Bioshock

In Bioshock (X-Box 360, 2007), the player’s avatar is a plane crash survivor who has happened upon a fallen civilization of objectivists. The civilization has deteriorated because its individuals have become insane after having genetically altered themselves (for improvement). Admittedly, the art deco setting (you are surrounded by marble floors, columned rooms and art deco-esque sculptures) and the Ayn Rand/objectivism references add a level of depth to the game (i.e., it feels more “grown up” than some other games and adds a sense of intellectualism). Although somewhat dated, a 1999 survey performed by the Interactive Digital Software Association (IDSA) found that “Many entertainment software users are well-educated. Three-quarters (74%) have attended some college, earned a bachelor’s degree, and/or completed postgraduate work (Kelly Anders, “Marketing and Policy Considerations for Violent Video Games,” Journal of Public Policy & Marketing 18.2, 1999, 270). I found this figure fairly interesting because I often associate video games with immaturity, a hobby that people just “grow out of.” I’ll credit the game’s creator(s) then with raising the intellectual bar; whether or not every player understands the Ayn Rand references, I commend the creators’ attempts to incorporate sophisticated philosophy into the game.

Bioshock manages to succeed in evoking a sense of psychological fear and surprise/pop out horror: like the members of the fallen civilization, your character begins to inject himself/genetically alter himself to improve his fighting skills. Although your avatar benefits from these “plasmids,” you, as a player are aware of the fact that you are destroying your self and risking the loss of your sanity.

In one “move,” your avatar is given a blue, glowing ball/orb; as a result of the use of this ball, the avatar’s hand gets covered in pus and eventually sprouts boils/blisters that explode and shoot out pus. It is exceptionally disgusting.

Bioshock also offers some creepy villains. I found the genetically altered young girls who are guarded by large, powerful robots (whom you must defeat to reach the girls) especially disturbing. First off, they almost look like caricatures of little girls: their hair is in pigtails and they wear cute short-sleeved dresses with white aprons. Secondly, if you successfully defeat the robot and get to a girl, you are given the choice of killing her or “saving” her. This repeated moral dilemma demonstrates an attempt on the creators’ parts to add depth to the game: this decision distances Bioshock from other videogames that consist of mindless killing.

Sensory Engagement in Fatal Frame II

Joanne made a previous post about sound in horror games and inspired me. Typically, engagement with the senses in horror games is used as a method of immersion. Flickering lights, pounding heartbeats, controller rumble are all aimed towards a fear-inducing sensory response. The horror atmosphere depends on these cues. The moaning cry of the witch in Left 4 Dead immediately changes the mood of the game (Kent's example in his comments about players going into "witch" mode). The hand-buzzing shake of the controller as a meth-head pummels you mercilessly in Condemned 2 brings reality to the on-screen actions. While suspending disbelief is usually considered a requisite for playing supernatural horror games (saying there's no such thing as ghosts when one strangles you to death doesn't really work), there is no lying to your senses. Sensory engagement makes fear real.

Yet for Fatal Frame II, the sensory cues have a more practical use than just scaring the "bejesus" out of you. FF2 uses conventional horror genre sensory engagements and incorporates them into its combat system. Cues from sight, touch and sound, which normally would be used to scare players, are now used as a method to defeat the game's enemies. Take for example, Mayu's heartbeat. Enemy ghosts are often incredibly difficult to target. They hide inside walls, they constantly shift directions and sometimes they even make decoys of themselves to trick you into attacking the wrong spirit. The sound of Mayu's pounding heart offers a counter-strategy to ghost attack patterns. Mayu's heartbeat works along similar lines as the game "hotter and colder." With each step towards the ghost, the school girl's cardiovascular system goes deeper into overdrive. It also works even when Mayu has her back turned to the ghost. The game uses a filament that turns red whenever Mayu is directly facing a ghost, however because ghosts will often teleport right behind you, the filament isn't always an accurate indicator of an enemy's proximity.

Once you have the direction and location of a ghost, it's time to use the "camera obscura," introducing even more sensory involvement into the combat apparatus. In camera vision, sight, sound and touch become essential to the exorcismal process. Shooting ghosts is all about waiting for the most opportune moment to strike. Knowing exactly when to pull the trigger is a function of the on-screen sensory cues. The capture ring, a circle that gets progressively brighter as Mayu approaches the apparitions, dominates the screen. Intensity builds as you and the ghost in towards each other; light moves clockwise around the ring as it charges attack power. As you move closer and the capture circle starts to charge, the controller shakes in spasms and the screen starts to hum in a menacing purr. When the capture ring reaches full power it will flash reddish-purple in what the game calls a "shutter chance," giving the player an opportunity damage the ghost. While all of this might not sound that scary, the gameplay experience is an entirely different story. Facing the spirits of FF2 is a chilling feat. Your senses are overwhelmed with tension building cues.

But it would make sense that so much of the combat system depends on this sensory overload considering its overall attitude towards fighting style. Combat in FF2 rewards players who are willing to scare themselves silly. The most damage is given to shots called "fatal frames," pictures taken in a split-second where the player can go no closer without getting attacked. Fatal Frame 2 allows sensory engaging horror conventions to exist as part of both gameplay and atmosphere.

You? Kill Me? I don't think so!

As Kent pointed out in an earlier post, horror games usually involve a lot of killing. Splicers, ghosts, zombies, alien zombies, supernatural supersoldiers, I've killed 'em all. Gameplay in horror games usually consists of two things: killing and puzzle solving. However, while dispatching enemies in gruesome ways is the norm, there is one convention that quells itchy trigger fingers: the invincible miniboss. For me, interacting with these characters produces some of the the biggest freak out moments you can come across. Let me provide a few examples:

Dead Space: Das Über-morph
After having your first conversations with the maniacal Dr. Kyne, he sets his ultimate creation, a bio-regenerative necromorph, at your heels. When Kent faced this beast, he went for the traditional method of zombie slaying. Legs and arms were diced, only to be replaced with glistening scythes. Quickly running out of ammunition, Kent became Purina Zombie Chow. Facing this monster head-on isn't an option; fleeing for your life is. For the rest of the chapter you are chased by this lurking horror. No room offers sanctuary; lock the door behind you and he'll follow you through ventilation shafts. Eventually you thwart Kyne's creation by freezing it in a cryochamber, offering a well deserved lull after the twenty minute fleeing spree.

Fatal Frame II: Einstein Ghost and Sae
FF2 has two invincible enemies: a white-haired banshee reminiscent of a certain astrophysicist and a girl wearing a blood-stained kimono. The "camera obscura" does not work against either; both will kill you instantly if they touch you. Again, the only option is flight. However, each of these encounters has its own reason to be additionally frightening. In order to traverse one of the mansions you have to walk through the room with the Einstein ghost. The second time you go through the room, you will have played for around 45 minutes without saving. Having that much progress lost by a single touch from a rotting spectral hand is terrifying in itself. There is weight to your chase through the room; each step is closer to freedom and relief. What makes Sae so scary is that you have to solve puzzles while trying to escape. Running into a locked door while a laughing ghoul limps towards you is suffocating. The sensation of being trapped is tangible as you look for the door key.

Condemned 2: The Grizzly Bear
I'm not particularly sure why, but there is a section of the game where a bear breaks into a building and chases you until you either are tackled and eaten or find a way to kill it. There is no option to fist-fight your way out of it. But running is only half of the solution. You have to lock doors and push objects in front of holes in walls. Covering all points of entry grips you with immersive fear.

There is a common theme among these examples: invincible enemies require an immediate shift in gameplay style. If mowing through enemies is the solution players are most comfortable with, taking that particular method of progression away is a jarring and effective way of eliciting fear. Moreover, running away and being chased reminds players of their own mortality. The weight of every thumbstick movement and button press is magnified. If the fear takes hold, it is difficult to make precise actions (think of all the scenes in horror films when the victim struggles to put a key in a door). Encounters such as these make players lose their cool when direct action is needed most.

From Tin Can To Tank: A Dead Space Story

After my demo yesterday, it became clear to me that Dead Space was not the horrifying experience it once was. My first interaction with the game was a demo called "Dismemberment." The demo begins with Isaac standing in a narrow corridor. He is alone; his pounding heart the only sound. Isaac soon receives a message about combat: shooting "necromorphs" in the head is as useful as a water balloon in a gunfight. "Strategic dismemberment" is the name of the game with these underfed humanoid zombie-type alien creatures. Isaac eventually makes his way to a door that asks, "Open?" He steps through into an open chamber looking into the quiet indifference of space. At this point, I am confident that I can take down whatever the game throws at me. This quickly changes. Before I can even look at my map, three necromorphs charge with lunatic speed. Unfamiliar with the controls, my fingers stumble to find the proper "raise gun" and "shoot" combination. With no target reticle I struggle to line up the three laser sights of my plasma cutter onto zombie flesh. My first shots go wide, ammo is wasted with each panicky pull of my trigger finger. The necromorphs make first blood, swarming around me, slashing mercilessly. I attempt a mêlée attack to get some breathing room: futile. I'm doomed. Health drains from the iridescent notches on my spine like azure ocean water during a fading tide. I die; torn to pieces for the beasts to share.

I play the demo a few more times, each with better results. When I finally beat it, I'm given a wonderful surprise. As I leave the room a scripted event initiates. A huge, tentacled zombie with fangs snatches me and lifts me into its maw headfirst and legs kicking. A gory rainbow of blood and guts splatters on the screen.

It wasn't until I joined this experiment group that I took another trip to the USG Ishimura. Honestly, I was too scared to go back. Dead Space is frightening; for many reasons. Yet, the more I played and the further I progressed through the storyline, the less scared I became. When you first arrive on the vessel, the vastness and the detail of the surroundings are overwhelming. Moreover, you begin the game without a weapon. It is easy to feel like you don't belong in this place. Vulnerability was essential to the purity of my horror. The "plasma cutter" is the first gun you start with and while it may be a powerful weapon when fully upgraded it feels like a peashooter. Each necromorph takes at least three shots to its weak points before it goes down but can take as many as six if your aim is lacking. Couple this with a limited ammo supply and you've got a steady source of tension. Unfamiliarity with the look and feel of the Ishimura also creates a terrifying atmosphere. Even when necromorphs are absent, the cold silent beauty of the ship's rust-hued steel is haunting. It's a lonely place; the halls that once echoed with the dull reverberations of the crew's babel is now devoid of noise except for the hum of machinery and your footsteps. Meetings new enemy types also makes the initial phase of the game unnerving. "Lurkers," "slashers" and "leapers" are just a few of the necromorph variations that you encounter throughout the game. Each requires a slightly different way of targeting their limbs and each has its own attack patterns. They keep you on your toes.

Yet the novelty of these elements and their terrifying effect is transient. The sense of vulnerability that dominated the game's exposition and early rising action is lost. One major component of this loss is the ability to upgrade your items and rig and collect money and ammunition. By the seventh I had a fully upgraded plasma cutter that could kill a necromorph in only two shots, the maximum capacity for health and air and a half-upgraded "contact beam." In addition to this, I had purchased a higher level suit that had increased damage resistance and more item slots. With a vast store of "credits," the in game currency, I never felt like I would run out of health packs or plasma rounds. This effectively made me "invulnerable." While suffering blows from slashes and projectiles still influenced me by making me play defensively at times, the experience wasn't nearly as scary as it once was. Matt discussed earlier in one of his posts that being able to die adds a tangible level of fear to gameplay. I support this claim fully. Being a tank takes the sting off the bite of a zombie. By the time I had reached the end of the game, my damage resistance was so high that it took a zombie that was feasting from my neck over a minute to drain my health to zero. Dying in this instance becomes something more along the lines of funny or pathetic: "You died when you had the 'tank suit' and 'steam punk force gun'?!!!"

Another aspect of the "death of the scary" is that gameplay and exploration can get a bit repetitive. Objectives in the game are always centered on fixing something or getting access to new areas or sending distress calls for help. Even while the game offers exquisite visuals and fair amount of diversity to the settings within the craft, it requires you to do a lot of backtracking. Seeing the same place with slightly different enemies is not enough to spice up the scare factor. Similarly, while there is diversity among the enemy models, there is never really any substantial doubt as how to kill them. Shoot the limbs, or shoot the bright yellow areas (that practically scream "point gun here, dummy!"). Even the boss fights, while visually impressive due to their large scales, don't offer much in terms of originality. If you see a tentacle, it probably is going to hit you or grab you. If you see a propane canister, use telekinesis to chuck it towards the yowling baddy.

This is not to say that Dead Space isn't a blast. It's fun, the controls are tight, the visuals are unbelievable, the sound is rich and diversified and the story lingers with you. Dead Space is a great game, it just stops being the horror fest that it starts off as.

Screens and Screams: Condemned 2 and Dead Space

My postmodern sensibilities take in a television screen represented on my television screen without a moment’s pause. Our contemporary depictions of realistic or fantasy worlds (in games, movies, or any fiction) is inundated with technology: screens, cameras, weapons, computers, phones. The use of in-screen screens in digital games asks questions about our survelliance culture and the existential crisis of digitally mediated lives. In horror games, screens serve to mediate the player’s relationship to danger and vulnerability by removing the three dimensional rendered space and replacing it with an effectively 2-d “break” from the game. These screens are experienced in many manifestations: inventory management abstractions of a backpack or briefcase, diegetic screens like computer monitors or television screens, or cut scenes.
As discussed in my previous posts, the ability of a game to really ‘horrify’ its players is closely tied to the continuinty or discontinuity of gameplay and how that serves to meet or defy gamic expectations. A “pause” moment, whether offered through an inventory screen, a save point, or an embedded ‘diegetic’ moment like the elevator rides of Dead Space, offers the player a moment to collect themselves and to place the scary experience in its unscary context: a watched and controlled screen.
In my short experieince with Condemned 2, my own television screen was prohibitively dark and the brightest object I came across in the game was a static, fuzzy TV screen. TVs are interspersed throughout the game and are used to transmit information to the character. Grab the antennea, adjust until the signal is received, receive message or information. Sometimes it is news of the impending apocalypse, sometimes it is a direct message from the apparent villian. This villanous communication (a puppet or mask-like face on a grainy TV screen) is seen ad infintum in the Saw horror movie series. In Saw, victims awake to a recorded tape or TV screen through which they receive instructions of how to play the “game” of torture they are trapped into. The Saw series also makes use of multiple screens for survelliance, blurring the identity of the cops and villans as both use television screens for survelliance or communication. My drunk avatar’s manipulation of the TV’s bunny ears as I manipulate the avatar through the frame of my own TV could be disquieting, but my familiarity with games, self-referential mediums, and the TV screen as an effect communicator of short-and-fast bits of information mutes any potential existential horror. The ‘commercial’ age, home-growing ADD and ADHD through its 10 second montages, breeds this familiarity with the TV screen as this type of communicator of information.
Dead Space, however, incorporates digital screens within the game in innovative and effective ways. The unbroken gameplay, resulting in part from effective use of in game screens, creates a scarier and stronger experience. In Dead Space, the player can manually rotate the POV of the camera, so that the viewed screen is seen as a holographic three-dimensional plane projected immediately in front of the character. The player is given a subjective shot of what the character might see (an information scene, but not the associated non-diegetic pause of gameplay). The spaceship environment of Dead Space itself contains many in-game screens. There are fuzzy, static, sepia-colored screns that give a dully lit background to the rooms and halls. Lines of unreadable text constantly scroll downwards at different speeds on semi-translucent hallways. A dark character can be seen lurking behind the faux-information screen. Many of the walls are columns of scrolling information, undecipherable “text” that suggests information without providing it. Video Logs or Audio Logs left behind by the long-dead inhabitants are avaliable to the character during moments that act as ‘cut scenes’ or ‘loading scenes’ in the game. For example, the elevator ride is essentially a “load screen;” it serves as a low-intensity wait screen between two areas of gameplay. Keeping the gameplay as seamless as possible and removing the “cut scene” as the only way video is portrayed to the character and player keeps the player engaged, alert, and provides a contiguous enviromental narrative that more fully immerses the player. Dead Space’s weapons shows the amount of ammo left on a number on the gun itself, the spine of your space suit has four glowing meters that describe your health, and additionally the suit has a “stasis” meter, a special ability that powers up much like “mana” or “MP.” This elimination of the need for a heads-up display also changes the player’s interaction with her screen: the flatness of the screen is obscured and challenged by only showing rendered, playable, three dimensional space that the character can always inhabit.
These screens are all familiar, expected, and easily accessed. The “screen-within-a-screen” itself does not impress, but rather the intimacy and disinterest the player experieinces managing, investigating, and ignoring the various frames is characteristic of the relationship between player and screen. When a non-diegetic screen pauses the game, the player is given a moment of safety. Managing resources and reactions in real time are another part of the immersion of Dead Space. The more internal diegetic experieinces (loading, inventory managment, video communication) happens without pause. Condemned 2 and the Saw movie series provide examples of non-innovative use of TV screens within horror games and movies, while Dead Space provides creative solutions that dramatically improve gameplay and the contiguous ‘horrifying’ experience.

Final Post: Affective response in Horror Games.

Sorry for the reverse order...

While this may already be incredibly obvious, playing horror games is a completely different experience than playing any other game genre. After more than an hour of Fatal Frame II or Dead Space, I begin to feel tired, anxious and downright freaked out. Simply put, even if I want to keep playing, I am compelled to stop. My “affective response,” the unquantifiable rush I get from playing these games, causes me to abort play and step away from the gamespace. Yet from my experience as a gamer, this relation between affective response and player is unique to the horror genre. Shooting “grunts” in Halo 3 or doing backflips in Tony Hawk’s ProSkater effect compelling (or even better, propelling) affective responses. These games draw players forward through their diegesis with gameplay and affect working in unison. Contrastingly, in horror titles, gameplay and its associated affect is one that hampers progression through gamespace, forcing individuals to experience the games in episodic, stressful bouts.

According to Eugénie Shinkle, “affective dimensions” cannot “be programmed into a game” but are “nonetheless vital to gameplay” (Shinkle 22). I tend to disagree with this statement, however. I think the affective response in horror games is programmable to gameplay elements. Rather than being merely our “meaningful interaction” with semiotic images (which certainly is a scary experience in its own right), affect in horror games is fundamentally tied to a convention of gameplay elements, specific to the genre.

Let us draw our attention to Halo 3, an action game that (while exhilarating) is not very frightening. Traversing the linear space in H3 is more or less the same as any other FPS. Travel here, kill x enemies of y-type with z weapons until you reach the next checkpoint. Its simplicity is soothing. The gameplay leaves no unanswerable questions. Where is the next checkpoint? You’ll find it after a certain distance. How do I defeat this type of enemy? Keep shooting until it’s dead, and if that does not work, find a weak point in its armor? The simplicity and assuredness of the gameplay draws its players forward feeling confident. Even at the hardest difficulties, where a factor of uncertainty comes in with respect to reaching checkpoints and killing enemies, the gameplay elements remain fundamentally unchanged; death is simply a teaching device for the next attempt.

Now let’s take a look at Fatal Frame II. Playing the game for extended periods takes guts of steel (or a walkthrough and a nightlight); almost every element of its gameplay produces fear and apprehension. Taking the role of a young Japanese girl has a very different feel than that of the Master Chief. Instead of rocket launchers and assault rifles, Mio’s arsenal is limited to the “camera obscura,” a camera with exorcismal power. Fighting ghosts in FF2 is one of the most frightening combat systems in a horror game I have come across. Exorcizing ghosts requires the player to get as close as possible to the spirit without taking damage. Once Mio is rubbing noses with a mutilated spectral remnant, she has a split second to take the picture called a “shutter chance.” If you fail, the ghost will lunge at you, leading to one of several gruesome attack cinematics. The fighting alone is enough to make you drop the controller and turn off the system.

However, there is another form of resistance between gameplay and affect. Certain gameplay elements push you forward through the diegesis, acting against the tidal forces of the “horror” affective response. One example of this is the style of saving in horror games. Horror games such as Dead Space, Fatal Frame II, and the Resident Evil series all use “save stations,” checkpoints that require manually saving your progress at a given time and place in the gamespace. While playing FF2 with some group members, I spent the last quarter of the session just trying to find a save point so that the hour or so of progress since my last save wouldn’t be lost. After being scared out of my wits for an hour, I no longer wanted to play. Yet, the game offered no other alternative but to keep progressing through the plot to find somewhere to save.

From this observation, I believe that horror games develop counter-strategies to aborted gameplay. Manual save stations are just one of these gameplay mechanics to prevent individuals from leaving the gamespace before the diegesis has ended. Without sufficient strategies, players would never complete the game (this has happened with me on more than one occasion). The affective response of horror games is that of paralyzing fear, which peaks at a time when an individual will stop playing the game. This appears to be counter-productive to a business model. Why would people buy games that they are never going to beat, or for that matter, games that prevent people from playing them? The answer is not entirely clear to me, but I believe that it is through motivating gameplay mechanics that horror games can overcome this problem.

Final Post-Joie

Like I too am concerned with what constitutes a horror game. My focus has been only on how interact a games has to be for the person to actually experience any kind of fear. Does the player actually have to be involved in the action or can just watching the action elicit the same kind of fear? While I know some people in have discussed movie watching and game playing I always thought the point of game playing was that the player is not passively watching, but actively engaging. Thus, I want to focus on the idea that there are to types of game play that I have encountered in the horror genre that both want the player to feel fear and be immersed into a setting of fear.

In games such as Fatal Frame there is definately a call to action. If you do not actively pressing buttons then you will die. Thus, the game brings in two elements that they want you to fear: the first being the death of the character and the second are the ghost that you confront in the game play. I have always been interested in the impact on the dying character on the player. Could the creators as a primacy source of fear? Well why not. There was one instance when I was playing a game in a group setting where the group I was playing could not find a way to confront a specific danger. The death was instantaneous and the danger that we were no fronted was a ghost that we had already seen before, either way it became known as the “death room”. We had died more than once, but each time we were presented with the idea of death everyone would get anxious and frightened? What is it about the connection that we have to the character and playing the game that causes people to so connected to the character that they don’t want to die?

The next kind of game play I have experienced was while playing The Path. In this game you are asked to stop any controller movement in order to move on with the game. So where is the fear? In this case the player is not involved in the action like Fatal Fame. The game wants you to be a spectator, but why? My thought is that there is something different about the type of fear the maker wants you to get involved in. in this game there is a message to get across and perhaps if the player is not watching and paying attention then you lose parts of the message. I just wonder what the difference is from a game with a narrative scene? Why not let the player be involved in the action and break up what every going on by adding a small descriptive scene. What is the significance to fear? My thought is that we are dealing with a different type of fear from the gory one of before. I have hinted on this in a previous post, but I think that this kind of fear is deeply embedded in the in our sub conscious. The notion that there are other types of fear is what makes these two games so distinct.

While it may not be a very innovative thought I feel that the horror genre has extended up on what most cinematic horror has to offer. The spectator aspect of The Path and the in action provoking aspect of games like Fatal Frame of Dead Space gives this genre more of a compelling intrigue. It makes a sort of statement that there is more than one way to be afraid. An while games like The Path may seem more cinematic, it offer one thing that movies can not. As the player you gave to actively walk the path. You have to make the choice. This is the same with all game playing. There are choices that have to be made and the world is not just something that happens, rather it is something to be engaged in. Only the player can make that choice.