New Classic Gaming: the Fatal Frame series.

I'm happy with my haunted house-fit.

A modern classic series I’d always been interested in, but for whatever reason never taken the plunge and played through, is Fatal Frame. I finally decided to this past week. I ended up playing Fatal Frame and Fatal Frame 2: Crimson Butterfly via PlayStation Network, and 零： 眞紅の蝶 (ZERO: Deep Crimson Butterfly), the Japan-only Wii remake of the second game. I own Fatal Frame 3: The Tormented, but I have yet to set up my PS2 and take it for a spin.

Horror games, like horror movies, walk a fine line between scary and ridiculous. Ultimately the situations are stupid and unrealistic, so the game has to elevate itself to such a level that it either transcends the inherent mediocrity, or owns up to the silliness of the whole thing to make it an enjoyable experience. Fatal Frame does the former.

This girl does not do escorts.

It takes a Silent Hill approach in that its strength is in its atmosphere. You might argue the narrative is SH’s real strength, and I don’t disagree (certainly in regard to SH2), but no other game has used atmosphere as well as SH has, except perhaps FF. The first game is a haunted house and the second takes place in a haunted village.

The house is everything you’d expect with a dimly lit, decrepit looking why-the-hell-would-anyone-ever-decorate-a-room-this-way aesthetic with many inexplicably locked doors (though, as a rare exception to the rule, every single door does eventually open in FF1, unlike the forever closedness of much of SH), each of which require a ridiculous, themed key. So judging by the precedent set by Resident Evil, standard fare.

The town in the second game is as quiet as it is creepy, and its small size lends a claustrophobic air to everything. In fact, I think it feels more claustrophobic in Fatal Frame 2 than in the haunted house of the first game. The town is traditional Japanese, which means you have houses very close together with little space in between to travel, which makes it feel as if you’re just in a wide hallway when you walk outside. And it’s here that you find yourself armed with only a camera, cornered by ghosts.

Small hallway, weird controls, creepy-ass twins... check.

Battles are frequently tense due to the small space you have to use while your camera for nearly the entire game is much too weak for the circumstances. Like Final Fantasy XIII, normal and even weak ghost fights take two or three times as long to finish than they should, and due to your character being a mid-teens girl, you don’t have much resistance or speed against these attacks. You frequently get hit and sometimes even these normal ghosts can take half of your health with one hit. Sure, it adds to the overall sense of desperation and forces you to evolve your strategy to account for chronic low health, but goddamn is it infuriating sometimes.

And that brings me to my next point: appalling controls. Sometimes. The first game is bad. Nigh unplayable at times, actually. In battle, I mean. Moving and item collection/usage is standard across the games, even if the purpose of the spirit stones is absolutely impossible to discern in the first game. But besides collecting all those damn things and not understanding exactly why, the biggest problem is with the first person perspective camera controls. As soon as you bring out the camera and begin aiming, the left stick controls the view, and the right stick moves your character. That’s right: for some idiot reason, the designers thought it made sense to reverse the analog sticks when you go into battle mode, where reflexes and memorized controls exist to keep you from doing these kind of mental gymnastics and allow you to succeed. During the many boss battles, the controls become a serious handicap as your natural sense of moving with the left stick and looking with the right stick, as in every other game ever, is forcibly curtailed into this totally unintuitive scheme. And as such, the game becomes very difficult, and you exhaust your health, and film, supplies and become very frustrated.

Recent selfie.

FF2 on PS2 addresses and fixes that problem and keeps a uniform scheme no matter what view you’re employing, but the Wii remake adds all new control issues. Thankfully, it's not so much a matter of intuition as it is just a completely different experience. As it uses the Wiimote, it expects you to be a good soldier and constantly hold the controller at ready position, which keeps your flashlight level and your character steady. But if you let your hand move slightly or drop for a rest against your leg, depending on what you're doing, it can spell total disaster. In ghost encounters, you control your movement and your left-to-right looking with the nunchuck, but you control your camera and your up-and-down movement with the Wiimote, so you're kinda back to the original weird problem from FF1 where your controls, which had been controlled all on one hand, are now split across both hands, and it's not incredibly intuitive as to which hand does what. My real problem, however, is the inability to delegate the controls manually. I hate that I am forced to use broken controls. 

As I said, however, the PS2 control scheme was fixed for FF2, but now it’s other things that make the game difficult to play, like an unnecessary pause between coming out of picture mode and being able to move, and no chance of strafing when some of these ridiculously fast ghosts come at you. But that’s game design, not controls, anymore. Really, the rest of the problems I have with this series as a whole come down to nit-picky frustrations when I’ve made a mistake or not properly conserved film and am down to the least powerful film, which is about as effective as a Q-Tip against a meteor.

Q-tip and a meteor?

But it’s excellent. It’s creepy, and beautiful, and interesting. And it is absolutely the franchise I want to come out next for Wii U. If ever the Wii U’s controller was perfect for any game, where your weapon is an exorcismal point and click camera, this one is it.

Global Gaming: The Path (Belgium)

With each post in this mini-feature, I highlight a game from a different country around the world. Keep in mind these aren't necessarily the best or most popular games from each nation, but simply a fitting representative.

The Path - Tale of Tales, 2009

Tale of Tales is one of the first developers brought up in conversations about "art games." Many of their titles are more like interactive stories than games, per se. But the pretentious arty person I am, I'd argue interactive stories are games.

Anyway, Tale of Tales is known for titles like The Endless Forest, a massively-multiplayer game where you don't really do anything except walk around a forest as a deer, and dance around with other deer. They also made The Graveyard, a short game about an old lady... walking through a graveyard. That's the whole game. Their newest title, Bientôt l'été, is an asymmetrical multiplayer game about playing chess and drinking wine with anonymous strangers.

But Tale of Tales' most influential work is The Path. It's a psychological horror game based on the more grim (or Grimm?) side of fairy tales, and Little Red Riding Hood in particular. The player walks through the woods to Grandmother's house, and experiences some pretty creepy stuff along the way.

Despite lacking any overt "scares", The Path is more creepy than almost any horror game on the market today. It's only $10, so you should download it.

Let’s Play: walkthrough on a new level

Before we go to the meat of this blog I would like to introduce myself:

My name is Steffen Lund. I hail from the frozen north of the Vikings (i.e. Denmark). I do not consider myself a gamer at all; I would rather say that I am game interested. Many of my friends game about 3-5 hours per day, whereas I am lucky to barely cover that quota in a couple of months. This is both due to me taking my bachelor’s degree in political science, but just as much (if not mostly) my quite picky taste in games.

So why do I even read A Capital Wasteland, let alone get to write here? Well, Mr. Shapiro was so kind to ask me whether I wanted to do a sort of Scandinavian take on the Wasteland (a Scandinavia correspondent, if you will). In time, if this all works out, I would be delighted to look more into Scandinavian titles, but for now it is all about my more recent experience with games: Let’s Play.

So, let us get on with it, shall we?

One of my main problems with games today: the larger companies keep putting out new titles. I simply cannot keep up with the pace.

Now, I could just go pick up a game magazine once every month if I wanted to keep a finger on the pulse – heck, I could grab one for free in Denmark! But again, the problem here is probably me. I am too lazy. I want entertainment (dare I say need?). This is where Let’s Play-videos fit in the picture.

The concept of Let’s Play

Rooster Teeth's Achievement Hunters about to play Mari0.

Let’s Play are videos of gamers (or non-gamers), well, recording themselves playing games. The concept, of course, did not start out as a video concept (this would be a great moment to refer to the Let’s Play archive: www.lparchive.org, and of course the grand old let’s players from Something Awful).

Anyway, the video type has various purposes:

Entertainment

It is my personal opinion that Let’s Play-videos set out to entertain the masses. The goal is mainly to catch the funny/scary/you-name-it moments ‘on tape’. This offers YouTubers, such as Irish madman, oneyNG to take a break from their ‘regular’ jobs with animations and so forth, and still be entertaining, but Let’s Play also serve as a platform for a new audience. Swedish multi-voiced, bro-fisting eccentric, PewDiePie is a good example for a YouTuber who is actually making a living on screaming his lungs out during various horror games.

Play-through/walkthrough – educational/reviews

You may consider this a somewhat less interactive, but at the same time the more entertaining way of demoing a game. Walkthroughs are nothing new in the gaming world. Back in the good old days when we were not able to film ourselves playing games to show our audience through various games, we would instead write the so-called walkthroughs – this type, of course, is still used, but whether the videos has exceeded in popularity compared to text-based walkthroughs over these last couple of years, I leave for you to decide or even research upon (depending on your scientific interest on the subject).

A personal favourite in walkthrough videos is Rooster Teeth’s Achievement Hunter section. With branches covering both reviews type walkthrough, such as their own Let’s Play series, and the more entertaining, forever angry Michael’s Rage Quit.

Genres of Let’s Play

Now, I do not want you readers out there to think that I consider you imbeciles who do not know a thing about Let’s Play – on the contrary you probably know a lot more about it than I! This article is mainly for testing my (English!) writing skills, and to write, as much as possible, an objective (naturally, this is not possible) article on this phenomenon, so please bear with me on this one.

So, what types of Let’s Play-videos can we find on the old world wide web? It would be utterly banal to just list all genres being played in Let’s Plays since we would assume that all genres in video/iOS/PC/und so weiter-games are found here, so for now I am only going to talk about the particular genres I watch:

Horror

“To see others suffer does one good […] without cruelty there is no festival.” So are the words of one Friedrich Nietzsche.

He also said this planet is filled with humans “who inflict as much pain on themselves as they possibly can out of pleasure in inflicting pain which is probably their only pleasure.”

These two sentences pretty much narrow down the concept and success of horror-themed Let’s Plays; earlier I mentioned PewDiePie, who has made a career out of playing various games. Some of his more famous work is with playing horror games such as Slender and Amnesia: The Dark Descent. Here we have come to meet many new friends: Stephano, the French golden statue, Mr. Chair, the always passive, but loving leveller, in Homer Simpson's words, but also we have made new enemies such as the evil, scheming barrels (BARRELS! Sorry, I just had to do that).

The main agenda of Pewd’s horror Let’s Plays are screaming, and horrible, gut-wrecking moments. Now, we could all claim that videos of others playing scary games do not scare us, but come on. That, simply, is not the truth. My point here, leading back to Nietzsche, is that horror Let’s Plays both hold the pleasure of us getting to watch someone having the living crap scared out of them, and at the same time getting a slight jolt of our own. Thus, horror Let’s Plays appeal to both the sadistic and masochistic side in us all.

Building, creating and puzzles

Limbo, a popular title among Let's Players.

Puzzle games is something that has been out there for aeons, but it would be completely irrelevant for anyone to make a walkthrough of Tetris (though I suppose there would be some kind of entertainment value in Rage Quit playing it). Since non-linear building games like Minecraft and Terraria, and puzzle games like Portals, and more resent titles Mari0 and Catherine (big ‘thank you’s go out to Jake and Achievement Hunter for directing my attention towards the last title), and let us not forget a personal favourite, Limbo (it is a little patriotic of me, I know, but do forgive me) came out, it has been made more easy to make good reviews and achievement hunting (no lame pun intended) videos for these genres.

The main goal for these videos is simply walkthrough with a slightly more entertaining angle apart from their text-based older sister.

Achievement Hunter from Rooster Teeth is, in my opinion, the very best in making entertaining walkthroughs with these games. Mainly, as an Xbox user I have been most pleased with their work, introducing new titles as well as showing us how to attain certain achievements.

My only concern with Achievement Hunter is their obvious focus on the more famous titles, which does not present me with any opportunities of discovering indie games, though they have done so on some occasions. This is where YouTubers like PewDiePie once again come in. Private individuals sitting in the comfort of their homes have a much larger freedom with what games to play in their videos, and so they may ones in a while come to play unknown (to the wider publics) titles, thus teaching me of new games I would not otherwise have known about (Slender, Amnesia, Lucius and many other titles come to mind here – again, I am not in any way "in the loop" when it comes to games, and ones again I must thank A Capital Wasteland for helping me out on this one).

In conclusion (if there is such) Let’s Play is a fun, entertaining way of gaining new knowledge from old titles as well as learning of new games. It can also purely be for entertainment purposes, a time killer, but by the end of the day, still, we would have learning something from these videos – well, at least we now know what it takes to intimidate us or how much fun Happy Wheels really is.

So why not try it on your own? Go grab your best camcorder, plug a game in the ol’ drive, and let us join you in the rollercoaster of horror and creative skills that await us out there in the world of Let’s Play.

Lastly I will say this: I am no wiz in the area of gaming (at least not anymore), but here is an opportunity for me to get back on the horse. If you, the reader, have anything to add to this blog (do not go gently on me, I am pachydermatous) please do not feel hesitant to write a few words in the comments.

Survival Horror: An Elusive Genre

[Note from Jake: Just in time for Halloween, I introduce the newest addition to my staff, Adam Frost!]

It's 1999, and I'm in 3rd grade. I have invited a couple of my best friends to my house for a sleepover. It's late. We turn off all the lights, insert the Resident Evil 2 cartridge (blowing on it first, to make sure it works) and fire up the N64. Let the pants-shitting commence.

Everyone has these memories, be it a scary game, a horror film, or even a scary book or story. For me, this is when my affinity for survival horror games began. There are few things more exhilarating than exploring a well-crafted world, adrenalin pumping, knowing that something terrifying may be waiting for you around every corner.

With the release of Resident Evil 6 many reviewers (who hadn't already done so) are lamenting the death of this once-great horror series that seems to have lost its way.  Indeed, starting with Resident Evil 5 or perhaps even with RE4, the trend has been one of moving away from horror towards action.  With this in mind, now is as good a time as any to discuss what makes a good survival horror game, and why it seems that so many games get it wrong.  To do this, I will use the examples of Resident Evil 4 and Dead Space.

The most important component to any good survival horror game is atmosphere. Through the use of sound, music, and setting, a good survival horror game lets the player know that they are in a dangerous, terrifying, and even hopeless environment. Be it a creepy village in the middle of rural Spain (RE4), or the abandoned wreckage of the spaceship Ishimura (Dead Space), the setting of a horror game can make or break its scariness.  In the case of Dead Space, the setting is arguably one of the more terrifying aspects of the game. Trapped on a massive abandoned spacecraft light years away from potential rescue, the player knows that there is little hope for survival. On the other hand, walking around in broad daylight under the hot African sun in RE5 does not create a sense of terror or mystery for the player.

Sound is another important aspect in creating a good horror atmosphere. The right sounds can send chills down the player's spine as they explore the game world. In RE4, the creepy whispers and shouts of los Illuminados, a cult of mind-control-parasite-infested Spaniards, let the player know that an enemy can and will cause you to soil yourself at any moment (spoiled only if the players know Spanish).