Chris has his own way of solving epidemics...

Resident Evil 5 is absolutely amazing. I figured it would be a Resident Evil 4 part 2, but it’s a whole different game with basically the same control scheme. Everything else is original. Well, that’s not completely true. There are many parts which bring back horrors we have seen once or twice before in different RE’s and that’s exactly it’s beauty. Every contrived aspect of previous RE’s is no longer covered up. It’s embraced. There I say it’s the RE which brings all the other stories together. Every dumb thing Capcom thought of along the way is considered family. It’s like the game says: “Yeah, we did that and it’s part of Resident Evil now”. It doesn’t retcon, it actually provides answers.

I haven’t played the game alone yet, although I would imagine that would greatly diminish the experience. Luckily I found such a fan who can cover my back, because it greatly adds to the athmosphere. Splitting up makes you feel vulnerable. Oh, and the whole item management is back, you only have 9 spots each, so you really have to think about what you bring to the table.

The racism issue is absolutely exaggerated. There never seems to be any intent to mock a race. It takes place in Africa and there’s your primary reason why most enemies are black. Sure most enemies are depicted as violent, crazy psychopaths. That’s the whole idea of the game, to fight infected people not in their right state of mind, it never portrays an entire race as being so and provides plenty of black people who aren’t infected in contrast. If anything, the game has broken through a taboo; if other races can be depicted as savage and braindead, why leave out black people? Wouldn’t exclusion be the discrimination?

Maybe this never happened

Even more Wii-horror announcements! There’s a new Resident Evil Railshooter coming up, called Darkside Chronicles (Calendar Updated). The first game was alright, had some great fun with it, but it lacked the athmosphere. I did like the beautiful locations, although the RE:Outbreak scenery looked a bit stiff. Really wished they fleshed out the final scenario better (The russian snow one).

Then there’s a supposed remake of Silent Hill coming out. Now, fans have been waiting for this thing for a long time. But will it capture the magic of the original? My heart says no. Sure it will be great as evidenced by the other recent SHs, but beyond it’s choppy graphics Silent Hill was perfect. Hopefully, they’ll do it the REmake-way and not the Twin Snakes-way.

So this means that the most horror games are coming to the Wii now. Dead Rising: CtyD,

What?! There's a singleplayer-mode too?

RE:DC, SH(remake), LIT, Cursed Mountain, DS:E! Not to mention the House of the Dead games recently released (haven’t had a chance to check them out yet). Total inversion of the GameCube situation. I salute Nintendo for doing so well, but really wished developers would realize that tacked on Motion Control isn’t innovation. Fear the Wiification.

Lately, I’ve been playing Gears of War 2 (Horde Mode) and Left 4 Dead online. Something beautiful happens when pure survival depends on keeping your teammates alive. It’s something I’ll be writing about soon. Currently having some trouble formatting the defining moments, so SH isn’t accessible from that page right now. I’ll fix it and get a new one up soon.

Some people don't call this horror

It’s the year of the sequel. First RE, then SH (europe), then FF, then Resistance, now there’s another Dead Space oming out, for the Wii. Check out the Calendar for the links. I personally had a great time with Dead Space and I found it odd that a lot of people didn’t consider it to be Survival Horror. Because that’s definitely the genre, and if you stopped being scared of these games, I’m afraid desentization has reared it’s ugly head and it’s time for more active immersion. Set the mood, play in the dark, turn the volume up, let the game scare you. People have such high expectations while the moodsetting is half the fear. You don’t watch a horror movie during broaddaylight either.

Looks good when you squint

Played Alone in The Dark on the Wii and it’s absolutely horrible. I know that they wanted to reach a broader audience and I respect that, but everything feels so tacked on and outdated. Everything that made the Xbox360 (or even the PS3 version) is missing and the remaining skeleton is then dressed up with horrible motion controls. Opening the inventory is a hassle. There’s literally a faq out there to explain how people can open their inventory more easily. That fact alone is comedy gold. This is why I’m looking forward to Dead Space Extraction, so far it doesn’t look to be a rushed downgraded port. I’m not one to complain about games (I always appreciate the effort people go through to please my digital needs), but I’m afraid something horrible happened during production. It could have been fantastic, and now it’s just mediocre at it’s best.

First gen SH

So a new defining moment, it’s Silent Hill’s turn this time. Love the game, although graphically it’s a bit outdated. It requires quite some ingression to still create the power it once had. It’s the one that started it all though, and although the series is currently a little diluted, it’s still a franchise worth having around. And this defining moment underlines Silent Hill’s genius.

Second gen SH

Fear 2 is out, right after it’s own demo. Haven’t had a chance to play it, but it looks more of the same, I’m not really warm for this title and their promotion to it hasn’t really focussed on unique horror aspects at all. Dead Rising 2 announced and a rumor about a Dead Space prequel. Looks like horror is on the rise, contrary to most naysayers.  Love to see some new franchises too, but you can’t have it all.

What is that Thing?

So, turns out LIT is a horror game. Who knew? Supposedly it’s fantastic and it’s everything a WiiWare game should be. I don’t know, haven’t tried it so far. I’ve updated the calendar in the small hope it will see a global release.

I’ve also thrown up a new Defining Moment; it’s about The Thing, a highly underrated gem in my opinion. True, the game was bogged down because of the scripted turns, but nonetheless it’s a fantastic piece of digital horror. Really mimics the movie’s emotions. Sadly, the planned sequel never came to fruition, but I’ll be covering that another time.

Spaghetti Demon Children

Finished Jericho recently and I must say that I had this game pinned all wrong. It’s a great game with some stunning visuals. Really like the timetravel and character abilities. The ending was…odd…to say the least, but supposedly it’s a set-up for a sequel or something, which I really hope gets a release.

Played the RE5 demo yet? Ugh, I told you not to spoil yourself. If you still need more RE5, I suggest heading over to www.hobofightclub.com for a cool side-by-side trailer analysis from 2005 to 2009. It has really come a long way.

I’ll be posting up another defining moment soon and it’s going to be a fan favorite, so stay tuned.

Foundation of Survival Horror

There’s a new defining moment, but it’s a bit of a wild card. It’s from the first game I ever played; Castle Adventure. I wasn’t planning on writing an article about it, until it popped up in a few conversations and I realized I wasn’t alone in my amazement over the game’s mechanics and the resulting scares. I delved deeper into the game and found out that it could be considered as one of the survival horror foundations.

Resident Evil 5 demo is out, but my advice is stay away: You know the game will be good, you know you will buy it. Don’t spoil yourself, just wait a little longer.

Graphics: Dropped 'till choppy

Not much Survival Horror news overall. Dead Rising: Chop till you drop is still shaping up, but personally, I’m not all that excited about it. The new controls are welcome, but not at the cost of what made the original so special and unique. Dead Rising is about huge numbers of enemies and the true feeling of a one-man army grabbing everything he can. Sure the game doesn’t take itself too seriously, but horror and comedy often go hand in hand.

There’s also new Oneechanbara, but even I’m reluctant to classify it as a horror game. We’ll see how it plays out.

Ironically left in the cold

IGN posted a story about the cancelled game of Winter, and it seems like the entire community rises up to save the project. Watching the trailer shows an interesting game for the wii, but I’m sort of disappointed by it’s enemies. Even the music is like Silent Hill. However, a Silent Hill-esque Wii exclusive focussing on Survival instead of Horror (you have to keep warm) could be really interesting.

I’m sort of on the fence about the other two Wii games; Lit and Fragile. I’ll have to see a trailer before I’m going to add them.

I am Alive, but what am I about?

Ubisoft announced that I am Alive would see a release early 2009. I updated the Calendar, but I’m still sceptic. Trailer looks nice and all, but it doesn’t seem to have a really special element.

Finished Prey, which turns out to be another unique entry; there’s a really interesting layer beneath all the action. It’s not just a gravity-flipping, portal-running, free-flying shooter, it’s got some great story elements as well. Survival aspects are defintely there although itemselection is almost non-existant. They’ve also changed the ‘continue’ into a sort of minigame. Really interesting and it doesn’t break the game’s flow. The Horror is definetly everywhere, the only reason people aren’t accepting as such is probably due to the fast-paced firstperson perspective.

Expect a new defining moment soon.

Killer shot

There’s another defining moment!  (Project) Zero/Fatal Frame is often regarded as the ’scariest’ series, but many don’t realize how it succesfully scares people. It sometimes uses the JumpScare, but it also uses strategic methods to scare the player.

Finished Legendary, which isn’t the bad game many people make it out to be. At it’s core it’s a solid entry, but unfortunately it gets bogged down by some poor development choices. It suffers some pacing and difficulty problems, esspecially near the end. The enemy battles have to be experienced though and it contains many great moments. Up next: Prey.