Survival/Horror
Let’s get one thing straight: when Capcom released Resident Evil 4 for the GCN in 2005, it was a striking deviation from its classic load-screen-during-door-opening formula upon which it had built the franchise . Future editions of Silent Hill would not veer far from its own recipe, but let’s face it: Resident Evil 4 will go down as one of the greatest games of all time, and many companies took notice. Sure, the game shifted more toward being a shooting gallery, but that did not mean that wielding a good deal of ammunition would remove all tension tension. If anything, the genre would evolve its mechanics to accommodate more intimidating enemies that newer technology could present, both singular and in throng.
While I am committed to not include games on this list that I have not played, there are two games that need to be included in this category nevertheless. Silent Hill: Shattered Memories (Wii) and Dead Rising should make the cut, but they are beyond my scope.
Left4Dead
Outside of the original Defense of the Ancients (DotA) and a game or two of Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3, I had pretty much sworn off internet multiplayer games with complete strangers. Well, there came a time in the lifespan of the Wii where some individuals migrated from the Wii Hardware message boards on GameFaqs to a private board, and one of those individuals was 47Pik, someone who became a friend of mine who introduced me to and invited me for a session of Left4Dead when it went on sale on Steam.
I had played countless survival modes in games throughout my gaming career, but I cannot remember a game entirely built around the concept and executed so well. The dialogue emanating from the player characters, the Survivors, during an apocalypse is convincing, and makes the player WANT these characters to survive (well, except Francis; nobody likes that guy). Speaking of convincing, the dilapidation of the urban maps (No Mercy and Dead Air), and the eerie open spaces of the wooded campaigns (Death Toll and Blood Harvest) create a powerful sense of vulnerability, even when the player is fully equipped with health packs, stim shots, grenades, and automatic weapons. Personally, I was a fan of the shotgun.
The highlight of the game, and essential to the multiplayer modes, are the special infected. While mowing through endless and random hordes of regular Infected which the game’s AI, called The Director, sends forth randomly to make every campaign play-through a unique experience could become monotonous on its own, the special infected exists to give the player hell. Each is granted unique abilities used to divide and conquer the Survivors: the hunter pounces on players to pin them down for an assault, which can be comboed with the Boomer who vomits (or explodes) on players, temporarily blinding and soaking them with an infected horde-attracting bile; as players search for cover or try to rescue a teammate from the hunter, a Smoker might use its tongue to lasso onto a Survivor Spider-Man webbing style, and drag that person to his position for a mauling; the Tank, who is essentially The Hulk, can run down and pulverize the survivors into dust; finally, the Witch is the rarest of the special infected, but she is also the strongest, as she can one-hit incapacitate a Survivor on the easier difficulties, and one-hit kill a survivor on the hardest. And true to the game’s outstanding cinematography, each of the special infected possesses its own theme music to accompany their custom shrieks, groans, and grunts upon spotting a Survivor (and if you like that, here’s more).
There is an option to play alone with AI controlled Survivors, but only the friendless or anti-social dare to play that mode. Multiplayer with a mic is where it’s at, with teams working together with precision (or not) to reach the safe room as the Survivors or KILL THEM ALL!!! as the Infected. In its hey-day, L4D lobbies filled virtually instantly. Unfortunately now however, it might be harder to get a game going even on L4D2, with the exception of Steam seasonal sales. That said, I fondly, if not begrudgingly remember being in a game, and over the mic, I called The Director “the dungeon keeper.” I was immediately vote kicked from the team. Whoops.
Dead Space
Before Dead Space, and besides Lisa Trevor in REmake, only the first Silent Hill scared me so badly that I had to change my gameplay habits. Silent Hill made me turn off the music. Lisa Trevor made me use up all my ammo. Dead Space made me play the game a maximum of one mission per day, and in the daylight, with my wife in the room. (She could watch Jeopardy for all I care, she just needed to be there!)
Seriously. Without finishing a mission, I would not have closure, and would be afraid to sleep lest the Necromorph follow me to the land of sweet dreams. Returning to classic Resident Evil style corridors, the mining ship Ishimura certainly entrenched the feeling of paralyzing fear; this game didn’t even bother with a PAUSE button! The weapons interface is available, but only in-game realtime where those freakishly disgusting monsters can still kill the player. And boy, they are LOUD and repulsive in their oozing and pulsating and decomposing and multiplying and vomiting and dying. *shudder* Unlike the zombies in the Resident Evil games or even the Infected in Left4Dead, I legitimately felt sorry for the poor souls who had to endure their transformations, and I looked forward to putting them out of their misery. In fact, I was proactive in this, oftentimes dismembering corpses as I explored, just in case one might have had the silly idea to reanimate with my back turned to it. Oh yes, the only way to kill in this game is to sever limbs. Headshots are allowed, but usually futile. Like the Soldier of Fortune franchise, dismemberment is encouraged.
Isaac, the player character, isn’t a super soldier or even your average cop. He’s a nerd. An engineer. But an engineer has tools. Instead of pistols and shotguns, Isaac uses modified weapons such as a rotary saw, a hydrazine torch, and a plasma cutter, with the latter being the first weapon you get, but it is also the bread-and-butter; I used it the entire game, and there is something to be said concerning the balance of weapons when none become obsolete. Then again, some weapons, such as the line gun, never had a practical use for me, and it was better just to upgrade the ol’ plasma cutter…wait, what does an engineer need to do with a plasma cutter, anyway?
Next up: WRPG
