Silent Hill 2

2001, Age 19

Though I enjoyed this survival horror game all around, and though I thought Pyramid Head was a delightful monster, there is one very specific memory I have from this game that I learned from.

Sadly, I also find it rather embarrassing, and it definitely ages me.

It was when I first played it, probably at my then annual D&D and Survival Horror Game night with my old high school cronies, and I hadn't played very many Playstation 2 games up to that point.  The opening cutscene brings you in on the main character and ends with him staring into a mirror.  When I first played this, I sat patiently, waiting for the cutscene to continue.  My friend who brought the game had to prompt me that this was gameplay, and I was shocked and somewhat delighted when I moved my character around in what (at the time) I felt was cutscene caliber visuals.

Of course, looking back on it now, the graphics aren't so impressive.  But this stands out to me as the exact moment in my life when I felt the shift of visual fidelity in games, and subsequently the role of cutscenes.  Before, cutscenes were rewards.  They were breaks after long spans of gameplay that you worked for, and relaxed and enjoyed watching the characters rendered like you pictured them in your mind as you played the low-poly versions.  Now since the visual quality is more homogeneous between gameplay and cutscenes, they don't really fulfill that anymore.

Will I ever again experience that startled moment when the game surprises me with visual fidelity?  Who can say!

Fatal Frame

2001, Age 19

A group of high school friends and I had a trend of meeting up for an evening of D&D and then a night of survival horror games. Of all of them, Fatal Frame is by far my favorite. It's a shooting game that doesn't involve guns, and has a great high-risk-high-reward structure (the closer you let the ghost get before snapping the photo, the higher the points!).

It's also a game I am drawn to over and over, and have a tradition of playing each Halloween to attempt to level up enough and conserve enough film to survive the dreaded Last Night (haven't succeeded yet). I think the whole camera leveling structure and having to take good photos is what makes it feel more replayable to me than some other games in the genre, even if it's just the illusion of having some sense of creative control.

Clocktower

2000, Age: 18

My first experience with Clocktower came after a tradition established itself with a group of friends from high school. Every time we'd meet up to play D&D, we'd end the evening with some survival horror game (Silent Hill was the first). I can handle most survival horror. I cannot handle Clocktower.

Jaime, the friend who introduced me to the game, was baffled. The graphics were horrible, Scissorman wasn't THAT scary...how could this game throw me off so much when I was fine with the likes of Silent Hill?

It was two things: the randomness in not knowing when or where Scissorman would appear, and the ABYSMAL controls. This was a first generation playstation game, using point-and-click movement with a d-pad. There was such a disconnect in the controls that it actually worked in favor of the game's scariness.

First, Scissorman shows up randomly, so I'm already on edge, and then when he DOES show up, it's nine levels of panic just trying to get your damned character out of the room and to a safe place. It doesn't matter that Scissorman lumbers more slowly than an old school zombie because half the time you end up accidentally moving TOWARDS him in the panic to try and get away!

Limitations serve the game no better than in survival horror, I think

Friday the 13th

1989, Age 7

The biggest takeaway from this game was a simple use of sound design. When you were out wandering the park, and Jason was nearby, there was a little discordant tone that would play.

It was jarring and unsettling, and gave me my first feeling of sound-induced stress in a video game, which I don't think I experienced again until the radio in Silent Hill.

Silent Hill

1999, Age 17

My first experience in the horror game genre, this game was a joint effort between my brother and I. I loved it because it was not about shooting zombies, it was about solving puzzles. Nevertheless, it would have been nothing without its horrific setting. I suppose it's a nod back to my Perfection entry that my brother and I take a certain joy in having the bejeesus scared out of us.