Why I love and hate horror games

I hate being scared. I don't think that's unreasonable, and for me the idea that people would want to be scared is as nonsensical as wanting to take a nail gun to your hands (something that gets a heck of a lot harder once the first hand is done.)

Horror games however, do have a certain state of affairs that gives them a little golden podium in my heart. You see, in order to scare someone, you have to threaten their feeling of safety, and in a video game you can only do it by outsmarting them.

Only smart people can make a decent horror game.

Take 'Slender' for example: a little indie game based off a forum discussion about 'The Slender Man'. These are pretty basic beginnings. There was no talk of gaming, just folks discussing a modern internet-fuelled myth. Then this guy, a Mr. Mark J. Hadley, started writing a game.

The game has you, walking in a forest, with a torch and the ability to jog a bit. Those are your only forms of input. Your aim is to find 8 pages of a book about the Slender Man, which are pinned up all over the place. If the Slender Man sees you, you start to go mad and television static starts to fuzz up your screen. If he catches you, you loose. It's immensely simple and that's exactly why it's good. It's very hard to analyse a game with so very little 'gaming' going on. It's an experience and within the long gaps of you stumbling about your imagination, the horror-mind's best friend, starts to fill in the gaps. "Where am I?", "Is the next page far?" and "What the hell was that in the grass?!" were all things I started uttering to myself whilst playing. Of course, if you're not willing to get involved, you won't enjoy this game. Switch the lights off and turn the volume up though, and you're in for an amazing/nerve shattering journey!


I don't like horror games, but this is a job well done!

I must add however, that I would have not known about this game if it wasn't for a Youtube friend of mine: JPachoD. There's something evil but enjoyable about watching someone get scared at a video game, and it does the game a real justice to see what effect it can have on the willing mind. Click here to see him freak out! I will also add that his other videos are also greatly enjoyable, so check out his channel! (The review of Hambo comes highly recommended!)

Poor scared Irish boy!

Fantastic game things I have experienced as of late

This post is, admittedly, an amalgamation of many posts I haven't got round to doing. Fact of the matter is though, I've been having a lot of fun. Lets gets right into it (and in no particular order)

Minecraft 1.3.1 update
The latest version of Minecraft is delicious! If you don't know what Minecraft is, as unlikely as that scenario is considering it's forever-growing popularity; it's a game by independent developer Mojang where you mine, craft, explore and survive in a world made entirely of of cubic structures. It looks dated, perplexes many, but ultimately rewards players who stick with it and make the most of a world where you can more or less make anything.

Sometimes I like to go sailing. With a sword. Other times I play the game like a normal person.

Back to the point though, even before Minecraft was completed people who bought the game have been given every update for free. New content, bug fixes and massive increases in possibilities downloaded automatically to your gaming computer sometimes months after your initial purchase. That's great in itself. Some super games on the market remain glitchy and stale for very long periods of time and few ever get decent new content if at all, whilst this unassuming game is throwing new shapes at players consistently.

So, here's what's new that's got me excited"

• Integrated multiplayer access to games over LAN
• The ability to trade emeralds for rare gear from NPC villagers
• 'Ender chests', allowing a pool of items to be retrieved from multiple points wherever such chests are placed
• Books you can write in (a lot) and then share with other players
• Tripwires, so you can also be really horrible to other players
• The ability to generate 'large biome' maps with massive expanses of terrain. Effectively turning your world into huge frontiers.

It's really cool stuff, and before I even get into the new multiplayer possibilities I'm enjoying a solo adventure into a massive desert: working on writing books on my survival trials as I explore and look for other civilizations.

Nuzlocke Challenge on Pokemon Yellow

Graphical representation of my team. The Pidgey is grey while they sit in my PC. I'd write something funny but I'm terrified I will blubber like a small child if one of my team dies!

As I've written before, the Nuzlocke challenge where Pokemon die when they faint and only the first monster from each area can be caught, is an emotional rollercoaster in the most unflattering way. Attempting it on Silver did not go well, so with a friend we both started the challenge on 1st generation games: Yellow for me and Red for her. Asides from the fun of revisiting the games that started it all, there's a certain wonderment in being forced to play with Pokemon I may not have bothered with before. In effect, it's a fresh experience, and as I start my grueling trek through Mt. Moon my inner child feebly questions which of my precious few am I going to loose just to make it to the next town? Gripping stuff!

'ZerothGhost' Youtube channel

This is Zeroth Ghost. He's a lot more chromatic in real life.

Ok so clearly, this isn't a game. What it is however is a very entertaining youtube channel by a Mister Cameron Rose, largely focusing on gameplay with commentary and wit. At turns he is both informative about the features you want to know about, and thoroughly entertaining. He does not aim to promote himself as a guru or expert gamer, but simply an equal-level funster and charmer, who's simultaneous insight and flaws endear him to the side of gamers oft reserved to solo gaming: the character who expresses bewildering emotional highs and lows tempered by an unrestrained sense of personal enjoyment. Hard to really put across the joy of his videos in words alone, so check it out for yourself here.

Team Fortress 2 finally working on my Mac

Fear the bright colours!

For months it refused to play, and now it does. This isn't really a review or anything, TF2 has always been good, but with new gameplay modes and a constant onslaught of new items it's forever worth a play if first person shooters are your street. On an interesting side note though, I've recently learned that I am actually better playing with a touch pad than with a mouse. No idea why.


Left 4 Dead 2's Cold Stream DLC and update

Remember that feeling when you first saw these guys? Now you get to watch them die in new locales! :P

Yes more Valve-goodness! Hot off the presses, news flitted across blogs and social networking sights that the slightly delayed Xbox360 release of this zombie-blasting joy-slice had finally arrived just a few hours ago. At 560 Microsoft Points (£4.80, ignoring the cost of purchasing points in set block multiples of 500 points) it's pretty reasonable for what you get. Stings a little that PC/Mac gamers get it for free, but considering the start up costs of personal computer gaming it doesn't seem so bad. Importantly the content is joyous for everyone:

• All mutation game modes now available from the menu screen.
• A brand new campaign, Cold Stream, originally made by fans of the game but now integrated into the main game completely spare canonically-speaking.
• All the campaigns from the first Left 4 Dead that had not been added to L4D2 are now fully playable and include minor tweaks to bring them up to modern standards. That means Crash Course, Death Toll, Dead Air and Blood Harvest; all with added crowbars, jockey-humpings and grenade launchers!

So far I've played through a bit of Lone Gunman and Last Man on Earth mutations (great solo challenges, if a bit on the difficult side) and finished the Cold Stream campaign on Normal difficulty. The new campaign is, without a doubt, brilliant. It's what Crash Course was to L4D1, and even that's on L4D2 now! The potential for amazing Versus games is hugely apparent here, with close attention to choke points and player distractions feeding into a thoroughly exciting experience. There's a lot of fun to be had here, and no noticeable problems since some initial download glitches were ironed out earlier to report. Highly recommended!

Why petitioning for a game to be made is important

Timesplitters. I freaking love it. Then one day I found out that Free Radical Design (the creators of the series) had gone bankrupt and then been bought out by Crytek. That was 3 years ago, and any news of 'Crytek UK' making Timesplitters 4 has died out.

And then I found a Facebook group trying to petition for it's release. At the time of writing, 1,324 people support the page which has a target of 100,000. In many respects it seems silly. Facebook fans does not translate into financial backing or any of the hard work required to make the game.

But there is no other clearer way of telling a game company what you want to buy!

Petitioning is a direct representation of what people want. It's the mob-turned-statistics that get the proverbial ball rolling. It's market research that doesn't guess trends but actually tells the game makers out there what they should do!

1,324 is not a lot, but it is 1,324 clear votes of confidence for a game that doesn't even exist yet. That's got to be compelling!

The petition can be found here

Why more games need to have playable goblins in them

There is a massive spectrum of video game types out there, in the figurative expanse of genres. What's more just about any of them can be complimentary together, merged with one another, or give rise to an entire new genre. What FPS doesn't have some kind of puzzling element these days? What adventure doesn't contain a bit of stat-crunching or ability trees? Why is there a dating simulation in Grand Theft Auto? (Answer to the last one is 'because Rockstar Games forgot what grand theft auto means, presumable')

Seriously, this is a shooter game!

So, what does this have to do with goblins? Well the fact is that, what ties almost all games together is the need for character. Even disembodied games, ones that don't have a perceivable protagonist to identify with, will strive to have a certain look and feel to better engage the player. After all games are basically graphic interfaces on top of not very interesting coding, and even computer hacking games tend to have some minimal graphic design! You need the player to give a damn, and that requires design.

I propose that goblins are a grossly under utilised 'player-identifier'.

Based on my favourite representations of them across different media, goblins are small, mischievous, ever-so-slightly magical idiots who break rules but have entirely emotionally-driven motives. Goblin wants something? They take it. Goblin doesn't like something? They smash it! Goblin is curious but a bit unsure about something? They get all their mates to pile in and see what happens! A goblin is the morally-unbound inner-child of an adult given just enough power and sparkle to achieve things but flawed by not being very big.

This childish characteristic, combined with a pro-active disregard to restraint, is pretty much what gaming is about. We don't play games because they're things we do in our usual lives! We play them because they let us engage with things we are otherwise unable to do, much like the imaginary play almost all kids engage in! Even simulations put you in a seat of control you might not always have, and less likely to have at your beck and call. Goblins are the perfect compliment to this, as they could be a vehicle for all those desires, with all that added charm of being a recognisable figure (every culture seems to have some form of goblin in their folklore) and they can engage with the other side of games: the challenge of playing and winning, exemplified by the fact that goblins are not meant to be the most powerful creatures in the world!

That's right little fella! Be my vehicle of destructive impulses!
(picture from Nolan's Sketches)

Just for example here are some games which I think would be vastly improved if you played as a goblin instead of the original character:

• Grand Theft Auto (Want to go bowling? How about I just kick you in the bum and run away?)
• Mass Effect (Save the universe? Let me call up my 500 pointy-eared mates first!)
• Call of Duty/any pseudo-realistic shooter game (Never stop running, never let go of the trigger, and never stop cackling as you mow down anyone and everyone!)
• Batman Arkham City (Nothing would be better than sneaking up behind some goons, tying the shoelaces together of all of them, then announcing your presence by swinging a bag of rocks! Also, leaping from buildings whilst screaming.)
• Left 4 Dead (Pretty sure I could get to Mercy Hospital if I hide in bins, never stop balling along whilst yelping, and knife the back of the legs of every zombie I see.)
• Mario (Not much would actually change, except when you finally get to the princess you nick her crown and carry on running whilst laughing.)

Convinced? Not convinced? Have any semblance of an opinion? Comment below!

A little more on Mari0

For those of you who read my last post (if not you can catch up here) I was not all that complimentary towards the indie fan game 'Mari0'.

I may have spoken too soon.

What I did not realise is that there is much more than just the Super Mario Bros levels on offer. There is actually a whole bunch of Portal-styled levels AND a level editor! Further inspection shows that both of these utilise both Mario and Portal mechanics to great effect and are actually a lot of fun. I now have more reason to encourage you to check it out for yourselves, and hope you enjoy it too!

As for myself, Mari0 will get a bit more playtime in between Minecraft and Skyrim sessions which have taken up most of my gaming time. Those who actually read this blog will remember I said I was planning a big writing piece for this blog: it's still in the works and it will be about either Minecraft or Skyrim.

Or both.

Or something else.

Tatty-bye for now!

My last magic gaming moment

Video games are not known for creating magic moments. Maybe nostalgia is inherently technology-phobic, or just that they are not designed for great moments of significance. Then again, as games become more complex they draw in huge teams of creative and artistic types into the development process: ‘Scripting’ no longer means just lines of code when it comes to making a game, Depth used to be about ‘parallel scrolling’, not character development and etc.

Picture unrelated, although somewhat magical

However as games development goes forward, and the end products become more complex, an extra layer of enjoyment can be attained for the simplest of core principles: the executing of a good idea.  When Mario makes a jump, you feel good. When Pac-Man outsmarts Blinky, Pinky Inky and Clyde, you feel smart.

And when Bomberman traps his opponent before blowing them up, you feel like the devil himself.

So when it comes to magic moments, I am proud to say that the last time this happened to me wasn’t from viewing the majesty of Skyrim or musing over moral obstacles in the world of Mass Effect. It came from playing multiplayer on Bomberman Generation (it’s Gamecube outing).

Pretty much sums it up

Three human players and an AI nicknamed Victor took to the arena, and no amount of Hudson-Japanese-cuteness could dilute the evil and anarchy of playing with explosives. When you get caught in a Bomberman explosion, you don't get hurt: you die. No ifs, no buts, no mercy. Every bomb dropped, be it by the enemy or yourself, can spell the end of you. That's pretty alarming stuff! It's this very risk factor that makes Bomberman a hugely thrilling game series, and there's little else it needs apart from that!

Quite possibly the only time it's acceptable to scream at a grid

That same evening we played other games, more modern and complex, but it really was Bomberman who held centre stage. Shocked as I was, not even Left 4 Dead 2 could hold up to cross-shaped explosions and chirpy little Japanese robo-men. If you haven't already played a Bomberman game yet: FIX IT!

MELONS OF VICTORY!

The problem with Skyrim

The Elder Scrolls V Skyrim is potentially the worst game ever. (Please note the use of the word 'potentially')

Skyrim is a massive game. A real achievement in the world of interactive art. I often stop mid-game to just try and take in how amazing it is, and that is exactly the problem: It's too much. When there are enemies to slay, plots to solve and a whole wealth of experiences to be had, it can be really hard to get on with them when you're being distracted by other great stuff that ISN'T game play!

Take the butterflies for example.

It doesn't matter if I'm sneaking up on giants, running from the flames of a dragon or even just trying to get home: I go from Skull-Biter the Barbarian to Giddy McSkipperty the second a butterfly flutters by. In real life, I might take notice of a butterfly when I see one or even take a closer look if it lands, but I hope to high heavens that in a life or death situation I wouldn't take up lepidopterology mid-escape.

It's these breaks in character that unravel the whole role-playing facade. I am, sadly, not an all-powerful warrior hell-bent on saving the world. I do not know the angst of watching monsters tear apart my family, and rightly I shouldn't want to know, but I do want to pretend that's the case and get a cathartic release from braining a troll whilst shouting "I WILL NEVER FORGET!" The problem is though that my core interest, the slightly worrying need to zealously bury hatchets in skulls, does not have a window in it's philosophy for reacting to a scared rabbit diving into a waterfall: which did happen to my avatar.

I'm pretty sure the real life reaction is to yelp, laugh and 'aww' in quick succession. (Sadly I'd probably make it my internet status of the day too). However Skull-Biter would probably shrug off the foolishness of lesser beings, or conversely have a flashback to his dead child diving off a cliff to escape the monsters that now haunt his nightmares: neither of which I could role-play him doing because I was too busy walking round the house giggling.

There are so many things that can distract you; domestic-level interaction, the need for money, physical obstacles between you and what you want, the conflict between desire and obligation and etc. It's nigh-on impossible to maintain a simple character's drive because the world they live in is that much more complicated.

"I just wanted to open a bakery in a quiet provincial town, and provide for my children, but needs-must"
- Spider

Determinism is pretty much part-and-parcel of gaming, in that you are presented an experience to enjoy. The more choice you give the player though, the harder it is to structure their experiences: something important when trying to emulate a persona. Sometimes these experiences tick the right boxes with incredibly satisfaction, but other times this elaborate pseudo-reality of a high fantasy world is just that little too close to the bewildering truth of reality that your own high fantasy gets confused.

Not to make a direct comparison between two very different games, but Crash Bandicoot never had to deal with this shit. He smashed crates and ran down the road to victory. Sadly he won't see the light of day for months now because Skull-Biter is too busy juggling guilt, revenge and vegetarianism, and that's not easy to do with just an axe.