No time for a lengthy post tonight, as I'm deep into the throes of Silent Hill 4. I had to take a break, as the horror of it starts to overwhelm me after an hour or so, and yet I can't wait to get back. These games do what no horror movie or book has ever done for me: get under my skin and turn me on.
I'm not turned on in an erotic sense. It's a more general, visceral feeling - kind of a full-body erection. The game grips me with all kinds of fear: the existential dread of an everyman trapped in a dingy apartment in a nowhere city; the claustrophobia of tight spaces rendered in even tighter camera angles; the terror of not being able to see in the dark, compounded by the player's terror at not being able to see even what his protagonist sees. And then, just when I start to feel comfortable in this awkward gamespace (thinking, "Yeah, I can adapt to this,") a meaty bag of corpses crashes down from the trees, blocking my path. My heart bruises against my ribcage. All kinds of fear, right here.
I've got to solve a few puzzles, too: How can I get the key to the orphanage from this stuttering guy? If carrying the key summons a fog that blocks my path through the woods, how can I get the key back to the orphanage? What is all this writing in blood in a script I cannot read? Is the cryptic message scrawled on my apartment door, "Don't go out, Walter," written by Walter...or am I Walter? And driving the whole story is the riddle of Is this really happening? Is this all in this guy's head? Is this what it feels like to be crazy, or is some mystical entity doing this to me/him?
And finally we have the very effective breakdown between player and protagonist. Way to nail that, Konami-dudes.
So it's not just my animal instincts that are revved-up, it's my curiousity, too.
Well, I'd really love to write more, but I have to get my hands back on a controller...and a clean pair of underpants.
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