SILENT HILL : THE ROOM : LA FAMILIARITÉ COMME SOURCE DE L’HORREUR

Je viens de terminer ma première traversée du jeu Silent Hill : The Room (Xbox, 2004) et je suis frustré. Oui, frustré puisque depuis quelques temps déjà j’accumulais dans un recoin de ma pensée des notes concernant mon jeu vidéo d’horreur idéal, et The Room me vole plusieurs de ces idées (peut-on vraiment prétendre qu’il me les vole? J’ai simplement ignoré ce jeu pendant un trop grand nombre d’années avant d’y jouer!). Hors, ce fut un grand plaisir de voir ces idées réalisées, quelques-unes même poussées plus loin que je ne les avais déjà formulé dans mon esprit.

The 1.5 sequel

Economics regulate many aspects of our lives, and videogames are no exception. The more our consoles are getting closer to picture-perfect photo-realism, the higher the cost of producing a videogame. This is especially true when it comes to AAA titles, and although indie games can get away with simpler or more ‘artistic’ or abstract graphics, everyone has to at least meet the HD standards expected of today’s games.

But I do not want to rant about graphics today, that’ll have to wait for another time. In fact, my point is simply to underline a sad new reality in the videogame business: making a game is costly, very much so that games now come out unfinished, so they can turn in some profit. Any new game is kind of offered at first in a 0.9 version, left opened, with a lot of loose ends. That makes their inevitable sequels the real, full games. Instead of being a ‘2’ at the end of the title to signify the sequel, such games should have a ‘1.5’.

Immersion through characterization, characterization through the mundane

There is a trend that’s been going on for years in modern videogaming, and it’s the whole moral choices structure of games. Seems like every game now has to have a duality system integrated where you can act either like a saint or a total douche. It’s all part of an effort to customize, individualize the gaming experience to every player. We live in a society where nowadays every little thing tries to convince you they’ve been made for you; through its name, YouTube wishes to remind you that its yours, and Apple, with its iPad and iPod and iEverything, even by-passes the need to tell you by simply implying through their names the devices are already yours. But let me plead for the contrary.

Incorporating a theme into a game

Since videogame narrative is still (mainly) taking its cues from its bigger brother, cinema, a lot of stories are built around the same techniques as a movie scenario. Thus, it is common to hear game directors or creators using the lexicon of the seventh art. I observed a trend over the last few months of game directors discussing the elements of their works and justifying them through the concept of theme.

A theme, much like in cinema, is the idea, or message, underlying the work, presented through motifs such as characters and their actions, sets, color schemes, dialogues, etc. Even the smallest detail can draw from (and to) the theme. Some of the grandest works of art had a theme and incorporated it cleverly, creating some sort of interaction, whereas symbols and references create a network of signification that adds to the effect the work has on the viewing public.
Now, games can, and do, have themes. For example, Bioshock is a game about power and manipulation, and the many enemies citing the Bible seconds before attacking the player is a reference to religion, one of many references to a form of power and manipulation the game contains. Games being an interactive medium, they can incorporate themes in their mechanics in ways cinema cannot. A game mechanic can be modified to add an echo to what the game is about, and this can be done seamlessly, or it can be forced upon the player.

Rehabilitating High Score

In this two-part piece, I’ll share some recent thoughts about the long-forgotten concept of high scores (well, at least forgotten to my personal gaming experience) and how it strangely crept back in my games and how we could give it a much needed facelift.


Residents of the spookhouse (which would be the name we gave our humble dwelling) went through a revival of old classics in the past few weeks. I never played Galaga in my younger years yet, the girlfriend and the roommate started playing like crazy on the Wii virtual console. The Turbografix version, titled Galaga ’90 ,offers some basic diagram of your progress through the levels on the game over screen, but otherwise the game itself (or the original Galaga), much like about all other games of its time, just wants a high score because it is conceived in such a way that you can’t beat it. When you score high enough, your name can be entered in the list of best scores which can be seen in attract mode.


So high score here means two things: it marks progress and gives bragging rights. You couldn’t possibly have scored that high if you hadn’t survived this long in the game, scraping for more time to score points. Also, whoever watches the high score list and sees your initials knows you mean business and can aspire to beat that score, possibly stealing your bragging rights, creating some sense of challenge out of static numbers.

Red Dead Redemption and the masculine identity

Might as well start with a very clear warning on that one, Zach.

*** SEVERE SPOILER ALERT***

I just finished playing through the single player campaign of Red Dead Revolver (Xbox 360), and I'm man enough to say I wept.

Which is admittedly a strange thing to do in a game that is all about being a man. I held my mouth with one hand, battling with a weird shame inside of my mind, as John Marston fell on his knees, riddled with bullets from federal agents and army men, a dead man looking at his executioners.

Fact is, real men don't cry, or so it is believed. The whole game is indeed about masculine identity and men struggling to find their own, so I guess I'm in the crux of it. During his lengthy travels, Marston meets a few men lost in their own struggle for masculinity. Abraham Reyes hides his manly desires behind his role as a rebel-leader doubled as an artist. Bill Williamson finally found a band of thieves stupider than he is so they can be scared of him, which was not the case in his old days with the gang, where he was the omega male, as recalled by Abigail Marston.

The father figure, Dutch, (note the character model which sports a fatherly mustache, and the fact that the protagonist cannot, in the end, commit patricide), lost his way, leaving little for John to become when his time comes to play father. And that's when the game becomes really fascinating.

Refrain from using the Power or Reset buttons.

It would seem I neglected this blog long enough, it's time to get back to it. I want to document my thoughts on gaming, especially since I've been gaming quite hardcore these past few weeks.

Also, note the change in language. Yeah, I figured since all the video game blogs I read are in english, I might as well start writing in english, so I can get some more readers on board and start having a real discussion, which is what this blog will, hopefully, be about. And I doubt it'll alienate any french gamer I might have had reading this thing.

So let's reboot that baby, shall we?