The Valley of the Shadow of Death

In 1970, the roboticist Masahiro Mori published an article entitled Bukimi no Tani; English translation: The Uncanny Valley. And it is to this concept that the rather overly dramatic title of this post refers.

In short, the theory asserts that the more closely a robot resembles a human being, the more positively we will respond to it. However there is a drastic plunge as the correlation between the robot’s likeness to a human and our reaction to it deviates. Mori noticed that we will only respond positively up to a certain point. At the point where the resemblance to humans is close, but not quite perfect, our response suddenly shifts to feelings of unease and discomfort; this chasm in the correlation is referred to as the Uncanny Valley. What with all of our fancy schmancy technological advancements, the pseudoscientific theory can now be extended and applied to the realms of media such as movies and video games.

Many brave souls have tried to traverse the Valley but as critics recoil in repulsion from their offerings, the footholds that at once seemed so sure begin to loosen until our intrepid pioneers find themselves out on a severed limb, tumbling haplessly headfirst into the yawning maw of the Valley, like something from a Looney Tunes sketch.

 

One such disaster in film is Robert Zemeckis’ Polar Express. Nothing encapsulates the general feeling shared by critics and movie-goers alike than this review by Stella Papamichael from the BBC website “Forget Christmas cheer – kids will run screaming from The Polar Express after seeing Tom Hanks looking like he’s been killed, embalmed and resurrected by lightning.” This resonates with mortality salience cited in relation to robotics; looking at a robot that falls into Uncanny Valley territory evokes our fear of death. Viewing something with an outwardly human appearance and mechanical interior ignites the subconscious angst we all hold; that we are nothing but soulless machines. Insert a computer generated, motion captured Tom Hanks into the equation and pop on a pair of cold dead eyes not dissimilar to those of the aquatic harbingers of death and what we have is a pretty weird idea for a festive family film with its main protagonist parading jauntily around with a face like a death mask. Ghastly!

 Compare this to The Incredibles, as indeed many critics did and we can see a world of difference. The cartoonish characters are much more appealing than the big bowl of wrong courtesy of Zemeckis. Pixar even stated that the choice of aesthetic was not due to any technological limitations in creating realistic characters but was a concerted effort to avoid the pitfalls on the downwards path to the Uncanny Valley. And that’s why we all love Shrek…well the first two movies anyway. Valley or no, by the time the 44^th installment in that franchise rolls around we’ll be sick of the sight of him.

At this juncture one might pipe up and ask “But what about Avatar? It was like, so awesome and I wish I lived on a magical Pandora and was big, blue and beautiful”. My initial answer would be to stop being so sodding pretentious about what is essentially a remake of FernGully and side note – if you were blue you’d be erring more on the side of smurf. But an interesting point nonetheless. Avatar was visually stunning with characters and environments that seemed so real you could almost reach out and touch them…unless you saw it in 2D. Did James Cameron and his team traverse the divide and conquer the Uncanny Valley? In my opinion, the simple answer is no. If that film were remade with CG humans I think we’d have a different story and not just because it would topple the basis of the entire plot of the film with the abrupt absence of aliens.

The trick to bridging the Valley, or avoiding it altogether, is to suspend disbelief. Avatar portrayed ethereal beings which were pleasing on the eye. They were human enough for us to relate to but they were non-human beings and we therefore didn’t expect anything above and beyond the behaviours and appearances exhibited. The Valley was subsequently avoided.

It’s in the grey area of physical mimicry to ourselves as a species that we begin to feel uncomfortable. This is becoming ever more apparent in video games, particularly as it’s the player that holds control of the characters. Not only do we expect the visuals to portray a level of realism, we expect the animation to support the level of realism we’re looking at. Having a perfectly formed character model that moved within its environment like an 8-bit Mario would be repugnant. But it would be just as ludicrous to watch an imperfect model move with the ease and grace of a gazelle. We need to marry the two concepts together whilst also taking into consideration that the character must react to the players control with precision timing.

 But up until recently it was mostly the graphics that were the issue. How could we forget the Heavy Rain demo at E3 dubbed ‘the casting’ or the creepy ass Alias game depicting the face of Jennifer Garner; devoid of all human nuances and emotion? Mass Effect raised the bar but even so, the lack of focus in the eyes, though they were more expressive, threw people off, along with the ever present problem of mouths and teeth. Enslaved kicked it up a notch with mouth watering environments, superb voice acting and outstanding character animation. The game didn’t look photo realistic by any means but there’s something about the experience that makes it…believable. 

Elspeth Tory, Animation Project Manager for Assassin’s Creed raises an interesting point “A character that’s realistic will seem to have ticked off a checklist of human characteristics, but a believable one will display nuances and subtleties that make them seem unique and alive”. She goes on to include weight and timing as other factors necessary in contributing to the believability of a character. Two of Ubisoft’s biggest franchises, Prince of Persia and Assassins Creed, have believability coming out the wazoo but I wouldn’t tag the animation of the characters in either to be photorealistic. Alex Drouin, Animation Artistic Director on both Sands of Time and Assassin’s Creed describes the tools used to bring a level of believability and realism to the games, such as “blending of animations to get special effects…and different kinds of interpolations to fluidly link different moves together. [The same tools were used] for Assassins Creed but we added full body IK (inverse kinematics) and a rag doll tool”. And hey presto, the goal was achieved without getting mired in a quest to bring about a kind of realism that wasn’t required and that was perhaps unattainable…until now.

Thanks to Team Bondi founder Brendan McNamara and his pal Oliver Bao, we now have MotionScan, or Depth Analysis as it’s now called. This technology combines high definition facial scanning with intelligent algorithms capable of capturing high definition footage of an actor’s face and converts it to a virtual 3D head ready to be stuck onto a CG body. The set up is insane. When it was moved from Sydney to LA, it took Bao over ten 16-20 hour days to install the rig. The reason for the move was indirectly down to the technology; the entire set up allows only 50cm of leeway for the actor’s head movements. Many of the Australian actors initially cast were unable to emulate the US accent whilst sitting still.

  

Depth Analysis is revolutionary in that it eliminates the necessity to animate a characters face, so the results are not only faster but amazingly advanced. And what better way to showcase this technology than with Rockstar’s new title L.A. Noire. It is now entirely possible to use facial cues as a means of progressing through the story and by doing so, adding a new level of immersion to the gameplay.

 

There are still flaws, such as textures of skin and clothes but I think this new advancement shouldn’t be viewed as a means to increase the realism of a game, but the believability. Photorealism is neither here nor there. If you have a character that engages you, you can relate to that character more so than you would do to a perfect avatar devoid of displays of emotion and personality. Rockstar have deftly skirted the boundaries of the Uncanny Valley and emerged unscathed on this one. 

 

Ilomilo

Ilo and Milo are best friends who meet at the park every day for apple tea and maple biscuits. When the sun goes down, they part ways, waiting for the sun to rise again so that they can reunite in the morning. However the route through the park seems to change every day…or perhaps it’s their memories that aren’t very reliable and it’s this niggling factor that makes Ilo and Milo’s friendship so complicated. And what also forms the basis of the game.   

Ilomilo is of a similar aesthetic to Little Big Planet in as much as the characters wouldn’t look out of place in the Disney store in the giant plush section. And by golly, I wish I had one because they are adorable. It’s your job to orchestrate the reunion of the pair by solving the puzzles in each level.   

The puzzles are based on navigating both Ilo and Milo (either taking turns in co-op or flitting between the two characters in single player) through a 3D environment composed of cubes. The characters must work cooperatively to collect all goodies and rescue what appear to be mini Ilomilo-esque creatures called Safkas on the path to their rendezvous. The puzzles start off on a fairly basic level with, for example, one player pushing a button to activate a platform for the other to cross on. But as you progress, the difficulty does of course increase; and to rather mind bending proportions. Think Labyrinth, minus the spandex-clad Bowie and petulant teen.

There are a number of cubes scattered through each level that can be conveniently folded away into a tiny knapsack and carried to the point at which they are needed. As you advance through the levels, cubes with different properties will be unlocked. At the beginning of the game, the first cubes you'll come across are just cubes. Sorry. They can be used to bridge gaps measuring one cube across. No doubt I’ve saved you precious minutes of head scratching with that little tit bit. Further exploration of the world of Ilomilo will unearth cubes with trap doors that spit you out of their bottoms thus reversing gravity and allowing you to explore the underbelly of the cubes you were just strolling on. 

 

The veritable menagerie of blocks waiting to be discovered all add their own layer of complexity to the puzzles and coupled with the additional mechanisms such as gravity altering red carpets, you pretty much have to turn your brain inside out, back to front, hang it outside and beat it with a rod made of wood, born from the seed of lateral thinking. Yes, things are starting to get a bit surreal around here... 

Ilomilo is akin to Braid in that respect. Whilst the music lacks the sense of nostalgia and longing to be found in Braid, it's still up there on the "what have I just smoked?!" scale. If Pan were to get off his tail, round up some other fantasy folk and have a forest festival, this is what it would sound like; accordions, flutes, kazoos, toy boxes and even a Mukon. Ah, the classic Mukon...cobbled together from an IKEA bench and some guitar strings by Daniel Olsén, the brain behind the soundtrack.

Like Braid, the backdrops to the in-game graphics are at once extravagant, simple, bizarre and poetic. There is also a sense of wistfulness which echoes the undertones of the story that unfolds as you collect photographs that represent memory fragments  of a couple called Ilona and Milton. I'm not going to lie to you. It gets pretty sad. 

There are a few more fun surprises within the game  that will do a slap-up job of lightening the mood but I'll leave those for you to discover. Ilomilo is available tomorrow on the XBLA Marketplace for 800 points.

Bromance-ing the Stone

We all love buddy movies; from the comedic coupling of Riggs and Murtaugh in Lethal Weapon, Neal and Del in the hilarious Planes, Trains & Automobiles , the “too weird to live, too rare to die” Raoul Duke and Dr. Gonzo in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and of course, Oscar and Felix in The Odd Couple. Watching their relationships develop over the course of these films provides all sorts of amusement. But the transition of the bromance from movie to video game and subsequently the shift in our role from voyeur to participant is even more intriguing. 

Playing an active part in the bromance unfolding on the screen lends a certain je ne sais quoi to a game; it can elevate your experience and transform you from a jittery loner with an itchy trigger finger to a rump slapping, chest bumping, testosterone fuelled, adrenaline-junkie-bad-ass with bigger balls than Randy Marsh… provided it’s done properly.

 As a general rule, the bromantic relationship is cultivated over time, like tending a sapling bonsai tree. But the intimacy can spring up like a redwood in dinosaur manure when a catalyst is present; such as impending doom for the protagonist’s girlfriend/ family/ mankind. The symbiotic bond can be misconstrued for homosexuality; either genuinely or in jest and Epic humorously plays on this with the homoerotic themed achievements in the Gears of War franchise. The ambiguity surrounding the bromance can be traced back as far as Ancient Greece with Plutarch’s Sacred Theban Band. This is in essence an army comprised of homosexual male couples…Marcus and Dom, Cole and Baird ...good to see Epic is sticking to the theme! The thinking behind this was that “a band cemented by friendship grounded upon love, is never to be broken, and invincible” and that when faced with the perils and ravages of war, one will go on a crazy rampage the likes of which has never been seen, in order to avoid looking like a pansy in front of their significant other. This is very much my own mentality when I’m playing co-op anything with my gentleman friend so I think he was definitely onto something!

Bromantic games usually depict a pair of muscle bound behemoths, which was particularly prevalent in the 1980’s, as the action movies of the era set the trend; think Conan the Barbarian, Rambo: First Blood, Predator and Masters of the Universe. Contra (also known as Gryzor) which Konami released in 1987 is a perfect example of this. So perfect in fact, that the game characters are interchangeable with the most iconic action movie stars of all time… 

We first became acquainted with Bill and Lance in the arcades of 1987. The two military commandos were tasked with saving the Earth from the maniacal plot being put into action by a terrorist cell called Red Falcon…depending on which version you were playing. The Japanese story was altered for the American NES version, in which Bill and Lance faced an alien threat. And whilst aliens can still be terrorists, imagine what a different story it would’ve been if Bill and Lance had tracked them down for a final face-off in a farmhouse cellar somewhere in the Middle East. Contra was made so hugely popular due to the co-op gameplay, which was a novelty at the time of release. Its popularity continued when it was introduced to the NES with Nintendo Power ranking it the seventh best NES video game and one of the best games for multiplayer on the console.


 1989 saw Capcom release Final Fight in the arcades. The game was initially intended as the sequel to Street Fighter and was dubbed Street Fighter ’89. But with the change in game play from a competitive fighting game to side-scrolling action, the title changed accordingly. Final Fight introduced us to Cody and Guy, who did eventually make their way into the Street Fighter series. The two are best friends and rivals so the relationship is very similar to that of Ken and Ryu. 

Cody’s girlfriend Jessica is kidnapped by The Mad Gear Gang and her father enlists the help of the two, who are conveniently trained in Martial Arts, to track down and save Jessica. The player can choose to fight as either Guy, Cody or Jessica’s father Mike Haggar, a former professional wrestler, with Guy’s attacks focusing on speed, Mike’s on strength and Cody lying somewhere in between. In true bromance style, once Jessica is rescued, Cody decides he can’t rest whilst evil still lurks in the world and after a parting kiss, disappears…although surprisingly, without his soul mate Guy in tow.

Final Fight served as the Japanese launch title for the SNES in 1990 but sadly the 2 player co-op was discarded, along with Guy. The 1991 February edition of the Japanese arcade game magazine Gamest, bestowed poll position to Final Fight as their number 1 game of 1990, with Mike Haggar taking the number 1 spot on their list of top 50 characters of the year and gracing the cover of the issue. Guy came in a close second and Cody was relegated to number 7.

Our next bromance blossomed in 1992 with the debut of Miles “Tails” Prower to the Sonic series. Tails first appeared in Sonic 2 on the Sega Master System in which he was kidnapped by Dr Robotnik for a ransom. It was in Sonic the Hedgehog 2 on the Genesis that he became a playable character. 

Tails was conceived by Yasushi Yamaguchi for an internal competition to create a sidekick for the famous Sega-blue hedgehog. The character was designed to be a simpering Sonic groupie or as Yamaguchi phrased it, he was meant to hold “a deep admiration for Sonic”. Even Tails’ name is testament to his passive role in the duo; Miles Prower being a pun on “miles per hour”, referencing Sonic’s super speed. Whilst Tails does contribute with the addition of his flight and the ability to carry Sonic to otherwise inaccessible areas, he occasionally poses as a hindrance by getting himself kidnapped by Robotnik.

Like all bromances, the dynamic of the relationship between our two protagonists is vulnerable to that age old evil...women. Amy Rose’s stalker-like chase of Sonic ruffles Tails’ tails along with her smart mouth. But that’s nothing compared to Sonic’s ultimate betrayal when he pairs up with Fiona Fox; the object of the young cur’s affections. Following a confrontation, Sonic apologises and explains the incident as an attempt to help Tails get over his feelings for her. No, I didn’t make any of that up. The fact that Sonic is 15 years old and Tails is only 8 years old seems to have had no bearing on this madness. 


Whilst Sonic’s reception was positive and culminated in the hedgehog being inducted into the Walk of Game, having a class of genes named after him and featuring in the 1993 Formula One championship (as a mascot only otherwise no one would’ve stood a chance), Tails didn’t do quite so well after his initially successful debut. Tails made GameDaily’s list of “annoying sidekicks”, Cracked.com ranked his appearance in Sonic 2 as number 14 on their “most annoying video game characters in otherwise great games” list and GamesRadar commented on the decline of his popularity and his transformation into a lame sidekick who “choked the life out of the franchise”. Tough break.

Our next pair are decidedly more dastardly; Adam ‘Kane’ Marcus and James Seth Lynch. IO Interactive unleashed them upon the world in 2007 in Kane& Lynch: Dead Men and although they received lukewarm reviews, they were once again inflicted upon the world in 2010 in the sequel Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days. 

The first game is played from Kane’s perspective. His wife and daughter are taken hostage and Kane and Lynch are on their way to death row. They breakout and make an attempt to steal the ransom money needed to rescue Kane’s family. During the bank robbery to retrieve the cash that Kane was accused of stealing, Lynch has a bit of an episode and slaughters the hostages.  This is all by the by as they elude capture and head to Tokyo to get their paws on the other half of the stolen cash.

However, the terrible twosome is in for a world of trouble as after they kidnap a Japanese crime lord’s daughter to use as bait to obtain the last of the loot, Lynch has yet another boo boo and kills the girl. Kane is pissed to say the least but the love for his brother from another mother compels him to stay with Lynch (love veiling insanity. Cut him loose Kane, he done you wrong!) and they relegate themselves to returning to the gang holding his wife and daughter with only half of the ransom. The gang is not pleased and poor Mrs. Marcus is killed. Lynch goes on another rampage and Kane manages to protect his daughter Jenny until she escapes.     

The ensuing action sees the two men break out a handful of comrades from prison and with these ‘dead men’, embark on another violent binge during which Kane discovers that his daughter has been kidnapped again. All’s well that ends well though, as the two survive to star in the sequel.

Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days gives the player the opportunity to play through the single player campaign as Lynch. We are drawn into another convoluted story during which Lynch’s girlfriend is raped and killed and Lynch has his throat slit. He miraculously survives and true to his bro, saves Kane but is of course too late to save his lover and the two men escape Shanghai on a plane destined for Ecuador.

Whilst the games received mixed reviews, no one can deny the chemistry between the two anti-heroes. Barry White of resolution-magazine.co.uk is of opinion that Kane and Lynch are “how Lethal Weapon’s Riggs and Murtagh would’ve turned out if writer Shane Black had made those characters criminals instead of cops and Smokin’ Aces’ Joe Carnahan had been around to direct.” He draws parallels between the relationships; the men are constantly trying to keep their unwanted, unruly partners in line, are overly concerned with the welfare of their kids and are getting a tad too old and crusty for the shenanigans they find themselves in. Lynch and Riggs are the nut jobs who take it upon themselves to go crazy and by doing so, push the story to places it would otherwise never have gone; as Barry puts it “if Riggs and Murtagh are the kings of the buddy movie, Kane and Lynch are their twisted counterparts.” The only difference being that Kane & Lynch are utter bastards that no one likes. Could this be the reason for the mixed bag of reviews? If you can’t connect with the characters you’re playing, it’s impossible to enjoy the game. But on the other hand, this very fact could be a stroke of genius; a fresh, unexpected twist on the cookie cutter heroes resulting in a ‘bad bromance’... and equally bad pun on my part.

Our last, but by no means least bromance is truly one of my favourites. Harking back to the good old days when game protagonists looked like they were abusing steroids and with a lick of pea green paint and skimpy ripped trousers, wouldn’t look out of place in a Marvel comic; bringing back the look and rocking it with a vengeance, we have Marcus Fenix and Dominic Santiago.

Marcus and Dom met through Carlos; Dom’s brother. The chums grew up together and Marcus took refuge in the Santiago home when his home life got rough. Carlos and Marcus eventually enlisted in the COG army and Dom followed suit as he’d just knocked up his girlfriend and future wife Maria, at the tender age of 16. Marcus and Carlos’ bromance is cut short when Carlos is shot in the legs and stomach. Marcus, with no regard for his own safety, attempts to save his buddy but Carlos puts an abrupt end to that plan by blowing himself up with a grenade...sad times. Marcus had promised Carlos he’d take care of Dom but sometimes it seems that Dom is the one looking after Marcus.

The game play itself plays a big part in the relationship as the entire campaign is pretty much designed for co-op with each character trying to banish their personal demons. The fact that the players aren’t competitively ranked on their individual performances after each act compliments the co-operative element, as the emphasis is on experiencing the story as a part of a unit and not one-upmanship. The chemistry between the two is what makes the Gears of War franchise unique in the marketplace.

The couple have been through some hard times together, the most harrowing of which is Dom’s reunion with Maria. His emotional journey ends at this point in some ways. Marcus steps up to the plate and shatters Dom’s illusion as he holds Maria in his arms with one word “Dom...” The scene widens to depict the look of horror on Dom’s face as he realises the woman he loves is now no more than a husk. The cinematography is simply excellent as the scene vacillates between Dom trying to come to terms with the horror before him and Marcus’ own reaction. As he touches Dom’s shoulder to break the heartbroken pleading, Dom turns to his bro for help and the animation of the emotion on Marcus’ face; as it softens as he tells Dom that its ok is quite frankly genius. If that moment doesn’t convince you of the boundless love and purity to be found in a true bromance, then you’re a heartless robot. 

The dynamic of the relationship seems to have been irreparably changed after this incident. Looking at the trailers for Gear of War 3, we can see Dom is now sporting a full on grief beard. GamesRadar analyse the trailer in full in their article “things you may have missed in the gears of war 3”. Aforementioned analysis shows the full extent of Dom’s emotional scarring by highlighting his reaction (or lack thereof) at the moment the locust is about to paint the floor a new shade of grey...and the ashen figures of a woman and her child his eyes are drawn to, in what are potentially the last fleeting moments of his time on earth.

Marcus comes to the rescue but there is a noticeable tension between them. GamesRadar cites Marcus’ reaction as being “pissed off, both at the lack of discipline and the loss of his best friend”. As they point out, he doesn’t even help him up. It is in fact Anya Stroud that steps in and hands Dom his gun.

 

Whilst my two favourite protagonists have an ordeal ahead of them, there is no doubt in my mind that they are and will remain, brothers to the end.

Enter the World of Survival Horror

When most people think of survival horror, the Resident Evil franchise will almost undoubtedly spring to mind; like a licker pouncing through a police station window, but without the girlish screams. Indeed, it was Capcom that first coined the phrase in 1996 to market the release of Resident Evil. Whilst the iconic series has become synonymous with the genre, it was heavily influenced by its predecessors, such as Sweet Home and Alone in the Dark. But the very first and oft forgotten 3D survival horror game dates back to 1982 with 3D Monster Maze on the Sinclair ZX81; the first 3D game for a home computer.

 

The premise the game is built on forms the basic fundamentals of the survival horror genre. The player is dropped into a randomly generated maze, inside which a T. Rex is on the prowl. The beast is lying in wait somewhere in the maze and the objective is to escape. The T. Rex anxiety level communicates the monsters location in relation to the player in a menacing barrage of statements such as: REX LIES IN WAIT and HE IS HUNTING FOR YOU, progressing to the alarming FOOTSTEPS APPROACHING, the heart stopping REX HAS SEEN YOU and the terrifying RUN! HE IS BEHIND YOU. Not exactly underwear soiling by todays standards but nevertheless, all of the ingredients that make up a survival horror game are present, though in a very primitive form. 

Firstly we have our vulnerable protagonist, isolated in an environment which is essentially puzzle-orientated. Second, we have our monster, which the player must avoid whilst traversing the maze. A confrontation results in death or running away; albeit in a very manly fashion I’m sure. And there we have the bare bones of what constitutes a survival horror game. This has evolved over time; the player, whilst still underpowered, is given skills, weapons and items. Although the latter are always in limited supply and the player must manage their inventory to ensure their survival.

 Both Haunted House, released in 1981 on the Atari 2600 and Sweet Home released in 1989 for the NES incorporated all of these additional features. Sweet Home was related to a Japanese horror movie of the same name but was never released outside of Japan. The player controls a party of characters, each with their own unique abilities. The game is set in a haunted mansion and the player has a limited inventory of items to utilise as they try to escape. And have I mentioned the loading screen that depicts an image of a door opening? Sound familiar? Yes, we’ve all seen it before (or should that be after) in Resident Evil. Sweet Home was the inspiration for the Resident Evil series and as Capcom was the developer and publisher, it’s no surprise that they borrowed heavily from it. As a quick aside, one of the characters wields a camera that can be used to inflict damage on some enemies. Could this have been the conception of the idea for Temco’s Project Zero, quietly gestating for 12 years...well it’s no Duke Nukem so it probably wasn’t picked up instantaneously, waiting over a decade for its moment to shine but it certainly could’ve provided the inspiration! 

 Alone in the Dark, released in 1992, was the next milestone in terms of its contribution to the genre. In addition to the already established staples, Alone in the Dark used pre-rendered 2D backgrounds overlaid with 3D graphics to create tense cinematic camera angles, heavy with suspense.  Resident Evil 2 was the first survival horror game I played and the use of the horror movie style camera angles to reveal the first licker in the game was genius. I was terrified. The suspense of knowing that something was lying in wait that I couldn’t avoid was oddly overwhelming. Alone in the Dark also implemented the mechanic of storytelling through notes and books littered throughout the game, which is a feature now commonly seen today in the likes of Bioshock, Alan Wake and of course the Resident Evil franchise.

Konami’s Silent Hill released in 1999 revamped the survival horror genre by adopting a more psychological approach than its visceral predecessors. Temco’s Fatal Frame (Project Zero in Europe and Australia) released in 2001 and Sony’s Forbidden Siren released in 2003 followed suit, with a style that had more in common with Japanese horror films than the Western gore fest. 

However, the winds of change once more breathed a new lease of life into the survival horror formula with The Thing in 2002 and Doom 3 in 2004. Western Developers put more emphasis on action in these titles and the player was given an armoury with which to stave off the horrors that go bump in the night. 2005’s Resident Evil 4 confirmed the trend and the clunky controls and vulnerable protagonist that defined the genre became a thing of the past.

 

This begs the question as to whether survival horror can be classified as such anymore. Has the Western approach killed off all that made the genre what it was? Or have the games simply had to adapt to today’s audience in order to survive in the market? Whilst the clunky controls, limited inventory and cinematic camera angles had their uses, perhaps gamers today have become impatient and dissatisfied with what could be considered severely stunted game play; especially when compared to the more popular titles to be found on our shelves, such as Call of Duty, Bioshock and other more action orientated titles. 

With that in mind, we’re once again witnessing unique offerings to the genre in the form of Alan Wake and Dead Space.  Both titles incorporated action but it can’t be denied that both created tense, suspenseful atmospheres that got our hearts racing. It must be love! They both received great critical acclaim but experienced disappointing sales. However, I believe that titles like this are the future of survival horror. Game play has to be revolutionised in order to avoid becoming dated. Whilst Resident Evil has pretty much abandoned the genre in its entirety, we can at least be comforted by the fact that we can still have the bejesus scared out of us with newer titles.

 If however, you're yearning for a taste of the past, you may be interested to know that Atari’s Haunted House made its debut on XBLA this week. If on the other hand, you’re craving something new and refreshing, why not give Deadly Premonition a whirl. The game is a mixture of survival horror and detective story and was released in the first quarter of this year in North America and Japan and was released this week in Europe. Whilst not graphically magnificent, the story sounds intriguing and most definitely new! This has provoked mixed reviews, with IGN bestowing a lowly 2/10 and Eurogamer a slightly more lofty 7/10. 

With the death of traditional survival horror, the field is open to new interpretation and that’s certainly what we’re getting with Twin Peaks inspired, super natural Alan Wake, Sci-fi Dead Space and now detective gone crazy Deadly Premonition. It’s no surprise that the market is slow to embrace change but change is sorely needed.