EXPLHORROR 2

Welcome back to our second segment of Explhorror. Where we have been expl-goring the subtleties of interactive horror and what leaves us thirsty for more. This round is all about atmosphere, sound design and how the marriage of the two is of the two devices willlive happily ever after. These days maybe not, divorce is rampant after all, enjoy it while it lasts i say.

This badass collaboration by OGRE and Dallas does in fact kick balls! Just released today! Click here or the image above for some 80's inspired Halloween sound treats. 

Stories  are ancient things, tattooed into every culture, transcending generations. If you spend enough time with one it could betray you, reveal mysteries or uncover personal insights. Essentially they are experiences as elaborate as we choose them to be and everyone has one of their own. They can find there way into places you didn't want to see them and alter themselves to fit anyones purposes. They attach themselves to every object we've ever had and every person we've ever met. A story is as powerful as the medium wielding it. Strangely, and for some reason the Horror videogame genre tends to spend its energy on all the devices surrounding a story and not the story itself.

It didn't use to be this way, Frankenstein was a thinking mans (or womans) macabre tale of creation, loss and expectation. These days it more like "Hey Sidney...what's you favorite scary movie?' A group of survivors are left stranded in the outskirts of Raccoon City and happen upon an old seemingly well kept,  mansion. A father visits a small foggy town with his daughter only to find her kidnapped moments after they arrive. An archeologist finds a strange and powerful object in a middle eastern cave and goes crazy. Even the discriptions share moody settings.The stories themselves are typically an after though to the visual and auditory spectacle that's attached to them. Usually its a 'find the person' or 'get out of the place' or 'find the object to find the person to get out of the place'

In a great Horror game the atmosphere itself takes its own character. The sound fills all the hollow spaces the mood cant account for and boom. You've just pood yourself in the dark and have no real tactical way to the bathroom. Suprise muthafucker!

Great game atmosphere had not really been that exciting at the time i was in film school 15 years ago. The fog in silent hill was the best example.It was during those idle days in Cinematography class that i really began to understand mood, atmosphere and how important it is to get it right. Mostly it was just pumping fog into the woods or wherever it is you happened to be shooting your next scene.  The fog would fill in all the dead spaces and soak up the light and diffuse it beautifully. Very effective. Good to know. Atmosphere= fog.

Metro 2033 should go down in the history books. This game has Snarf potential. Snarf is an uncommonly used verb (mostly by myself and maybe one other guy) used to describe any bodily discharge of any kind. If i said 'Metro made me Snarf all over my lap and mechanical keyboard' that could mean puke, pee, spit, poop or other. So i Snarfed many times during my play-through because it was so damn convincing. It could be assumed that graphical muscle has caught up to our imaginations. This game is incredible. I have friends who just say 'nope' to that game. They can't handle the oppressive atmosphere in tandem with the growling mutant sounds echoing down the tunnels. At this point the best thing to do here is just demonstrate. 

Another excellent example of great mood is the Resident Evil Remake for the Game Cube in 2002 and it will still blow your dick off. It looks marvellous.

Arguably the most important aspect of anything scary is the sound of the thing. When i'm reliving some terrifying moment  for the 12th time in a row i take off my headphones to concentrate. Its just pure nightmare fuel to have the failed moment be relived over and over until its beaten.  Its hard as hell  not to let the groaning, choffing, slimy noise distract me from the challenge itself. So my reaction is to disassociate with the moment in order to complete the task. Life lessons. Disassociate when times get tough. Being scared as fuck is also another technical term i might use here.

The best sound design should scare you. It should suggest badness is around the corner, it should use your own imagination against you then Snarf on it.  All the layered modulation, and distorted sounds are extremely necessary to achieve full immersion. The chainsaw man in Resident Evil 4 is tattooed into many gamers brains. When i hear a tree being cut down i cant help but think of the trauma the audio cue has caused me. The Ying Ying Ying revving of a saw motor behind me now jacks me up into overdrive. Fight or flight they say and in a game either is acceptable but not always available. 

Suprisingly many videogame sound designers create their own sounds from scratch for each game they work on. If a sound bite is required for a character digging up something they will do a sound recording for it. If it happens again weeks later for another game they will re-record a separate individual take of that sound again..

Happy Friday all. Here's a few more fantastic audio examples from Dead Space. My dog hates me right now.

DERAILING THE HYPE TRAIN

IGN First Look has been periodically posting delicious gameplay nuggets of the hotly anticipated No Man’s Sky, and while many have been wary to embrace the excitement for a procedurally generated, galaxy-scale open world exploration game (by the makers of cute little stuntman series Joe Danger), these gameplay trailers remove most doubts. At one point during the demo, the playtester lands his ship on a planet’s surface, but falls a few feet as he gets out. He turns around to see the ship has awkwardly landed directly on top of a small structure. Laughing awkwardly, game director Sean Murray says “That’s never happened before.”

Unexpected possibilities? Hype confirmed.

The hype cycle. I built my house on that nice-looking mountain to the left.

Due to their addictive nature and the growing magnitude and reach of the industry, video game releases are characterized by massive fan-hype, even more-so than in film. Gamers always look forward with great excitement to the next big thing. In some cases, gamers can be as responsible for a given hype wagon as the developers are guilty of embellishing the product. And publishers fuel that excitement with unfulfilled promises -- Aliens: Colonial Marines is a recent example. Touted features turn out to be pedantic, flawed, or simply absent. I think people have been disappointed by hype enough times that they must always question the implications of the so-called “gameplay trailer”, which more often than not are simply cinematic sequences shot to look as if they were taking place from the player’s point of view. We've essentially been trained to activate our 'bullshit detector' and question any hint of excitement for a very real possibility of betrayal. Due to the immersion and interactivity; videogames are experienced using a whole gamut of devices, the hype-cycle is fundamentally different from other forms of media. Reading a preview chapter of the next book in a series could never really be called hype, because it tends to be a literal, direct sample of the upcoming product. Movie trailers are cherry-picked, concentrated doses of the film to convey the attitude, actors, and themes to look forward to in the upcoming film. They can exaggerate or downplay parts of the full-length feature and even downright spoil the plot - but as a general rule a trailer shows us what we will eventually see.

Game-hype seems to be completely different. In this modern age of early access, public beta, season passes, and DLC, game trailers usually depict something only vaguely related to what ultimately ships. But gamers are beginning to catch on. A prime example, as most of us know, was the reveal trailer of Watchdogs all those years ago at E3. More disappointing than the graphical comparisons were the minute details that made the game seemingly next-gen. Ducking behind a car door and opening it to let out the innocent bystander caught in a crossfire was a fantastic idea. There was even an audible "get out, stay low"  heard by the games 'protagonist.' Car tires popped and other civilians would help each other out of wrecked cars asking "are you ok? are you hurt...talk to me!?" When the game was released our expectations were erased completely. A new lesson began permeating, finally, into our conscious minds. 'Don't get excited for anything anymore...become an adult, get cynical about anything promised by any entertainment company. This is the way of things, I understand what it is to be an adult now." This was the beginning of Evadegismos ban on all pre-sale activities and the epitaph of our personal hype train.

A lie could also be disguised as a lush cinematic, the worst offender being the first Dead Island game. The trailer is in itself, such a work of art, so emotionally compelling, so inspired, that the run-of-the-mill zombie slaughterfest that ensued in the game itself seemed much, much worse by contrast. I think when games marketing takes its cues from other media, namely film, it tends to flop. What you are hyping when you’re selling a movie is drama and spectacle and quips and climactic moments. I don’t think these aesthetics are at the forefront of most gameplay experience. Of course narrative is important in any form of storytelling but game trailers should focus on the user interface, the gameplay mechanics, customization options, and character designs. Story-driven games should be held up more fully by the product itself than by all the window-dressings that are fluffed up on top to make it sale-able.

What's the image matter if the taste is the same !?

Anyway, so far in its pre-existent… existence, No Man’s Sky has graduated from hype for the idea, to hype for the real, hands-on gameplay. While this holds promise, it has raised my expectations high enough that I stand to be enormously disappointed. I want this game to push the boundaries of what games can be. I want  it to redefine the concept of a shared, open world. If nothing else, this particular thread of hype has shown me what it is that I went in new and exciting video games. Perhaps hype can be used as a metric of gamer values.

Elsewhere on Evadegismos current hype list sits The Division, in the conceptual vein of Last of Us but with a greater emphasis on tactics than resource management. Early gameplay demos look a little too polished, with their sexy-sparse interface and incredible environment details, like intractable car doors, poppable car tires (yet again), and dynamic weather patterns. But one thing that Division’s hype campaign shares with No Man’s Sky is a certain emphasis on the development process. As first world culture gradually gravitates towards a preferences for artisanal, handcrafted quality in food, clothing, and decor, we become connoisseurs not only of fine products, but of production processes. We like to brag about where things come from and how they’re made, and this sensitivity seems to have reached the gaming industry as well. Sean Murray describes his perception of gameplay footage -- he sees the procedurally generated terrain for what it really is: a sprawling math equation. Meanwhile the second chunk of the Division trailer boasts the power of their custom-designed Snowdrop engine, and the loose corporate structure of the production company.

Games nowadays are made by people. Sometimes just a handful of exceptionally talented ones; they’re crafted. Maybe this new emphasis on design could prevent future hype trains from crashing so gruesomely. Despite a history of disappointment there is a faint hope always purring away in our imaginations. We all want to buy a train ticket heading for paradise with all of our friends on board, hopefully we get there in one piece.