming medium for all it's worth. It defies convention at every turn. In fact, just as a video game, it's actually kind of terrible. The controls are clunky, there's not a lot of weapon variety, combat is boring, and the pacing is slow. Oddly enough, however, it all seems to work in its favor. In the "Making Of Silent Hill 2" documentary they mention the fact that it takes ten minutes of running down roads just to get into Silent Hill. Then, there's another five minutes before you see the first monster. It was a stylistic choice to make it seem like the town was really, truly isolated. There are very few games that have the guts to withhold combat for fifteen minutes, but they knew that they were taking risks by bending the rules, and it worked. The clunky control scheme and the bad camera actually heighten the tension in scary situations, and the non-conventional story really makes it stand out as one of the best game narratives of all time.
5. Silent Hill
Silent Hill is more than just the name and setting of the game. It's also a main character. It pushes James in the direction he needs to go and guides him down his path of discovery. Sections of the town are often blocked off or completely missing. The town is in control at all times and it makes you feel very small and powerless. For me, one of the things that makes the town so interesting is that while you know that it's powerful and that it attracts a certain type of psychopath, you never really know what it is. Is it a place of punishment or redemption? Does it have a mind of it's own or does it just manifest what's in its occupants' heads? Is it somehow a benign force or does it have true malicious intent? This ambiguity is addressed in the game's six endings. In most games with multiple endings, which ending you receive is based on a decision (sometimes two) that you make in the story. Silent Hill 2, however, gives you an ending based on how you play the game, and it takes in a lot of factors. What you choose to look at, how much time you spend in certain areas, and even how much time you spend with low health all affect the ending you receive. This doesn't just shape the character of James. It changes what the town means to James through every choice he makes.
If you're a gamer who has never played Silent Hill 2, you really owe it to yourself to give it a shot, even if you're not a horror fan. It's one of my favorites, and when Roger Ebert comes knocking on my door to prove him wrong, it's the first thing I'm going to show him.
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