I'm taking a gamble here and assuming I can fit in an entire entry in the usual style on a Friday evening. Maybe I'm too optimistic for my own productivity, or maybe I just think I can fit it in before my friends in the excellent hip hop duo Mnemosyne hit the stage tonight. Either way, I'm diving in head first.
I've previously written about my love for the music of Akira Yamaoka. Today I wanted to write a bit about how I became familiar with his work. The method in question is one of my favorite things of all time, but one that I am always a bit hesitant to really throw myself behind in a public spectrum due to the off putting nature of it. The love I speak of is Silent Hill 2. I realize how silly it sounds to say its the sequel that does it for me, but the fact that this game is the second entry in what would become a long running franchise is almost irrelevant due to its stand-alone nature.
But I digress.
Let me start over.
Silent Hill was a sleeper hit on the Playstation, released in the late 90s. There's not a great deal that you need to know about it for this article except : 1) its a psychological horror-based videogame 2) the distinct visual style is critical to the appeal and essence of the game 3) it is set in a town called Silent Hill, in which there is something very...wrong. Really, that is all one would need to know to be able to jump into SH2 and not feel like you were missing a crucial part of the story; the designers and directors did a fantastic job for creating a unique and independently strong game related only in setting and tone. That the game is rooted in psychological horror is also integral - its purpose is to disturb instead of scare, to unnerve rather than make you jump.
The protagonist of the game, James Sunderland, receives a letter in the mail from his wife Mary that says she is waiting for him in Silent Hill, in their "special place". Two problems lie within his receiving this letter - he can't recall what specifically that place would be and, most importantly, his wife is deceased. "Right," you may say with incredulity, "So what's the trick, she faked him out, or its a trap or something?" Very genre savvy of you, but no, it is no spoiler to say she is dead. No more. Corporeal yet unliving. It is the first indication that something is very wrong in the game, either with the town or perhaps our protagonist. What follows is a disturbing adventure into the depths of a man's psyche, searching frantically for a past that eludes him at every turn.
The game was released for the Playstation 2 and Xbox in September of 2001 and stood as a benchmark for many years for how to tell a story and create a rich, motivated character for players to control. (The fact that I dove headlong into the game after the terrorist attacks is the subject for an entirely different post altogether.) To this day, its legacy is one of high acclaim and a shining example of how to tell a tale of interactive fiction. I find myself thinking and describing it not really under the term of 'videogame' in my mind but as a movie you have an element of control over. It's not a free-roaming piece of sandbox city, a la Grand Theft Auto but a linear tale of curiosity and morbidity that the player guides James through. What allows for such a bizarre story to be told, and what continues over from the original game, is the atmosphere, both literally and figuratively.
Allow me to veer off the intended path for a moment to explain something technical.
The hardware for the original Playstation, though impressive for the time, was not without its limitations. In order to render large, open areas intended for exploration the designers had to limit what would be rendered and presented on screen. Basically it boiled down to not being able to create as full and detailed world as possible without some restrictions on graphical quality. The design team for Silent Hill, realizing that their game would put a heavy strain on the hardware, decided to disguise the limitations by incorporating it into the aesthetic. In a clever twist on form versus function, they used the distance-limiting fog of the era's computing power as a way to set mood and ambience for a spooky feeling. What was initially a lack of visible distance became a pervasive and eerie fog the player had to contend with. This fog, while not strictly necessary for the PS2 hardware, was retained for the somber and otherworldly nature it afforded.
Now, to get back on track.
The game, as I stated, is a disturbing tale of horror that guides you from a lookout over the town, through the town itself and into its depths, literally, as you search for your deceased wife, Mary. You descend onto a wooded path into town and when you arrive in town, it seems completely deserted. Unfortunately this turns out not to be the case, as James stumbles onto twisted and uncannily inhuman creatures that attack him and he is forced to defend himself. As he ventures through the empty town, quiet except for his footsteps, a feeling of unease comes over the player. Through the fog you can hear things moving, coming closer. Sometimes...things...swoop out of the darkness to attack. The game takes you through abandoned apartments, a dark hospital, through the historical society and into the depths of the towns old and decrepit prison beneath. It is a game not of bombast and jump scares but of dread and terror through perceived threats.
The nature of James' marriage and how he dealt with his wife's passing is involved as well, to an amazingly insightful degree. His character is one of a mourning man who struggles with loss and memories that are fading away, to be obscured by justification and self-assertion. I don't want to go to far into the details but the revelations about motivations and the nature of deceit the first time I played the game were revelatory and to this day its held as a pinnacle of story telling in the videogame industry. All of this adds up to why I feel like the game is a 'game' only in the loosest sense, defined only by medium and not experience.
What little soundtrack there is, is haunting and absolutely beneficial to the experience. Yamaoka created music and soundscapes that only heighten already-pervasive moods, be they the eerie and somber stretches of exploring alone, or the unnerving horror of a rotted-out hotel with strange creature crawling out of the woodwork. Synthed percussion hum like a heartbeat, pianos drone in haunting tones. To boot, there are themes for each character, or motifs, like an opera. Take a listen here to one of my favorite pieces of the game, let alone some of my favorite incidental music ever.
While I could write for pages and pages about this game and the entire series on top of it, I need to put a pin in this post. I can feel the fact that I want to do a more in depth analysis on the game and some of the themes down the line, so I will let today's entry serve as an introduction, or perhaps an enticement. If you're a gamer and haven't experienced it, you're missing out and should spring for the five or ten dollars it would cost to pick up a used copy. If you're not a gamer (my condolences) then either have someone walk you through just a few minutes of it or risk taking a look at the movie adaptation, which was a mixed bag. I personally enjoyed it - it's about as good of an translation as you could do with Hollywood's abysmal track record for movies based on games.
Honestly, I feel that the game stands on its own as a phenomenal piece of interactive fiction that is sorely unappreciated, even within its own audience. If you can handle the horror, give it a look. I'm glad I did. Stay tuned for more on this amazing game.
I've previously written about my love for the music of Akira Yamaoka. Today I wanted to write a bit about how I became familiar with his work. The method in question is one of my favorite things of all time, but one that I am always a bit hesitant to really throw myself behind in a public spectrum due to the off putting nature of it. The love I speak of is Silent Hill 2. I realize how silly it sounds to say its the sequel that does it for me, but the fact that this game is the second entry in what would become a long running franchise is almost irrelevant due to its stand-alone nature.
But I digress.
Let me start over.
Silent Hill was a sleeper hit on the Playstation, released in the late 90s. There's not a great deal that you need to know about it for this article except : 1) its a psychological horror-based videogame 2) the distinct visual style is critical to the appeal and essence of the game 3) it is set in a town called Silent Hill, in which there is something very...wrong. Really, that is all one would need to know to be able to jump into SH2 and not feel like you were missing a crucial part of the story; the designers and directors did a fantastic job for creating a unique and independently strong game related only in setting and tone. That the game is rooted in psychological horror is also integral - its purpose is to disturb instead of scare, to unnerve rather than make you jump.
The protagonist of the game, James Sunderland, receives a letter in the mail from his wife Mary that says she is waiting for him in Silent Hill, in their "special place". Two problems lie within his receiving this letter - he can't recall what specifically that place would be and, most importantly, his wife is deceased. "Right," you may say with incredulity, "So what's the trick, she faked him out, or its a trap or something?" Very genre savvy of you, but no, it is no spoiler to say she is dead. No more. Corporeal yet unliving. It is the first indication that something is very wrong in the game, either with the town or perhaps our protagonist. What follows is a disturbing adventure into the depths of a man's psyche, searching frantically for a past that eludes him at every turn.
Allow me to veer off the intended path for a moment to explain something technical.
The hardware for the original Playstation, though impressive for the time, was not without its limitations. In order to render large, open areas intended for exploration the designers had to limit what would be rendered and presented on screen. Basically it boiled down to not being able to create as full and detailed world as possible without some restrictions on graphical quality. The design team for Silent Hill, realizing that their game would put a heavy strain on the hardware, decided to disguise the limitations by incorporating it into the aesthetic. In a clever twist on form versus function, they used the distance-limiting fog of the era's computing power as a way to set mood and ambience for a spooky feeling. What was initially a lack of visible distance became a pervasive and eerie fog the player had to contend with. This fog, while not strictly necessary for the PS2 hardware, was retained for the somber and otherworldly nature it afforded.
Now, to get back on track.
The game, as I stated, is a disturbing tale of horror that guides you from a lookout over the town, through the town itself and into its depths, literally, as you search for your deceased wife, Mary. You descend onto a wooded path into town and when you arrive in town, it seems completely deserted. Unfortunately this turns out not to be the case, as James stumbles onto twisted and uncannily inhuman creatures that attack him and he is forced to defend himself. As he ventures through the empty town, quiet except for his footsteps, a feeling of unease comes over the player. Through the fog you can hear things moving, coming closer. Sometimes...things...swoop out of the darkness to attack. The game takes you through abandoned apartments, a dark hospital, through the historical society and into the depths of the towns old and decrepit prison beneath. It is a game not of bombast and jump scares but of dread and terror through perceived threats.
The nature of James' marriage and how he dealt with his wife's passing is involved as well, to an amazingly insightful degree. His character is one of a mourning man who struggles with loss and memories that are fading away, to be obscured by justification and self-assertion. I don't want to go to far into the details but the revelations about motivations and the nature of deceit the first time I played the game were revelatory and to this day its held as a pinnacle of story telling in the videogame industry. All of this adds up to why I feel like the game is a 'game' only in the loosest sense, defined only by medium and not experience.
What little soundtrack there is, is haunting and absolutely beneficial to the experience. Yamaoka created music and soundscapes that only heighten already-pervasive moods, be they the eerie and somber stretches of exploring alone, or the unnerving horror of a rotted-out hotel with strange creature crawling out of the woodwork. Synthed percussion hum like a heartbeat, pianos drone in haunting tones. To boot, there are themes for each character, or motifs, like an opera. Take a listen here to one of my favorite pieces of the game, let alone some of my favorite incidental music ever.
While I could write for pages and pages about this game and the entire series on top of it, I need to put a pin in this post. I can feel the fact that I want to do a more in depth analysis on the game and some of the themes down the line, so I will let today's entry serve as an introduction, or perhaps an enticement. If you're a gamer and haven't experienced it, you're missing out and should spring for the five or ten dollars it would cost to pick up a used copy. If you're not a gamer (my condolences) then either have someone walk you through just a few minutes of it or risk taking a look at the movie adaptation, which was a mixed bag. I personally enjoyed it - it's about as good of an translation as you could do with Hollywood's abysmal track record for movies based on games.
Honestly, I feel that the game stands on its own as a phenomenal piece of interactive fiction that is sorely unappreciated, even within its own audience. If you can handle the horror, give it a look. I'm glad I did. Stay tuned for more on this amazing game.
