Last October, I wrote a post looking at my top 5 most-anticipated survival horror games. Two of the games from my list, the Resident Evil HD Remaster and Alien: Isolation, have already been released. Fatal Frame V has been confirmed for localization, Routine is (as far as I know), still happening, and that just leaves my #1 upcoming survival horror game, Silent Hills…
…and it isn’t good.
The new Silent Hill game was supposed to be a collaboration between Hideo Kojima, Guillermo del Toro, and Norman Reedus. It was revealed through P.T., a teaser disguised as an indie horror game. Players who tried P.T. have described it as one of the most terrifying experiences ever (if, like me, you haven’t played it, you might want to head over to the PlayStation Store to link it to your PSN account before it disappears on April 29) and it increased the hype surrounding Silent Hills.
Sure, some fans had doubts, particularly with P.T.’s first-person perspective and the controversial receptions of recent Silent Hill games, but most people had high hopes for Silent Hills.
However, you might have heard about the recent trouble surrounding Kojima and Konami, which included the Kojima Productions logo being removed from the Silent Hills website. There have been a lot of rumors, but it seems certain that Kojima is leaving Konami after Metal Gear Solid V is complete. MGS fans have their own worries about that, and the news left a lot of people asking, “What’s going to happen to Silent Hills?”
A disappointing answer surfaced yesterday, with the report that Guillermo del Toro said the project was cancelled.
Right on the heels of that news, Norman Reedus expressed his disappointment.
Konami says the Silent Hill series itself will continue on, but confirmed to Kotaku that the “Silent Hills” dream-team collaboration has been cancelled.
So now we’re right back where we were prior to P.T.’s release. Where will the Silent Hill series go from here?
It’s been a long time since I started playing Alien: Isolation. I liked it immediately, but a personal hiatus from horror caused a massive delay. Now, at last, I’ve beaten it… and I can say without hesitation that every survival horror fan should give Alien: Isolation a try.
For fans of the original Alien movie, Alien: Isolation is a tribute at its finest. Instead of feeling like fanservice or a successor in name only, it captures the tone and aesthetics of the film with startling attention to detail.
When it comes to survival horror, Alien: Isolation provides a modern spin on classic mechanics. Unlike modern survival horror games like Amnesia and Slender, you don’t play a helpless protagonist. You have weapons, and you can fight–but pick your fights wisely, because you’re far from a powerhouse and too much noise could attract the Alien’s attention. It brings back the fight-or-flight elements many horror games have lacked lately. Locked doors, backtracking (oh, it feels so good to return to an older area and see a locked door you now have the means to open), minor puzzles, and scattered notes to help tell Sevastopol Station’s story all revive the mechanics of classic survival horror without feeling dated.
And what Alien: Isolation accomplishes best of all is instilling a persistent sense of dread and tension. Maybe it isn’t the scariest game. Something like Amnesia (or Justine) might have it beat for brief moments of sheer terror. But if you want a game that will gnaw at you, leave you feeling anxious and unsafe, and torment you with quiet, unrelenting dread, Alien: Isolation is the one for you.
The Alien, the xenomorph itself, is the same sort of menacing presence from the original film. It can kill you in one hit, don’t even think about running from it, and its ability to travel through the space station’s vents means it can get around very quickly and pop up just about anywhere.
You’ll spend a lot of time hiding, sneaking, watching your motion tracker (but be careful the noise doesn’t attract it!), and possibly using distractions, but if you try the same trick too many times, the Alien will eventually catch on. Yeah, it’s smart. Just what you wanted to hear, right? Conventional weapons don’t work on it… molotov cocktails and the eventual flamethrower will make it back off, but only for a short period of time. Everything about the Alien is designed to make you feel vulnerable and paranoid.
I mentioned combat earlier, and that’s because the Alien isn’t your only enemy. Many other human survivors are hostile, and Sevastopol’s resident androids, the Working Joes, are out to politely kill you. They’re also deliberately in the Uncanny Valley.
A lot of the Joes’ dialogue falls somewhere between black humor and pure nightmare fuel. As they calmly say, “You are becoming hysterical” while throttling you or remind you of proper safety protocols while hunting you down, they remind me of the Taken’s bizarre lines in Alan Wake… but much more sinister. As I crawled into a vent and listened to the android outside tell me how patient he is, I was almost as tense as if the Alien was after me.
Almost. At least Working Joes can be killed, if not easily.
In addition to standard weapons, Alien: Isolation has a crafting system. I devoted most of my crafting resources to making medkits, molotov cocktails, and EMP mines, because my lack of stealth skills made it easier for me to risk taking damage than to try to use distractions. Still, the number of craftable items means you can approach different situations in a variety of ways.
So the gameplay is brilliant survival horror and the atmosphere is perfect… what about the story?
As a standalone experience, Alien: Isolation doesn’t have the strongest storytelling. You play as Amanda Ripley, who goes to Sevastopol Station after it obtains the Nostromo’s flight recorder. Her search for her mother is the game’s premise, but even that is overshadowed by the survival story. As a sequel to Alien, however, the story’s little touches and shout-outs make it more notable, but the plot still isn’t its strong point. None of the characters were particularly memorable aside from Amanda’s sheer will to survive, but all the same, it has some moments that resonated with me.
Click for spoiler
For example, I actually felt pretty sad when Samuels died.
Now, one of the biggest complaints about Alien: Isolation is that it drags on a bit. That, I have to agree with. Near the end, its plot twists started to feel less like plot twists and more like forced setbacks to make the game go on longer, which was a little aggravating. I don’t think it should have been much shorter, but a couple of the final chapters could probably have been cut to the game’s benefit.
Even so, this was a great experience and I’m happy I played it. It’s one of the most enjoyable survival horror games I’ve played in a while, and I’d love to see The Creative Assembly explore the genre further. If you’re a survival horror fan looking for a new game that lives up to the classics, I have no qualms about recommending Alien: Isolation.
Classic survival horror can be terrifying, tense, and brilliant.
It also can be very silly.
Silent Hill is probably one of the best examples of this bizarre contrast. While the series is steeped in dark imagery and psychological horror, its puzzles get a little weird. The supernatural elements explain some of them–if the world of the first Silent Hill is influenced by Alessa’s mind, for example, it makes sense that things significant to her will unlock doors–but even outside of the symbolic riddles, things are strange.
Just try to imagine one of Silent Hill 2‘s notoriously weird puzzles from a real-world perspective, rather than the context of a video game. As you’re exploring an apartment building, you happen to find a package of canned juice. Why on Earth would you pick it up, carry it upstairs, and toss it into the garbage chute? I mean, it’s great that doing so knocks an item you need for a puzzle down into the street… but why would you think to do that???
This is a can of light bulbs. A CAN of LIGHT BULBS.
The sheer number of broken doors in Silent Hill have led to running jokes in the fandom about the town’s desperate need for a locksmith, and of course, Silent Hill 2 believes light bulbs come in a can.
Classic Resident Evil, meanwhile, doesn’t descend to the same levels of weirdness, but it doesn’t have the supernatural angle to justify its puzzles, either. Hand-waving it by saying the designer was insane only goes so far. Just think about the amount of work the average citizen of Raccoon City–or worse, a servant in the Spencer Mansion–has to do to get from one place to another.
I have a slight reference to this in my horror/comedy novella The Accidental Zombie, when George draws on his video game knowledge to deal with a zombie apocalypse and suggests they should have been picking up random objects in case they need them to unlock doors.
I also hope to one day write a parody about some poor businessman who can’t get into his office each morning until he finds a specific book, uses the medallion inside to open a closet where he’ll find the key to the basement, goes to the basement and solves a riddle…
More recent survival horror games, like Alien: Isolation (which I’m close to finishing at last) have attempted a more realistic approach to survival horror mechanics with more environmental puzzles–upgrading a plasma torch to get through different types of doors, for example.
Now, I love Alien: Isolation and its approach to survival horror. It’s fantastic. But still… there’s something to be said for those older, sillier puzzles.
What are some of your favorite bits of absurdity from the survival horror genre?
