You walk into a dark room and find three of your friends sitting on the couch. With wide eyes and looks of terror on their faces, they stare at the television as a scene of blood and gore plays out on the screen. Chances are your friends are either a) watching a horror film or b) playing a horror video game. At first glance it could be hard to tell and if this multiple choice was being graded, I’d argue with the professor that we weren’t given enough information to make an educated decision.
Horror films often have more complex plots, but video games also follow narratives that set the scene for game-play, and with continually revolutionizing technology, horror video games have been able to mimic many of the film aspects that make them so terrifying. As in horror films, horror video games rely on eerie music to instill a sense of fear and foreboding in the player. The game-play in most horror games also takes place primarily in dark spaces; at times, the player only sees a black screen and must depend on the flashlight game control to have any light at all. Directors of horror films and horror games incorporate the same theatrical elements to produce the sensation of suspense.
It often seems like the more closely a video game resembles a horror film, the more highly it is praised. In reviews of Left 4 Dead, a horror game released in 2008, the game’s movie-like quality is continually referenced as one of the highlights of the game-play. “It’s almost perfect in how it captures the tension and the action of a Hollywood zombie movie,” claimed IGN and Impulse Gamer wrote, “The game is exactly what so many fans of the zombie horror films have longed for, for so, so long.” Left 4 Dead is often compared to the horror film 28 Days Later because both depict running zombies whereas most zombie films show the shuffling slow stereotype of the zombie.
The designers of Left 4 Dead clearly hoped to lend the video game a movie-like feel; before the start of each campaign, a movie poster flashes on the screen, with the name of the campaign in bold lettering as well as the name of each character and who that characters in played by. But Left 4 Dead is certainly not the only horror video game that tries to emulate a horror film in order to attract a larger fan base. Almost all video games in the horror genre use narrative, music, and lighting- theatrics have been used in horror films for decades- to instill fear in the player. Aside from the atmosphere direction, however, I find it difficult to glean any solid connection between the experience of watching a horror film and the experience of playing a horror video game. Differences outweigh similarities in these productions, and I think attempts to claim that films and videos offer the same experience should be considered invalid.
The most obvious difference between watching a film and playing a game is that watching a film is completely void of the interactive quality that a game offers. Sure, you can scream “There’s someone right behind the shower curtain!” to the unsuspecting victim in Psycho but your warning has no effect. Watching a movie, the viewer can only sit and watch the action unfold, powerless to change the course of events. Video games, on the other hand, are highly interactive. The design of the game keeps the player within a regulated space and action choices can be limited; still, players control every action of their characters. This quality of video games includes the player in the narrative to a fuller extent than a film does. In some ways, this can make horror video games seem more frightening the horror films. The enemy is targeting you personally, you have to make quick decisions before attacks, and you have to choose whether to help a fallen teammate or run for your life. I think that the power having control gives a player, however, makes a horror video game far less frightening than a horror film. Fear often results from vulnerability and while watching movies, we are completely helpless to change the outcome of events. No matter how many times you watch a film, the outcome remains the same, but in video games, the player can encounter different scenarios each time he plays. The main action may remain the same, but a level of uncertainity exists as well.
I also find that the high level of realism in horror movies supersedes a video game’s ability to seem realistic. Even when a horror game’s plot may be more realistic than a film’s, the animation in video games greatly lessens any sense of reality the game may have. In just the past five years, animation in video games has revolutionized to be highly realistic. Nonetheless, a realistic-looking character, even one that the player may have designed in the image of himself, cannot compare to the realism of a real actor playing the role. Most people identify best with other people, and feel more compassion towards other people, thereby making horror films more frightening than video games. At least for me, I am much more distraught when a character in a film dies than when my avatar dies in a video game.
I experience fear while playing a horror video game and while watching a horror film. I know that some gamers may think otherwise, but I find horror films more frightening than video games; however, the point of my argument is not to claim that horror films are more frightening than videos. Instead, my point is that the experience of watching a film is completely different from the experience of playing a video game. Video games and films in the horror genre share some similarities and most horror video games theatrics seem to be based off of those used in horror films. Other than the look of video games and films, however, they really share no similarities, especially considering the experience they create for the viewer or player. While both players and viewers may experience fear, the types of fear are nearly completely unrelated. I feel fear while taking an exam but it is not the same fear I feel while watching a horror film. In fact, the fear I feel taking an exam more closely relates to the fear I feel while playing Left 4 Dead. I am anxious, but at least I experience a sense of control.
Video games may be touted for how well they resemble horror films, but gamers must not assume that they will find a similar experience playing Left 4 Dead compared to watching 28 Days Later. The experiences of these two modes of entertainment are still only distantly related and thus I believed that the comparison of one to the other only detracts from the unique experiences found in each.
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One way in which games often ape the style of a movie is in 'set pieces' or 'scripted events.' I wrote a blog post about scripted events way back nearer the start of the term. Left 4 Dead is particularly big on 'set pieces' in gameplay, and I think this is why the game has been so often cited as a close relative to the zombie movie.
ReplyDeleteHere's what set pieces are all about: In action films, the huge stunt and action sequences, or bits with cool special effects-- essentially, and really pretty, stagey action, designed to be cool and exciting and awesome to watch, and usually involving a tremendous amount of difficult special effects-- are known as set pieces. I don't watch a lot of horror films, so I can't give you ane xample from there, but if you think of the 3-way swordfight from the end of Pirates of the Carribean 2, that's a set piece to end all set pieces-- the intricate fighting, the fighting in the waterwheel while it's turning, the CGI fish-pirates who attack them, etc. It's so complicated a showy that it makes you sit back and go 'wow! that was incredibly intense!'
The way games imitate this is by scripting in-game scenarios, often involving crazy environmental animations or intense action sequences or other cool things that wouldn't normally happen in regular gameplay, at the climax of game storyline or at the toughest part of the game. An example might be the boss-fight on the rising pillar described in that article we read about Prince of Persia. They're 'special', and they're often highly scripted so that the game is really controlling your experience, your ups and downs.
Left 4 Dead's entire game structure is built on copying this movie-esque rising gameplay action. At the end of every campaign, there's a special sequence in which you hold out against hordes of attacking zombies. This is meant to imitate the climactic fight in an action movie. I'm particularly reminded of Shaun of the Dead-- if you've ever seen that movie, there's a scene in the end where the heroes hold out against a ludicrously gigantic zombie attack in a pub. There's showy violence, a lot of constantly-intensifying action, and so on. In fact, what with playing L4D being such a social and entertaining thing, the atmosphere during the final 10 minutes of any L4D game is a lot like the atmosphere during the final 10 minutes of Shaun of the Dead. It's funny, there's shit going down everywhere, and there are more zombies than you can possibly imagine.
L4D is highly conscious of the way they're ripping off this movie trend. The way the game is divided into acts and phases like an action movie, the way the final event is a huge battle in a very carefully-designed arena-like zone, the way each campaign is about exactly as long as an action flick-- if any game is like a movie, it's that one. You didn't feel as if the experience of playing L4D was like a movie, but I certainly did, and the designers wanted you to feel it. I guess you and I focused on different things in the gameplay, though.
EPIC COMMENT LENGTH!!
ReplyDeleteAs Laura was pointing to, horror games provide players with an opportunity to enact conventional tropes that occur in horror films. Chase scenes are one that immediately come to mind. In Condemned 2 an escaped circus bear chases you through a building with lightning speed. In horror films, the protagonist is often saved at the last second by some intervening force. However, in this case the only one who can save you is yourself. Locking doors behind you and running around trying to find a weapon is something you would typically see in a movie like Scream. Now players embody the victim and are allowed to die. In horror films, the death of a lead character often occurs at the very end and is the climax of fear (take for example the ever terrible Final Destination flicks). In horror games, fear is tied to survival (and its failure). L4D makes fun of other zombie movies but at the same time feels a bit watered down. Player death is never particularly gruesome and players can be revived regularly (providing you have a supply of health packs). If players cannot be revived then they will eventually turn up in a random closet somewhere on the level. For me L4D wasn't very scary but it sure was action-packed. If L4D had a movie equivalent it would fall closer to Shaun of the Dead than Night of the Living Dead.