The survival horror ambiguous storyline theory

In the last couple years we've got a lot of good survival horror games. Titles like Outlast 1 and 2, The Evil Within, Alien Isolation, RE7 and many others. Most of them gave us good hours of enjoyment, but some people (myself included) expected this to be the big revival of the survival horror genre and in the end of this nice line of releases, we ended up feeling like it was good, maybe great, but not epic or unforgettable. I was kind of at a loss, trying to find a reason about why this wave of survival horror goodness didn't felt perfect until a survival horror themed conversation happened with one of my friends.

On our little chat, we were talking about some famous survival horror games like the old Resident Evil games and we were wondering what happened. Lots of nostalgic moments and memories came from that, but there was this part of the whole argument that really got me thinking.

The first time we got here, is still one of the most epic gaming moments for many of us.

My friend stated that the best thing that the old Resident Evil games had was the atmosphere of not knowing anything about it. Now let's make a thought exercise and follow the Resident Evil example:

You arrive at a mansion, trying to rescue a military squad that was missing in action, then you get inside to this nice looking place only to find that is crawling with all kinds of creatures that shouldn't even exist. The first time everybody played this we felt the intrigue, violently building up from the moment we found the first zombie and see that low resolution video of it munching on a dead soldier's body. Now this is what was going through my mind at that point:

Old Mansion + Lots of doors + Zombies... I think that I'm going to spend a lot of time figuring this out, but I will do it because it intrigues me and I want to know more.

The feeling was special to say the least. At the time it felt huge (like taking a cross-country trip without knowing where you will end up) and it took a lot of exploration, discovering new places, reading documents, solving puzzles, surviving and watching cutscenes in order to finally get to that underground laboratory for the first time and go like "What? A lab in this place?". That was the moment when the game's story was at its peak and that precise point was what made it all so worthwhile.

Some consider this one the best in the series, I personally see it tied with Code Veronica.

Resident Evil 2 gave us another dose of that feeling, but on a bigger scale. Now the whole city was infected and I was playing as a rookie cop/rebellious biker girl that had no clue of what was going on. By then we all knew that the creatures existed and we knew that they were man made, but at the same time we had lots of questions like how the virus got to the city and what kinds of creatures it could had spawned there. Our answer came as we began exploring the police station and progressed from there, finding creatures such as the lickers and the giant croc that wanted to have us as as a tasty snack.

From there on, we kept discovering things and the more we knew, the more we wanted to know. At that time, we had already mastered the now criticized tank controls, weird aiming mechanics and cheesy voice acting because we had to know where it would all lead up to. It was like starting to read a good book at 8:00 pm only to be hooked by it and keep going through the night even though you know that you have to work/go to school on the next day. It was that powerful.

I could go on and on about every Resident Evil game, but let's get to the point. The charm of these early manifestations of the survival horror genre (something that was also used by other games like Silent Hill) was that a great deal of the main problem in the storyline was hidden to us, even when we knew who our enemies were. It was this feeling of mystery and hopelessness mixed with stress and been lost in a place you don't know anything about, the thing that made the old school survival horror experience to be so special and that is the aspect that was missing from the cool, but not epic  horror games that we got at the beginning of this generation. They had the atmosphere and game mechanics right, but they lacked the WTH is going on factor because even when they tried to hide it (like they did on The Evil Within) we had this sort a of faint foresight about what was going on that didn't let us use our imaginations at full power.

Another one of my favorites, underrated Saturn game that followed the formula you will soon read about.

So this the point when all our thoughts were gathered and we came up with the survival horror ambiguous storyline theory. This theory states, that for a game to be a true heir of the survival horror roots it needs to have a story that leave us lost and wondering up until it peaks, a continuous affair with no divisions like chapters or places you can't go back to and having the sense of discovering things by our own rather than holding our hands and/or structuring the game into established objectives. Anything less of this makes the game to be an action game with horror elements and anything more than this is to be considered experimental (like some horror indie games).

This was the reason why the newest games are not clicking with some of us us in the same way that the old ones did. They gave us unnecessary foresight on what was happening, were structured in chapters and objectives leaving little to no space for backtracking and while they were fun, they weren't the survival horror revolution we were hoping for. If we were to compare these games with a cake, we can say that instead of been a chocolate cake, it was a vanilla one coated with chocolate frosting, which tasted good, but was not as satisfying.

I found this as an adult and the tension and scare factor it brought was amazing considering this is a SNES game.

Now that you know about it, what do you think? Is our little theory right on the spot or are we missing something? Let's talk about this on the comments below and btw, thanks for reading.

5 Horror Movie Franchises That Could Become "Lone Enemy" Survival Horror Games

I apologize for the long hiatus after my last blog entry, but here I am again so let's resume our gaming conversations.

The "lone enemy concept" is the name I give to the concept in horror games that implies having one all powerful main enemy that hunts for you in a place that is tricky to navigate through. This is something that isn't that new as we had lone enemies before like Scissorman from the Clocktower series or even Nemesis from Resident Evil 3. The lone enemy scenario may be old, but it is a game play concept that has been given new life by games like Alien Isolation and The Evil Within.

Now some months after the release of those games, it becomes really interesting to think about what other horror series can make use of this concept and become great survival horror games by featuring a lone or specific enemy that will make mince meat out of you once it finds out where you are.

Friday the 13th:

If there is an horror franchise that can make use of the lone enemy concept is this one. With Jason Vorhees as the main all powerful enemy and Camp Lake as the setting, it is very possible to make a very interesting survival horror game. The camp counselor theme is also something that gives the player a certain level of freedom as the player could be able to create a custom counselor and interact with others or choose from a group of counselors to use, each with their own abilities just like in the NES game, giving it a sort of open world feeling.

It is not hard to imagine how awesome a game like that would look on PC and current-gen consoles, with Camp lake having all sorts of awesome lighting effects, many places to go through and lots of ways to make a survival strategy. The encounters with Jason would be swift, but deadly and they would require a lot of quick thinking (No, not QTE events) in order to survive and shake Jason off or try to protect your fellow camp counselors and kids. In summary, Friday the 13th is a great opportunity for this game play aspect to be used and although there seems to be a new Friday the 13th game in the works, there is no clear indication that they will be using this kind of concept.

Demonic Toys:

Demonic Toys is an American horror film series, first released in 1992 that follows the story of how a group of people end up in a haunted toy warehouse where a demon (who lives in the toys) is looking for a way to regain a physical form. A game based on this movie would most probably be a classic survival horror experience and while it doesn't specifically classify as having only one strong enemy (there are lots of toys), the demon been the only hostile entity is enough for it to be on this list.

A game about Demonic Toys would definitely rely on its atmosphere in order to be scary, so it would most probably have a 5 Nights At Freddy's look to it, with old discarded and worn down toys coming alive and hunting you through the warehouse as you slowly figure out what is really happening and how to stop it. The demon itself would make small appearances at some parts (in which you could easily die if you are not careful) and try to take your soul with or without the help of his toy minions. As for the overall mood of the game itself, this would be one of those where the clueless characters roam around the place looking for a way to solve the big mystery and live to tell the tale. It is sort of like the feeling we got when we got our hands on the first Resident Evil and didn't had a clue of what to do.

Alucarda

Alucarda is a Mexican horror film that was released in 1978. It's plot was about  a pair of orphan girls on a Catholic convent who make the mistake of  following the ill advise of a strange and dubvious group of gypsies, which leads to the awakening of a demonic force in the convent. This causes all sorts of macabre paranormal activity in the convent and the possession of the girls by the devil himself. While traducing a film like this to a game would imply that it would just be your "run of the mill" survival horror, it could be a lot more if you take into account that the hostile enemy here is the devil himself and the entire convent is his playground. In essence, it would follow the Clocktower formula although it would be a little more hardcore.

Players in this game would be using a simple orphan (unrelated to the movie protagonists) and would had to survive the night as the supernatural get a hold of the orphanage and gruesome things start to happen. Imagining a game about Alucarda kind of reminds me of the first Clocktower game (SNES) in which you had to use the character of a young girl in a similar environment, only that in Alucarda you are not trying to escape from a mad woman and a guy with giant scissors, but from all of the stuff that is been caused by the demonic forces that were unleashed. In this game you would have to know when to hide, when to attack and where to use cunning and logic to defend yourself from the demonic presence that the girls let loose. Different endings are to be expected as well  as complex interactions with adults and other orphans, so this game would be a little deeper than you may be thinking right now.

Nightmare on Elm Street:

It sounds kind of cliche to mention this horror franchise on par with Friday the 13th, but if you take a deeper look into it you will find that it could work. This one could totally make use of the now popular procedural game design, meaning that part of the game world can be randomly generated. Why procedural design? Well, because since the story in this franchise goes around the topic of dreams and nightmares, it would be a cool thing to have those nightmares be partially auto-generated, so each time Freddy attacks it won't feel the same. This could also be mixed up with how you develop the mental state of your character as you progress through the game (through interactions with other characters and overall progress), just so the hostilities don't become too predictable.

A game like this could be a sort of mixed bag of genres. For example it could borrow a lot from adventure games with problem solving as the main character and his/her friends go around looking for a way to defeat Freddy while sleeping as less as possible. Avoiding sleep means that your character will get tired and will go to sleep sometimes without a clear indication, which is an awesome thing considering that nightmares would be auto generated. On the other hand, the nightmares would be the survival horror part of the game where you would have to survive all of Freddy's insane traps and illusions and as the game progresses and these would be part random and part generated by how you develop your character's mind (the things you do, how you interact with the world while awake). Direct confrontations with Freddy would increase as you progress through the game until you have no other choice than to fight him and if you are not ready by then (figuring out how to defeat Freddy once and for all), well you must then prepare for a bad ending.

The Howling (or other old school werewolf movies)

This is almost self explanatory in its own sense. One vicious savage like beast, thirsty for blood while running around some Victorian era town and you have the recipe of an intense horror game that would have the potential of keeping any gamer at the edge of their seat the entire time (even when just exploring around). Been pitted against a werewolf in this kind of place means that you would have to do what ever it takes to survive like making traps, finding (or making your own) weapons made of silver and looking for a way to survive while the full moon sits there with all its foreboding of your impending doom.

On a game like this, the big bad wolf would be able to follow you almost everywhere and that means that you would have to be very careful in the way of locking doors, making barricades and all that kind of stuff that can keep the enemy at bay and give you some time to explore the various places that the town has to offer. As you get farther into the game you would be able to actually fight back and little by little gain the upper hand until the creature is dead or day light comes. To spice things up, maybe some of the townsfolk could be against you, trying to sabotage your efforts and make you easy pray for the werewolf while you try to solve the mystery of what is wrong with the town and what you have to do with it.

So what do you think? If you have any ideas of other movies that can be turned into this kind of survival horror game, I'd love to read them. 

The Evil Within - How Mikami Got it Right

Some time ago when Resident Evil's original creator, Shinji Mikami said he was going to take survival horror back to its roots we were hopeful, but kind of felt like "whoa it will be a lot of time until that happens". Well, that "far away" day finally arrived and it turned out really well. The Evil Within has a perfect mix of different game play mechanics and details that make the game to be the return of the old school survival horror we had been waiting for.

First of all, be aware that if there ever were a golden rule for survival horror games that rule would be:

A survival horror game must never be perfect. 

This is because if a game claims to be a survival horror title it must have its share of intentional "defects" so it gives the correct atmosphere or else it will feel too clean and sanitized. The Evil Within has a lot of those "defects" as effects like a grainy image, awkward camera angles, controls that seem to break at some times and even non nonsensical happenings that seem to be glitches at first just to realize a few moments later that it was part of the scene itself. These are the kind of game play elements that made legendary horror games like the old school Resident Evil games or the Silent Hill series and fortunately for us, The Evil Within follows this to the letter.

Will that lump in the end stand up or not? That is the question...

Another aspect in which the vision behind the game was right on the money is the fact that it mixes various type of situations into a horror environment that feels solid. You can find yourself ambushed, racing against the clock, running from an enemy who can kill you with just one hit or just find the occasional enemy while exploring the place, avoiding traps and solving puzzles. You see, this is the kind of environment that comes from the result of good game design. Instead of coming up with a bland "shoot your way through" approach, the people behind this game gave us a game world that is balanced between linearity and dynamic game play. Yes, the game moves through the story line in linear fashion, but the way to survival is entirely up to you by choosing how to explore, engage the enemy and develop your character.

This picture makes it look complex, but it is not.

Speaking of character development, this gaming element as used in survival horror games has become a modern trend that has enhanced the overall experience and The Evil Within implements this very well. As a hardcore survival horror fan you may be thinking that strengthening your character will make the game easy and dull, but that is not the case if such system is made in a balanced way. For example, in this game you can make your character to be stronger in some aspects, but the points required to do it are scarce, so you will never be able to create an invincible warrior. Instead, you will have to carefully upgrade the things you use the most in order to create your own style of playing, like upgrading weapons if you want to use more firepower or enhancing your abilities and item stock if you feel like clever and risky tactics are your thing.

The past design look a little more chaotic, but it felt a lot more real.

The only element in this game that may leave some hardcore horror fans wishing it were different is the game flow. The Evil Within flows in chapters like many other modern horror games and this may be seen as an artificial approach to the exploration aspect of the game. Sure, the chapters are long and the maps are diverse and well designed, but some of us may still be missing the backtracking that characterized the survival horror games of old. An example of this been Mikami's own creation, the old Resident Evil series. Anybody who played those games can remember how one could basically go from the last parts of the game all the way to be beginning without any intermissions or at least been able to roam around the whole place before some turn of events made the place to be destroyed or forced you to escape. The lack of this whole backtracking element is not a deal breaker here, but it poses as a nice thing to have in Mikami's next game.

Puzzles are pretty straight forward in this game, but some are just awesome.

Wrapping it up:
In summary, The Evil Within mixes the best of the old and new to create an excellent survival horror game that lives up to the hype and to all the faith that survival horror fans have on Resident Evil's original creator. The team behind the game did a hell of a job and judging by the nice reception that the game had with the gaming community, it is to be expected to see a lot more from what that came from. If you are a survival horror fan this is a must buy and even if you are not, just give it a chance, you will not be dissapointed.

Whatever Happened With Sadness

Now that survival horror games are back in style, let's talk about one of them that was aiming to be something revolutionary in the previous generation, but ended in development hell long before it could become a complete product. Back when the Nintendo Wii was soon to launch (and still labeled as "Nintendo Revolution"), there were a lot of promises that were never fulfilled. For example, there was supposed to be a beat them up game called Project Hammer which would had the player using the Wii remote to make the robotic hero swing his giant hammer and smash enemies and objects alike, but it never happened. The one we are going to talk today was supposed to be a survival horror game that would fully use the Wii motion control features in order to give the player a really immersive horror experience. That horror game that never came was called Sadness.

Using a female aristocrat as the main character in an horror game was an interesting approach
as it mixes the life of the rich and powerful with the sensible approach of a woman, this time a sister.

Sadness was going to be a survival horror game developed for the Wii by a Polish company called Nibris. The first thing everybody noticed was that game's graphics were going to be entirely in black and white, sort of like one of those really old horror movies, but without the cheesy parts or silent dialogues. The main character in the game was going to be a woman called Maria Lengyel who was an aristocrat from the Victorian times. The woman finds herself in a pinch after the train he was travelling in is derailed and now she has to protect her now blinded brother and press on as they go deeper into the darkness that fills the place while her brother begins to exhibit some strange and creepy behavior.

This live action concept looked very promising at the time.

In this game, the level of interaction was going to be its main focus with the player having to use full motion controls (not waggles) in order to protect Maria and her brother from harm. Examples of this were shown in live action concept videos where a woman was shown scaring off a pack of rats with a torch and protecting herself from the rain by using an umbrella. This was part of the promise of giving the player the freedom of using any object in the game to attack, defend or interact with the environment. Another part of the whole premise of Sadness was that there was going to be no HUD. The developers were aiming on giving the game a more cinematic feeling without HUD items or menus reminding you that it was just a game so, everything was supposed to feel as if it were a movie. To top things off, the game was going to feature a storyline with different branching points which would surely had led to different endings. All of this points out that as far as features go, Sadness would had been revolutionary if it were delivered as promised.

At first the game was been nicely treated with development updates coming at a monthly basis. A few concept art pictures and sketches were shown while the game was still in development and based on how they looked we can say that this game was going to have an environment a little similar to the one featured in The Order 1886 because of its old school European style. Enemies in this game had a mix of common and uncommon influences that could be seen in the few concepts that were shown. Some of them consisted of werewolves and even Slavic mythology creatures like Likho.

Sadness was starting to look like a game with a lot of promise, until they fell silent about it. Months went by and the Nibris website had the same pictures and videos with no updates whatsoever. Some years passed after their sudden silence and by 2010 Nibris ceased to exist as its parent company turned them into a coordinator, a decision that stopped all the projects they had been working with including Sadness. This was quite a disappointment to everybody who owned a Wii and was expecting to try this game as this was one of the very first concepts that promised to deliver the motion control revolution that Nintendo had promised.

A woman and her little brother, looking at this picture gives some sort of "The Last of Us" feeling.
I think these people were ahead of their time and could had made it big with this game.

Wrapping it up

Sadness is still nowhere to be found, but while it seems that the game is still in development hell, there are some articles like this one on Nintendo Life, that state that the game may be developed after all and released for the Wii U, so if you are still curious about how this game would had turned out, there is still hope. I personally expect it to be some kind of cross between The Last of Us, The Order 1886 and Clock Tower.

After Playing or Seen PT... What Can be Expected of Silent Hills?

If you have been keeping up with the newest blog entries, you know that 3 days after the Survival Horror Awakens, but Still No Silent Hill article, Sony and Kojima had this brilliant idea of using a viral technique to tell us that there is going to be a new Silent Hill game which is now called Silent Hills. That piece of news has generated a lot of hype between both the long time fans and curious gamers who haven't seen much about this horror franchise, which is very cool thing considering the lack of love that the series had been suffering since Silent Hill: Homecoming.

Now knowing that PT was a sort of a viral teaser for the new Silent Hill game, we got to see first hand how powerful the fox engine is. The setting of the PT game is on a small segment of a house and it looks astonishingly real also supported by a really good assortment of sound effects that were successful in giving the creeps to everybody who experienced it. Overall, the teaser was excellent, but all the questions are now directed at the final product. How will Silent Hills be?

Any fan of the franchise itches at the thought of exploring the entire city.

Will it be an exclusive?

The possibilities of this title becoming a PS4 definitive exclusive are very slim, even though it was first showcased on PS4. The reasons why a definite exclusivity deal seems unlikely is that the franchise is trying to get back on its feet again and in order to do so it needs to be available to as many gamers as possible. On the other hand we have stuff like the game's profile on IGN where it shows that Sony is one of the publishers along with Konami. So if this publisher thing is true, it means that some sort of exclusivity is on the way even if it is only for a limited time. Sony recently said that they were not interested in "buying" exclusives, but if they are indeed one of the publishers we may be seen something like the thing Nintendo did with Bayonetta 2. Now been things as they are right now, the safest bet on this aspect of the game is to think of it as a timed exclusive.

The power of the fox engine at work.

Graphics vs Content

A great deal of speculation has been going off regarding how this game will be, but nobody has a clear idea. There have been a lot of fan theories that try to predict how the story of the game will go, but have you ever asked yourself how will the game be displayed to you? The Fox engine did a hell of a job, grafically showcasing the interiors of a section of the house, but will it hold up to an entire town? Will this force developers to divide the game in chunks in order to maintain the visual quality? To have at least some kind of answer to these questions be aware that the final product will most likely be different than the teaser. If we take it from a business perspective we can tell that if they feature Norman Reedus in the game, it wouldn't be for him to stay hidden under a first person point of view for 90% of the game as that would be kind of a dumb thing to do if they want him to be part of the marketing efforts for the game.

So this points to the game been in a third person perspective with some first person parts that will play like PT and will serve to give the player some insights about the story of the game. Hopefully the beautiful graphic style presented in PT will not be affected.

My experience of the game was so unique, I didn't even saw this guy.

The "s" in Hills

It is a fact that people that played the PT game are still looking for a definite and logical way to finish it. Up until now there are still a lot of discussions about how to beat the teaser and it seems like everybody is having a different experience. This, coupled with the "s" in "Hills", give the impression that the "everybody has his own experience" thing will also be true on the final product. Maybe this time we wont be taking a personality test before the game starts, but have other things that will lead us to all sorts of variations that will make each experience to be unique. This can be done by changing the game through the player's decisions and/or making it a free roaming experience by featuring multiple paths and mixing those paths with various choices for puzzle solving and character interactions that serve as forks in the road (explicit and implicit) up to a point that they may even change the main objective of the game somehow. All this of course will lead to the classic multiple ending feature that many Silent Hill games have had in the past.

This Silent Hill 2 scene is still an ongoing topic within fans.

Philosophy and Psychology

Almost all of the Silent Hill games have deep psychological and philosophical roots. There is a lot of stuff to analyze and fans have been making theories ever since the first game was released and this is especially true with the second game in the series which seems to be the richest on this sort of thing. Now with Silent Hills we may have a lot of new material to twist our minds into. Evidence of this comes in the discussions that have started on the net, with fans already making all sorts of theories based on the PT game. Some fans have tried to predict the setting and time in which the game will be set on, the appearance of classic antagonists like Pyramid Head and they have also been talking about their ideas about how the story will be. The curious thing about it is that the fan theory mill is getting bigger and bigger and we don't even have the game yet. If you want to read some of these theories check out this Reddit thread and see for yourself.

Been grabbed by surprise and finding this thing face to face, its no wonder there were so many screaming videos.

Wrapping it up

Silent Hills doesn't look like a reboot to the series, but some sort of side story focused on bringing an unique experience to everybody. The powers of the cursed town called Silent Hill can move to pretty much everywhere as evidenced on Silent Hill 4, so we can have an terrifying and macabre experience in any place near it as long as the main character has some sort of relation to its messed up history. It all looks good up to this point and expectations are high, so let's just wait and see what Hideo Kojima and Guillermo del Toro have in store for us.

Survival Horror Reawakens and Still No New Silent Hill.

For the delight of fans of this genre, the survival horror hiatus is no more. With games like Outlast, The Evil Within, Alien Isolation and upcoming ones like The Order 1886 and Resident Evil Remake Remastered, it seems like we are going to see a lot of horror coming to this generation. Most of the big hitters are going to have an appearance including a new Fatal Frame game for the Wii U (if it makes it to our shores), but up until now there is one that has been missing in action and hasn't shown any concrete signs of it making a come back. It was the Resident Evil direct competition back in the day and a very good survival horror game, Silent Hill.

The HD version of Silent Hill 2 had some classic cutscenes removed because they were seen as "inappropriate".

The reasons why this game franchise hasn't made an appearance on this generation can only be a matter of speculation right now and even though we are not completely in the dark about it, details about the future of the franchise have been a little thin. One of them is that Hideo Kojima has set his eyes on the franchise since 2012 because he thought and commented about how good it would look on the Fox Engine. These comments were only based on Kojima's experience watching the latest Silent Hill movie at the time, so it only lifts a small speck of hope at best. Even in the best case scenario, if Kojima decided to work on the franchise it would be something that would be releasing at 2016 or something because he has been too busy finishing and promoting Metal Gear Solid V. It is most likely that even if he has any real interest on Silent Hill, the ideas must still be on paper and not even funded yet.

Robbie the rabbit is a staple of the series and he became really popular after Silent Hill 3.

Another piece of information is related to Climax, which are the developers that made Silent Hill: Shattered Memories. The studio CEO said in 2013 that they are working on 3 new titles, 2 for the PS4 and one for the Xbox One and even boasted about how they were the most "next-gen" experienced studio to ever work with that type of technology. The thing is that rumors state that they are working on a Prince of Persia type of game and a new horror IP. This leaves a 1 out of 3 possibility of having a new Silent Hill game coming from them and if we take into account that one of the rumored games in development is a NEW horror IP, the possibilities get even smaller. Besides, their take on the Silent Hill series was more of a strange reboot in which you did not fought any enemies at all and that wasn't so hot with fans of the franchise.

Did you know that Silent Hill 4 was not going to be a Silent Hill game at all?

Some of the oldest Silent Hill fans say that the best thing to do with the franchise is to go ahead and reunite the original Team Silent. We have to admit that at the time when they were still together, they were the survival horror "dream team" with a group entirely composed of horror-oriented developers and artists. Now back to the reality, we have to accept that reuniting this once powerful team is too difficult right now as many of their former members are scattered all around and even if some of them are still working for Konami, important members of the team like Keishiro Toyama (Silent Hill director), Akira Yamaoka (Sound director for the series) and Takayoshi Sato (creator of the first 2 Silent Hill games) are too difficult to reach because they are either working for another company or on personal projects, so making a Team Silent reunion has become something a little too complicated to do right now.

Silent Hill Downpour was an good game, it's only real fault was having bad battle controls.

Wrapping it up

A new Silent Hill game is not an impossible thing as the fans want it and it has been 4 years since we last played a real one and no, the HD Collection and Book of Memories doesn't count. Up until now all we have are rumors and wishful thinking, but a new entry on the franchise can happen as long as this horror trend keeps up. The best thing we can do is to vote with out wallets and support the genre so that the higher ups at Konami see that they can give the franchise another chance and decide to give it a go and make a new full scale Silent Hill project. Once again as I have said before, it is up to us.

Update (8/13/2014): Its funny how 3 days after this blog entry, we get the surprise of Silent Hills through the P.T teaser demo. I'm like super hyped about it as the demo itself was pretty neat.

Sources:
GamesRadar: Hideo Kojima Expresses Interest in Silent Hill (2012).
VideoGamer: Silent Hill Shattered Memories Dev working on 2 ps4 games and 1 Xbox One game (2013).
GiantBomb: Team Silent

  

Resident Evil Remake Remastered Edition? This could get interesting.

It seems that Capcom has decided to go back to the Resident Evil franchise roots quite literally. With the announcement of a remastered version of the GameCube Resident Evil remake, came a wave of flaming and frustration especially coming long time fans that feel that Capcom has cheated them again. Everybody agrees that the Resident Evil remake is one of the best things that Capcom has ever done, but many think that bringing it to this generation as an HD port is kind of dumb considering how old the game is. The outcry that is coming from some sectors of the gaming community is understandable to a point, but I think that most people are missing the point about what Capcom may be intending to do with this port and how it could favor us fans in the long run.

It teaches newer generations to appreciate the classic Resident Evil experience.

All those classic style RE games coming from the very first one all the way to Resident Evil 3 and Code Veronica are revered by many and have become the immediate topic that comes around every time there is a conversation about Capcom's survival horror flagship. It is good to reminisce about these games from time to time, but we have to accept that newer generations won't touch any of those games even if their lives depended on it. Because of this, Capcom may be trying to introduce newcomers into the classic Resident Evil experience by giving them something that looks brand new to them. If they manage to hook newcomers into the classic style as they did with us back then, the probabilities of the franchise going back to its roots becomes a lot higher.

The cool thing about the zombies in the remake is that they were very intimidating.

It can fix Capcom's impression about the survival horror genre.

It is said that the Resident Evil remake did not made the sale numbers that Capcom was expecting back in 2002 and that was the main reason why they switched from pure survival horror to a more action oriented style. It is pretty obvious that the game did not performed that well because it was a Game Cube exclusive and unfortunately there weren't many Game Cube consoles out there at the time. Capcom saw it as a decrease in popularity, but the reality about it is that this happened because of the console user base. For a reference example see this comparison below:

Sale figures:

• Resident Evil: (PS ONE): 2.75 m
• Resident Evil Remake (GameCube):  1.35 m
• Resident Evil Code Veronica (Dreamcast/PS2) : 2.54 m

Here we can see how the established PS ONE user base traduced itself into greater sale numbers (for the time) compared with an exclusive title (the remake) and one shared in two platforms that were still young at the time (Code Veronica). Believe me, I am an advocate of game exclusivity, but for some reason, platform exclusivity doesn't work well with Resident Evil. 

Because of this market misconception, Capcom got the wrong impression about the whole survival horror genre and decided to stop supporting it. Now with this port they have the chance to recover not only the losses they had back then, but their faith on survival horror games which also raises the possibilities of the next RE game NOT been just about shooting stuff, running and quick time events.

Hands down one of the scariest parts in any survival horror game.

It keeps the series alive.

Some gamers say that the series needs a reboot, but that isn't necessarily true. The franchise as it is, has a rich storyline chronology that can still spawn very interesting games. They don't have to move it forward in order to make a new game as they can just explore a whole spectrum of events that were happening at the same time the story of the newer games was. They can use characters like Barry Burton, Rebecca Chambers or even Billy Coen to go around the story arc a little and give us very interesting scenarios (see Interesting Scenarios that a New Resident Evil Game Could Have if you need some examples.)

Compared to the original, this boss fight was at least twice as tense.

Wrapping it up

A Resident Evil port that can capture newcomers, fix the reputation of survival horror within Capcom and keep the series alive as it is, sounds like a pretty good trio of reasons why this surprising re-apparition of an old game can inject some life into the Resident Evil franchise just in the way we want it. Back in the past, Capcom released 2 versions of the original game (normal and director's cut) and they were successful with it so they have a good chance with this one. This is good opportunity here that what may seem dumb for some, but can end up to be a turning point in the series and the beginning of that new, but awesome Resident Evil game we all deserve. If you have never played a classic Resident Evil game before, this is a must buy and if you are an old school gamer don't dismiss this version yet, at least until further details are announced.

Sources:
GearNuke -Resident Evil Sales Figures

Fatal Frame 4 - The one that got away

Fatal Frame is often considered one of the best survival horror franchises of all time, mostly because it is one of the few that dared to stay true to its roots and not succumb to the practice of change for the sake of change. The first game began as a "based on true events" kind of thing that ended spawning its own story. The second one expanded the horror atmosphere with bigger places to explore and a deeper sense of horror and the third one had a story that connected the happenings of the first two games. After that, it was obvious to expect a fourth installment in the series and with the PS3, Xbox 360 and Nintendo Wii already there, it was just a matter of how good it would be, either with advanced graphics (for the time) or with motion controls.

Two years after that generation was up and running, the game was made. it was Zero: Tsukihami No Kamen, Project Zero 4 in Europe or just Fatal Frame 4 (informal name in America). The game was developed by Tecmo LTD/Grasshopper Manufacture and Published by Nintendo and all seemed good and dandy except for the fact that the game never made it to our shores.

The art for this game was so hype inducing, but in the end we got nothing.

Why wasn't the game released in America?

There has never been a clear answer about the reasons why this game was only released on Japan and Europe. Most probably it was a weird business decision coming from Nintendo that even caused frustration on Tecmo because they did not expected "the big N" to do that. Curiously enough, the game became the best selling Fatal Frame in the franchise with 75,000 copies sold in Japan alone (I know this doesn't seem much, but for a genre that was starting to become niche, it is a good number).

What was the story of the game about?

The story on this Fatal Frame title is about a group of five girls that were kidnapped by a apparent serial killer called Yu Haibara. The girls were taken hostage in an abandoned sanatorium located in Rougetsu Island, located south of Honshu and went through an unexplained ordeal, but were rescued by a clever detective who had been following Haibara for some time. Even though all of the girls survived, they all lost their memories and could not remember anything about the time in which they were held hostage, so they just continued their lives as if nothing ever happened.

Ten years later, 2 of the girls die in mysterious circumstances and the three remaining ones (which are 17 years old by now) decide to go back to the island not only because they were afraid of ending up like the other two, but to find the truth by recovering their lost memories of the events that transpired on that island ten years ago.

Some would accuse this  "powerful flashlight" mechanic of making the game easier on purpose.

Is the game play identical to the other titles?

Yes and no. The original survival horror atmosphere is there, but some reviewers have stated that the development of the story and game lore was a little slower, taking the player a longer time to really understand what was really happening. As far as game mechanics go, it seems that the game developers did not used the wiimote at a horizontal position for the Camera Oscura, but used a wiimote + nunchuck combination that still had motion control, but was not even near to what some of us had expected. There is also the implementation of "waggle" controls for mundane things like turning a door knob or some other simple tasks.

One new thing on this game was that you could use a flash light that had the same powers the Camera Oscura had. It was weaker than the camera, but it gave the player a little more flexibility when fighting ghosts as you could use motion controls to point to the enemy without the need of a first person view. This was probably mostly use to fend the ghost off a little in order to gain some time to position yourself and finish them off with the camera.

Any real noticeable flaws on this game?

If the game were to be released today as it was back in 2008, it would had been heavily criticized because of frame rate issues and sluggish movement (compared to the previous games). Also the waggle controls would had been seen as unnecessary, but all the other good stuff was there.

Wrapping it up

Fatal Frame 4 is not the best of the franchise (even if it is the one that sold more copies). Based on how some reviewers describe it, it was an experimental attempt to take the franchise to the Wii that was not horrible, but it wasn't ground breaking either. In summary, it was a good game made for the fans of the series and an American version would had been quite appreciated if they had taken the risk and released it. Who knows, maybe with the current trend of releasing older games on current generation consoles we may still get the chance of comfortably playing the game at last.

This is just a mock up pic I made just to show how awesome a Fatal Frame on Wii U could be.

Bonus Stage!

We did not had Fatal Frame 4, but it has been recently announced that there is a new Fatal Frame game in the works for the Wii U! Once again the chances of this game been awesome are there, as the Wii U Pad fits perfectly with the camera mechanics and if they once again hold their ground and keep loyal to the franchise roots (and release the game in America) it will be one survival horror gem for Wii U in a time where the console needs these types of games the most.

Update:
 A Japanese teaser video was released and the game looks beautiful, check it out.

Interesting scenarios that a new Resident Evil could have.

In the past month, a little bit of nostalgia brought in a Resident Evil marathon with it and after playing some of the games and watching the CGI films, a question came to mind. Assuming that Capcom survives their current ordeal and actually release a new Resident Evil game... What new scenarios could they try? They have mentioned that Resident Evil Revelations and The Last of Us would serve as inspiration for them to bring the franchise back to its survival horror roots, so an action-oriented "final struggle/anything goes" scenario would not fit into that line of thinking. Playing these games and watching the animated movies have shown that they have tried almost any common scenario that a "Bio Hazard" story can develop into, but there are still some of them that would make the franchise look fresh again without the need of a reboot. Let's see some of the crazy ideas that came out of this (get prepared to read, because this is a long one) so let your imagination roll and continue.

In order to get away from the Dead Island's "paradise beach" theme, something like this should work.

The island that was too late to be saved

This scenario would happen some months after Raccoon City has been wiped off the map. The setting would be a fictional artificially made island that was created by some billionaire in order to make his own independent nation. The island would have a significant population and it would include all kinds of services and residential areas, sort of like a small contemporary country state (no futuristic stuff). The problem begins when the billionaire's nephew manages to escape Raccoon City before the bombing, after stealing a defective canister containing the virus. With no other place to go, the nephew goes back to his uncle, but not before getting infected, turning into a zombie and starting an outbreak on the island. The Billionaire, knowing that his nation is in peril, asks the U.S government for help (along with a great amount of money). U.S authorities see this an an opportunity to test an experimental anti-virus/vaccine so they send the protagonist (which is a CDC agent) along with a small team to the island in order to try the anti-virus and attempt to save as much people as possible.

The protagonist arrives on the island by boat and starts administering the anti virus to the survivors as he believes that the island could still be saved, but it doesn't work on most people because of unknown reasons and the outbreak continues to spread. The situation gets even worse when the protagonist boat is stolen by scared people trying to escape the island and get blown off to pieces by the billionaire's personal militia as he snaps and orders a lock up on the island. Now you have to survive not only the infected people, animals and plants, but a crazy man who blames you for what happened.  This would be a back to basics story, focusing on survival and how people's lives are shattered by the outbreak, it could also have twist or a complication happening halfway through the game just to spice things up a little. The player could also be able to try to give anti-virus shots to those infected that haven't turned into zombies as the island is explored, that way receiving weapons, items or information for your troubles.

Remember this movie? That should give your sort of an idea.

Hidden primal horrors

This one happens at the time of Resident Evil 5. On this scenario one of the characters of the series that has not appeared that much in the previous games, will have become a renegade, now working for a drug cartel as life seems to have lost its meaning to him/her (Maybe one of the STARS members we thought to be dead and is alive somehow). The protagonist is sent to the Amazon along with a partner to retrieve a drug shipment that was lost in the area because of a previous botched operation.

The problem begins when they find out that they are not alone in the jungle. Other than the obvious dangers that lurk in the foliage, they find themselves chased by local authorities who somehow became aware of their presence and tried to lure them into a trap. As they run and lose them his/her partner is shot and dies, but the protagonist manages to wound some of the soldiers and makes way to an abandoned native village that seems a little too modern and organized.  Here the protagonist finds the village spreads into a series of abandoned and ran down facilities that seem to have been used by Umbrella in the past and are scattered through the jungle. After exploring for a while the protagonist gets face to face with one of the soldiers, but the soldier asks for them to join forces instead of arresting him because all his remaining partners have been killed by some unknown force. Now the two of them have to look for some way to survive as the sun sets and the night begins.

This one could feature a whole new set of enemies, maybe enemies infected by a failed early version of the T/G-virus and because of the jungle setting, there can be a whole other variety of dangers that can be exploited alongside the normal enemies in the game. The cool thing here would be to keep the player moving back and forth between the several facilities with the use of clever puzzles and different types of hazards so they can become afraid of going outdoors for too long.

This image sort of explains the concept, at least on its advanced stages.

What to do when the place itself is the enemy

This one is really a long shot, but it makes sense if you keep an open mind. Here the protagonist can be a totally new one and it the scenario would be in the same time as Resident Evil 6. On this one, the protagonist is a secret service agent that gets locked in an emergency bunker facility with several VIPs and staff after a false alarm. The thing is that one of those VIPs is working for a terrorist group and he/she releases a deadly unknown B.O.W bomb that basically turns the whole place in to a mutated being, with tissue and mutations everywhere as if it were the insides of a living creature merged with the already existing structure.

Little by little the mutation keeps getting bigger and enveloping everything it its path, while infecting people and spawning its own aberrations. The protagonist then must find a way out of the giant mutating structure while protecting the VIPs. On this scenario the player would have to literally protect the VIPs while making progress as any people lost or rescued in the end may change the ending. At some points the player will have to make split second decisions that can mean life of death for the VIPs. It would also be cool if the VIPs would have some degree of A.I that is enough for them to act on their own, so they some times can, follow you, ignore you, have problems with you, be useful, get infected, find items, tell you secrets etc, all depending on how you play and interact with them. All of this with the added detail that one of them is the terrorist and you don't know who.

Wrapping it up

There you go folks, 3 crazy ideas about possible scenarios that the Resident Evil franchise could take on the new game (if it happens). Note that this is entirely based on personal opinion and creative thinking, so if you have your own crazy Resident Evil scenarios go ahead and share them on the comments section, who knows what kind of other crazy ideas we can come up with.

Alien Isolation: Can it become a fundamental part of the survival horror revival?

We have already had some buzz, seen some game play and even know about the featured 15 hours of game play on the anticipated Aliens game that goes deeper into survival horror than any of its previous titles that range from platformer/shooters to beat them ups and action oriented first person shooters. Many gamers see this title with a lot of optimism, but some if us still have the same question. Can Sega impress us so much with this game that it will make the gaming community forget about Colonial Marines and at the same time turn their heads back to the survival horror genre? The hypothetical answer to that question is yes, because the Alien franchise itself is based on horror, which seems very straight forward in what they are promising with this game, but the only way to pass this test with flying colors is to basically make it an experience worth of the "survival horror" title while giving some fan-service at the same time which is easier said than done. Today, we are going to look into some aspects that could make Alien: Isolation be one of the games that will revive the survival horror genre on this generation, so let's begin:

Now this brings a lot of memories from the movies.

Diverse and complex level design

One of the things that make a horror game to excel is its level design. Up until now, what we have seen about Isolation looks gorgeous with a very detailed and dark sci-fi environment that ranges from eerie to claustrophobic. It is all looking real good, but it won't be of much help if the navigation through this nightmarish world is composed of smoke and mirrors with bland simple corridors and rooms (which kind of works for some environments, but not the one featured on this game). This is a space station we are talking about, so we need it to be complex as it was built by complex scientific minds. A good example of this would be the map design featured in games like Metroid Prime. It is obvious that we don't need it to be as complicated as Metroid, but Sega could take some tips off the good design practices made in those games.

A computer, a magazine and a log book...Can they be read?

Good use of game lore and plot devices

Once again the setting of the game dictates what it is needed. As a promised "survival horror" title, the game needs to have some lore in it. Be it in the way of logs, video footage or even holograms or dying characters (if they want to get a little morbid), these kinds of things have been adding up to the survival horror experience since the days of the first Resident Evil with the "Itchy... Tasty..." diary that everyone read back in the day. The trick with lore and plot devices is to avoid making them in a generic way. For a moment there, we must feel and imagine what was happening to the people involved, like the "Itchy...Tasty..." Resident Evil example that was previously mentioned. With that one we actually visualized was was happening with the person that wrote that diary as he was little by little turning into a zombie without even noticing, that kind of impact is what they should aim for.

This cutting mechanic seems to be becoming popular.

An imaginative use of puzzles

It is obvious that given the setting of the game, we won't see any esoteric or surreal puzzles involving switches on paintings or moving statues, but the sci-fi environment featured in this game serves as a good place for some technological/machinery or even normal appliance puzzles. It is expected to see a lot of buttons and levers in this game, but it would be best if they don't just consist of pressing the interact button a couple times or collecting x number of key cards. If the setting of the game is to be a futuristic technological place, then all sorts of devices could be used for various purposes, be it on a residential area, storage room, entertainment center or anything that the space station can offer. This will spice up the players exploration through the place and make them think for a while, looking for a way to solve the problem in order to keep advancing.

For instance, let's say that a Xenomorph trashed some big pipes that are now blocking your way. You then remember that there was a service robot in some previously visited area that could easily move those pipes away and you also remember that the password needed in order to activate it was cleverly put in an ambigous way in one of the documents (game lore) you read. Then you go figure out the password, activate the robot and use it to clear your way, there you go puzzle solved!

I know some people that will end up like hot dogs on a barbecue afternoon, instead of just solving the problem.

Extra hazards throughout the game that don't involve Xenomorphs

This is classic stuff from sci-fi movies, but it has also been present in various survival horror games like Resident Evil, Dino Crisis, Fatal Frame just to name a few. These are accidents or situations that can easily kill you and on a space station all sorts of things could serve for that purpose. When we think of hazards in the case of this game, we think about things like fire, been thrown in to the vacuum of space, lack of oxygen, security systems gone wrong, etc. The ideal way to go about this game play aspect is to avoid going the lazy way with mood killing "quick time events" and let the player save themselves instead of relying on some button combination. Of course it has to be a fair deal, but at the same time it must be challenging enough to demand some quick thinking.

Do I see a low gravity environment there? Can't imagine a Xenomorph just floating by.

Don't divide the game in stages

Dividing a survival horror game in pseudo-stages is something that can be associated with lazy game design in the same way than the "bland corridors and rooms" thing. The best thing to do is to keep the exploration mood going throughout all the game without suddenly pausing the game just to say that the player got to the end of an area. Doing so just ruins the mood and gives an artificial sense of safety that just takes away the "survival" in survival horror. Let the players decide where to go at any given time, let them backtrack, sidetrack and explore at their leisure as they little by little succeed in unlocking new parts in the game. There is this certain feeling of accomplishment when you revisit a place while looking for something and you catch a glimpse of the remnants of your previous visit (dead enemies, opened pathways, solved puzzles, etc).

Will she survive? That's up to us...

Wrapping it up

A wave of next-gen survival horror games is getting near and Alien: Isolation can be a very important part of it. Sega just needs to learn from theirs and other developer's mistakes and capitalize on the horror that comes as a given in the Alien franchise. Many of the things discussed on this article are things that have been missing from survival horror games for too long and need to come back in order to bring the genre back into full strength while making it evolve at the same, spelling success not only with the old hardcore survival horror crowd, but also with the newer generations. Alien: Isolation already shows that it has what it takes, but that can only be truly seen when we actually play it and not just on videos and pictures. Let's just hope that we have a masterpiece in our hands people, the genre needs it.

Bonus Stage

Here is some video footage of the game, taken by IGN on the days of the E3 event.

Alien: Isolation Game play - E3 2014 (IGN)