What Happened to Survival Horror?

The year was 1996 and I was 14 years old and still cowering at the thought of Pennywise's face from my most recent adventure with my VCR and Stephen King's "It"

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The Playstation was recently released and it was like nothing ever seen in the video gaming world. It was a system that played CD Roms but was a lot smoother and ran a lot better than the previously released CD Rom based systems like Dreamcast and like that piece of shit we all have come to know and love called the Sega CD that barely worked at all. The only thing about the Sega CD I can honestly remember that I enjoyed was this game Lunar, Snatcher, and Willy Beamish. Lunar to this day in my opinion is one of the best rpgs of all time

The one thing that the Playstation could do and a lot better than the previous CD run consoles was the ability to play video and audio without it looking like total crap. The first time I was introduced to the systems capability was when I first rented Resident Evil by Capcom and popped the sucker in. At the time I had no idea what I was getting myself into but I have to say it was definitely one of most memorable video game experiences. Never had I played a game where I was actually scared to open a door or turn a corner. I remember having to scour around the mansion looking for extra ammo or that one green herb to replenish my health. If you were wounded you would hobble around and that wasn't something you wanted to do with the horde of zombies and other creatures lurking around the Arklay Mansion. Not only was that game scary it also taught you how to do a better job keeping inventory. If you wasted your ammo the only way you would survive was if you ran past every zombie and hoping to god the next room would have some sort of new weapon or extra ammunition for you to use. What initially hooked me to the game was the introduction. I wasn't expecting to have CGI video to start the game. I thought I was watching a movie and in 1996 that was unheard of in a video game. I had the opportunity to download this video and here it is. Remember again this was 1996 and at the time this was awesome so don't be turned off by it

Now that I got a chance to explain to you what brought me into the world of survival horror I'm going to take it back to where it all began. When I say survival horror I'm not talking about any run of the mill game with scary backdrops, sound effects, and eerie monsters. Survival horror games aren't defined by the scenery and the enemies you encounter but more the feeling of vulnerability and evasiveness. You need to choose carefully with each move you take and each round you spray into the undead because the goal is to survive. This idea started initially in 1982 and the video game monopoly known as Atari was at the top of their game. They released the critically acclaimed Haunted House for their 2600 system. It was the first horror game and one of the first games to offer scrolling graphics and a multilevel playing field.

Then as the success of the Nintendo started to rapidly take over America and the Famicon which was the name of the Japanese 8-bit system started taking over the Japanese culture in 1989 the game Sweet Home was released in Japan by once again Capcom. I have actually had a chance to play this game on a Nintendo emulator with a ported English translated rom. My initial reaction was that the game for its time was one of a kind. You played as five different characters who each had their own skills that could were useful in specific situations and you had the opportunity to switch in between all the characters regardless of what room they were in. You needed to use one characters skill to advance another character deeper into the mansion. They all relied on each other for survival and that's something we don't see enough of in the horror movie genre

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Playing it now isn't going to excite you or blow your mind but in 1989 as a seven year old there was a chance that it might have if it was ever ported to the American NES. For you gamers out there reading this it's comparable to Maniac Mansion for the NES but only not a side camera angle but more of a view from above.

Next in line for the survival horror world was Alone in the Dark for the PC. Infograme's hit was one of the first games to ever use polygonal characters over pre-rendered backgrounds. It was rewarded in the Guinness book of world records as "The first 3D survival horror game". It spanned a couple of sequels over the following years and recently made a game for the XBOX360. I was not a big PC game player as a kid so I never got the chance to play any of the older games. I know they ported the original Alone in the Dark to the 3DO but that system crashed before it even had a chance and I wasn't rich where I could ask my parents to spend 500 dollars on a system.

There was another game I know if I don't mention that I'm going to get killed about. That's id Software's 1993 release Doom. I don't consider it to be survival horror but it's definitely the one of the most influential games of all time. It basically started the first person shooter genre, multiplayer, and the modding of games. That game is too revolutionary to be only given this a couple of lines to talk about it and it will get it's own blog somewhere in the future.

Now this gets me back to where we started off and that's Resident Evil. After the blockbuster success of Resident Evil Capcom released Resident Evil 2 in 1998. I remember getting this game on the day of release and being so excited about playing the game. The first thing I noticed was that there it was a two disc game and if you ever played it you know why. Each disc was the game from a different characters perspective. As the game starts you crash in the middle of Raccoon city and depending on what disc you play you exit the vehicle from a different seat. If you played disc one you were playing as Leon S.Kennedy who we all know is the main character from Resident Evil 4. If you put in disc two you played as Claire Redfield the younger sister of Chris Redfield the main protagonist from the original Resident Evil. Unlike the first Resident Evil in this game you were outside within the city limits. It made for a totally different feel to the game but definitely scary and one worthy of playing.

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Then this is where I got my two biggest survival horror treats of all time. Silent Hill and Resident Evil 3: Nemesis will always be to me survival horror at its best. In the beginning of 1999 Konami released Silent Hill for the Playstation. I have always loved this game more than Resident Evil not because the game was better but it was definitely more edge of seat scary than it's survival horror predecessor. The game got me hook line and sinker when you were walking through a dark alley and the camera angle changed. The game was darker and the enemies were more disturbing than anything I have ever seen in a game. It was ground breaking and it went on to spawn a lot of sequels and a movie.

After that is when my favorite survival game of all time came out. In September of 1999 Capcom released the highly anticipated Resident Evil 3: Nemesis. It's not that I think it's the best Resident Evil game because in hindsight it might actually be the worst of them all besides Code Veronica. The reason I liked the game so much was the fear factor. The game introduced an enemy named Nemesis which was a Tyrant created by Umbrella Corporation to seek out and eliminate any remaining Stars members. The whole time you play the game as Jill Valentine and through out the duration of the game Nemesis will show up at any point and try to kill you. It kept you on your toes and you got rewarded if you wasted all of your ammo to defeat this merciless hitman. There was more than one so defeating him early in the game didn't stop others from randomly appearing at the most unexpected times. That in itself makes this game to the greatest survival horror game.

Now there is where the survival horror genre stopped and the first person shooter genre took over Resident Evil. I think Resident Evil 4 and 5 are great games but they aren't survival horror. Silent Hill hasn't made a good game in a long time and the only ray of light shining in once a glimmering game genre is EA'S Dead Space which was released in late 2008 for the XBOX 360 and PS3. I love this game and it's been such a long time since a good survival horror game has been released.

Another game that was even more recently released solely for the XBOX 360 was Remedy Studios and Microsoft's Alan Wake. Even though it's a psychological thriller I put it in the survival horror class because of the amount of times you have to run to the next light fixture or spare your ammo and batteries for harder creatures in the future.

With the future release of Dead Space 2 things are looking up for the survival horror fanbase but we need more than one series keeping it afloat. Let's hope Capcom can remake Resident Evil with that edge of the seat feeling like they used to and Konami can make a decent Silent Hill game. I will keeping my hopes up that this once blooming genre will once again reach its mountainous heights again

Now it's time for Stingray

Stingray

There are two things I want to speak about here. One is how the game Sweet Home should have been branched into survival horror and even the film industry. And the second thing is that I am mixed between joy and deep disappointment that Ender's Game is coming out with a video game.

I have had the chance to play Sweet Home on Baley's emulator flux capacitor and that game is genius for its time. This game came out in the 80's and the idea for the gameplay captivated me. There are 5 different characters. They each can hold several items and begin with a specialty item (camera .. med kit..vacuum cleaner..lighter .. something else). You can select to control any player at anytime, and there are many rooms in this mansion. So the strategy concept right there alone should have been picked up and reused... but it never was. The closest I saw was resident evil's double disc. But this Sweet Home concept wasn't choosing different characters for different games .. it was the same game. Imagine the possibilities.. .. ..

Why wasn't there a survival horror game designed with this availability of characters? For one, it wouldn't make sense in a fast action paced environment to just abandon one character and choose another. But the switch could happen when you have arrived in a quiet empty area. Then you could select Mikhail when Valentine is low on ammo or health or needs a specialty item to get past a certain point. The versatility and dimension of game just jumped threefold .. or fourfold if there are 4 characters. They each have their own storyline and relations with characters you meet, so not everyone would encounter the same results, and only if you played the level again and chose completely different characters for different areas would you open new realms and doorways and plot points.

Now another superior option you have in Sweet Home (and let me remind you, this game was made in late 80's and can't be played for too long cause graphics are so weak) is that you can team players up. So this is where you can control Carlos while the cpu tags along and simulates Nicholai .. or even some multi-player action.

The only reason why I could think humanity has not pushed forward with this spontaneous multi-player gameplay style
- is that the late George H.W Bush shook his head and said "tut tut no no, we are giving them too many options. people don't like to think. Just stick a controller in their hands and let the professionals do all the work" and then America stopped the production of every international video game that was using this method and gave them machine guns instead.

Okay now for some heat. Ender's Game will make it to the top 200 book series when Merriam and Webster make that edition of encyclopedia. Orson Scott invented the Battle Room. This is a place of null gravity on a circular spacecraft somewhere in outer space. Children are stolen from their families at 4 years old and trained to fight. They battle in teams against other other earth children - all in this null gravity zone. I spent two months after reading this book inventing my own concept for a Battle Room video game where each athlete is made up of 48 different personality traits, and each of these traits make up the genome and abilities and capability of learning through training as you develop your team in this space craft. I'm talking balance training. Plyometric training. Aim and leadership. You get two practices each day where you can design your own team strategies and formations, and one game a week against another online player. This is written down in my black composition book and I have given up on it ...

Orson Scott Card is assisting a company called Chair Entertainment on this nearly exact idea. Should I email Orson my in-depth character designs?