Category Archives: silent hill 2
Fear Part II: A GameSparked Collaboration
The GameSparked Team
Most might be surprised by my choice here, but I really want to talk about Eversion. Eversion is a very short indie platformer released in 2008, and for what it is, it’s probably my favourite example of using contrasting aesthetics to create a sense of dread. This isn’t what I’d call a frightening game by any stretch of the imagination. Nothing’s going to jump out at you and make you recoil in terror. What Eversion tries to do, however, is unnerve the player, and that’s my favourite kind of horror. It doesn’t really create a paralyzing sense of tension in the player’s gut, but the eventual descent from normalcy into this twisted version of the world that lies beneath has an effect on you if you’re willing to let go and get into it.
Dread, anxiety, and a sense of “wrong” are important aspects of fear to me. There aren’t a whole lot of video games that take advantage of these emotions. Those that do are either simple games like Eversion, or they barely scratch the surface with some token “suspense strings” or similar flimsy device that gets punctuated with a jump scare. If I had to pick from one of the two, the first category gets it every time, even if they tend to be a little weak. That is what Eversion is to me, from the moment I first noticed what was happening my first time through all the way until the end.
Nick Mucciarone
I was ten years old when I got my first horror game, Silent Hill 2, and it was absolutely horrifying. I remember at one point in the game your character had to descend through Toluca Prison, which is just a huge series of seemingly bottomless pits. To make matters worse, on the way down you come across a morgue strewn with blood and bodies. Upon seeing this, the only thing your character says is “…Did that just move, or was it my imagination?” At this point, my ten year old self freaks out, and I just mash forward on the controller trying as fast as I can to get out of this area. I later realized that I didn’t see a single enemy on my way through the prison, but it was the fear of the unknown that kept me on edge, a type of cumulative horror that I have not seen since Silent Hill 2.
Blaine Arcade
All of my puppets and props were in place. I’d arranged the stage perfectly: a dark room, fifteen people who thought they were attending a normal party, an Xbox 360, a big screen television displaying the title screen of LIMBO, and an easily frightened female friend holding the controller.
Although it might seem like a stretch to classify LIMBO as a horror game, I can tell you that it sure feels like one when you hear real-life shrieks as the short-legged protagonist scurries away from a giant, lurching, shadowy arachnid. For me this event served to enhance LIMBO‘s qualities in such a way that I was struck by the perfect word for it: haunting. It’s the kind of game where those with weak constitutions will howl in terror, and even those who can withstand its presence are unsettled. The dark colors, the blank faces, the ambient sounds of foot steps and crumbling structures all combine to create an experience that will stick with you in a way that invokes contemplation rather than joy. It’s the intellectual side of horror, metastasised to your brain by the hundred child deaths the game makes you watch, and points out that you were responsible for.
These feelings fade later on in the game (to its detriment) when you move away from the foggy forest and start bouncing off the walls with gravity puzzles, but the memories remain. 2D horror lends itself to the notion of ‘haunted’ games well, as you can always see your character’s environment. With no bad camera angles to worry about, all you’ve got is what’s on the screen and what’s slowly following you, licking it’s sickle teeth. Few games, Lone Survivor is another example, can scare you in two dimensions, but when they do, they stay with you like a dusty portrait whose eyes follow you around the room.
Callum Petch
GameSparked 