Silent Hill 3

Do dead gods stink? Imagine if you can Throbbing Gristle’s 1978 song “Hamburger Lady” reincarnated in 2003 as a Playstation 2 video game. Picture that and you begin to step into the unrelentingly grim world of Silent Hill 3.

God is slowly dying in the womb and desperately wants to be born into the world. A debased pagan cult dreams of midwifing this profane birth and has selected Heather Mason to be the sacrificial vessel. Although Heather is a normal teenager, there are hints that her childhood may be darker than she remembers. Playing Silent Hill 3 casts you in the role of Heather as she struggles to discover the truth about her past and prevent the apocalyptic “rebirth of Paradise.”

Along the way you will explore the multilayered Bardo that is Silent Hill 3. Demoniac entities press close and the few people that you encounter may be devils with human masks. It is a lonely and menacing landscape that follows the confusing logic of nightmare. Maze-like halls shift and decay. A sepulchral air of terminal illness and charnel house gloom clings to everything. The visuals of Silent Hill 3 are an uneasy pairing of occult symbolism with the Lustmord fantasies of the criminally insane. Dried blood lit by sodium vapor is the dominate color palette. A subtle wash of digital noise gives images the grainy appearance of 16 mm atrocity footage.

The soundtrack by composer and sound designer Akira Yamaoka is alternately bracing and lush. Yamaoka uses guitar and electronics to create a sound that seems to crossbreed Glenn Branca with Angelo Badalamente. He eschews the usual creaking and groaning of spook houses and instead fills Silent Hill 3 with vast sheets of sound that suggest air raid sirens, background radiation, or the quiet hum of a dialysis machine. As a special treat, Konami has included a soundtrack CD with the game.

Isolation, madness, and disease. The loss of everything we love in an aneurysm of violence. For some it may be surprising to see these anxieties portrayed in a video game. However, Silent Hill 3 shows that game designers have the vocabulary and the technology to simulate the darkest rivers of our souls.

Sony Playstation 2
Konami
2003

game review by J.B. Fleming, 2003
Previously published in Cemetery Dance magazine, issue # 47, 2003. An extended version of this review can be found here.

Ico

Ico is Sony’s nod to the Art House. It is a game that is small, quiet, and thoughtful. It has a distinctive visual style and a haunting soundtrack. It is suffused with a feeling of loss. Ico probably has nothing to offer children.

Ico begins as a young boy is locked away inside an enormous, empty castle. The only other occupants are the spirits of previous children who were also sent to the castle to be sacrificed to its mysterious Black Queen. In his attempt to escape, the boy meets a strange, otherworldly girl named Yorda whom he must rescue. Leading this girl through the jumbled and hazardous maze of the castle is the focus of the game. Each area is a complicated puzzle and getting Yorda safely from one point to another is never simple as the castle’s spirits intermittently attempt to snatch the girl away.

The setting of Ico is distinctive and amazingly real. The castle has a complex architecture which is richly textured with rust, overgrown weeds, and moss. Mervyn Peake’s Gormenghast came to mind as I clambered to the top of a spire and looked out across a vast and crumbling ruin. Pools of warm light gathered between the shadows and an autumn breeze rustled through the trees in a lonely and decayed landscape. The music was minimal and eerie, usually taking a back seat to the sounds of the environment. Wind on water and the creak of old wood provided most of the soundtrack for my strange journey.

One small moment stands out in my mind after playing. In the past, console hardware limitations have restricted a game character’s ability to interact with the environment and game design has out of necessity fixed the number of actions that a player can take while “on stage”. Early in the game I entered an area that contained a broken down windmill surrounded by a shallow pond. I walked up to the edge of the pond and without paying attention fell in and began dog-paddling about. This was startling because I was so accustomed to the “stage scenery” aspect of game design that it never occurred to me that the pond might anything more than a pretty set decoration. Suddenly, the power of the Playstation 2 hardware sets me free and I can move about and interact within a real space.

Although the game can be completed in about 10 hours and contains no secrets that might give it replay value, mature players will be very satisfied with its note-perfect ending. It is a game that lingers in the mind like an Andrei Tarkovsky or a Terence Malick film. Ico has the quiet grace of a fairy tale told in the old style.

Sony Playstation 2
SCEA/SCEI
2001

game review by Jeffrey Fleming, 2001

Fatal Frame

Fatal Frame is a suffocating, feverish nightmare of a game. Employing a mix of jump-out-of-your-seat frights and an atmosphere of oppressive, cold dread, Fatal Frame is relentlessly tormenting.

Armed only with a camera and trapped in a haunted Japanese mansion, you must uncover the house’s morbid secret and put to rest the dense ecology of spirits that dwell within. Inside Himuro mansion, no place is safe, morning never comes, and you are completely alone in the inky darkness. Finishing the game brings the same feeling of relief that comes after waking from an awful nightmare and realizing that it was, after all, just a dream.

On the surface, game play and control stick fairly close to survival horror standards. Exploration is from a third person point of view and during ghost encounters you switch to a first person view through the camera lens finder. Combat with the spooks involves capturing their soul energy on film by snapping a picture. There are also numerous puzzles and strange secrets to decipher although none of these are terribly difficult to solve. Unfortunately, like so many other survival horror games, Fatal Frame will run you around a great deal and many locations in the mansion are visited more than once.

Where Fatal Frame completely succeeds is in capturing the claustrophobic and confusing logic of nightmares. Nameless things lurk just out of sight in the sepia toned gloom of the decaying mansion. Long hallways echo with disembodied voices and demonic whispering. In the background, music suitable for the charnel house or ritual murder pulses quietly. Just as western works of horror frequently twist Christian images for scary effect, the Buddhist and Shinto background of Fatal Frame provides a deep well of unsettling and macabre imagery. The ghosts are grotesquely deformed souls that will gnaw at the edges of you sanity. Fatal Frame is a game suffused with creeping menace and panicked fear.

Sony Playstation 2
Tecmo
2002

game review by Jeffrey Fleming, 2002

Shadow Hearts

Shadow Hearts is an under appreciated gem that in certain areas represents a high water mark for console role-playing games. Directed by Izumi Hamamoto and released in 2001 to little fan fare, Shadow Hearts was hampered by a generic title (re: Shadow of Destiny, Dual Hearts, Kingdom Hearts, Okage: Shadow King, etc.), and lost in the shadow (pun intended) of Squaresoft’s Final Fantasy juggernaut. However, for the aficionados who made the effort to seek it out, Shadow Hearts delivered game play that the bigger budget and better marketed titles could not touch.

Shadow Heart’s developer, Sacnoth, got off to a rough start when they released their first game; Koudelka in 1999. It was a poorly received hybrid of survival horror and traditional RPG that stumbled badly. While Koudelka made a laudable attempt at presenting a mature and thoughtful story, it was saddled with a game system that was tedious in the extreme. I imagine that even the most masochistic players would give up before the end. Happily, Sacnoth took a good look at the mistakes of Koudelka and responded with a game that is improved in every way.

While not a direct sequel, the story of Shadow Hearts is related to Koudelka and shares certain characters and settings. Taking place in China and Europe, shortly before World War One, Shadow Hearts tells a story of powerful warlocks summoning godlike entities from beyond time and space in an effort to control the world. Only a spirited band of ragtag adventurers stand in the way. The fast paced game swings wildly between the cosmic horror of H.P. Lovecraft and the exuberant goofiness of Big Trouble in Little China. Although Shadow Hearts should not be read as a history lesson, its 20th century setting and awareness of history is a refreshing change for RPG’s. The acknowledgment of Imperial Japan’s abuses in China is also notable, particularly coming from a Japanese developer. Towards the end, the narrative looses some steam as it becomes weighed down by a succession of false endings and a profusion of characters and villains, many with under written motives. The scenario written by Matsuzo Itakura seems to really pile it on for the last third of the game when it may have been better to cut some material and tell a short but tightly focused tale.

Graphically, the game is attractive without being showy. It sticks close to the  formula long established by Final Fantasy VII of using three dimensional polygon characters and moving them around lavishly rendered two dimensional backgrounds. Character designs by Miyako Kato are large, vibrant and well animated. Adding to the game’s feverish spook house mood are some extremely surreal monsters to fight against. During combat, the special effects are vivid bursts of light and color. Although, like its progenitor Final Fantasy, the animations sometimes take a bit too long to play out. The asian themed soundtrack by Yoshitaka Hirota and Yasunori Mitsuda is excellent, sometimes rocking and sometimes delicate, but never boring

Looking at it over someone’s shoulder, Shadow Hearts might appear to be a pretty standard issue RPG. However, with controller in hand it is quickly apparent that something fresh and exciting is going on. First and foremost Shadow Hearts is a game to be played; something that many other RPG’s forget. It is in play that this game really shines.

To keep things fun, Sacnoth designed Shadow Hearts around a central game play metaphor called the Judgment Ring. This is used mostly during the turn based combat but extends to other areas of the game as well. Any action that you may take such as striking an enemy, casting a spell, or using an item requires a spin of the Judgment Ring. This involves making a series of timed button presses as a cursor swings around the ring. The speed of the cursor can vary as well as the number and spacing of the button presses. As your technique improves it is possible to effect more favorable outcomes by hitting the button at precise moments. This simple game mechanic creates a situation in which even the most minor interaction requires attention and skill. Combat is no longer the drudge work that many RPG’s make it out to be. Instead, it becomes a fast paced and exciting challenge. Other games such as Final Fantasy VIII and Legend of Dragoon have toyed with this idea but it has always appeared tacked on and has added little to the experience. Although Shadow Hearts is not an overly difficult game, the Judgment Ring brings an element of risk to every encounter. If your mind wanders during combat and you begin to fumble, a low level monster can easily eat your lunch. With Shadow Hearts, timed button presses are at the heart of the game and everything has been designed out from that. Even the frequently dry book keeping tasks of purchasing items and upgrading equipment are enlivened by the Judgment Ring as you angle for discounts and prizes. Making a perfect swing on the Judgment Ring brings a great feeling of satisfaction, knowing that you have the edge, because of skill, not luck. Occasionally silly and somewhat longer than it needs to be, Shadow Hearts remains throughout an eminently playable game.

Sony Playstation 2
Midway/Sacnoth
2001

game review by Jeffrey Fleming, 2001