Zombies, Ghosts and Ghouls (or Why we Learned to Love the Devil)

In the later years of videogame development (IE: the fifth generation) we began to see the rise of the Survival Horror games, starting with Resident Evil in 1996 (I'm aware of Alone in the Dark (1992, PC) and Sweet Home (1989, NES), but they were forerunners to the genre). Resident Evil introduced the mainstream gaming crowd to slow paced scares requiring the player to analyse the situation and work out how to progress through the game. Being an older gamer, I've been around the industry for a LONG time and still remember the first time the dogs jumped through the windows.

But why did this push towards survival horror take place in the late 90's? Was it the changing land scape of the world? Societal upheaval? The possible end times that so many groups of people thought was coming in the year 2000? I posit this: the graphics. Simply put.

When you take a look at Resident Evil on the Playstation in 1996 and compare it to the Gamecube remake from 2002, you can see the leaps and bounds made in graphics between the 5th and 6th generation of game systems. Think about graphics going even further back, how could a game from 1992 possibly present the same ideas and fears that Resident Evil, Silent Hill, Fatal Frame and Parasite Eve?

The maturation of the industry, as well, is owed credit for the recent prevelence of horror games. With early games in the industry, the lack of photo like graphics didn't allow any violent or frightening images to be displayed with any power. There were games made based on horror movies for the Atari 2600, but it looked like stick men attacking stick men and trying to avoid traps. Later the industry was able to convey these horrible images and it was quickly recognized that gaming wasn't just for children and that there could be a sort of "Adult without Sex" end of the industry.

"Enter Survival Horror." So, does Resident Evil say anything more than "ZOMBIES!"? Of course it does, the arching plot of the series over the last 13 years has been based solely on the fact that a faceless, multinational corporation trying to make money at the expense of its customers. It definitely gave you something to think about in the late 1990's, but after 13 years of the same story being shoved down our throats, it's grown stale. Silent Hill is perhaps the crowning moment of videogame storyline achievement. Not just the first game, but the entire series. Silent Hill 2 being the perfect example.

Konami used Silent Hill 2 (2001) to mindfuck us. While playing through the game you're exposed to not only (arguably) the industry's scariest villain but also a ghost of James Sunderland's late wife, messages from the past and a creepy little girl that makes no sense in the story.

Resident Evil and Silent Hill offer much more than any other series of horror games have presented to the industry. Games like Kuon, Rule of Rose, Fatal Frame and Obscure. This isn't to say that the aforementioned games are not playable or even good games, but the fact is that they are formulaic and archaic compared to Capcom and Konami's offerings.

In recent years, though, Survival Horror has been put under the guillotine, causing us to play action games slated as Survival Horror. Resident Evil 4 started this revolution. I played the game as closely to the original Resident Evil as was possible and quickly found that by the end of the game I had hundreds of rounds of ammunition left over, where as I could never have enough in the original. Cold Fear quickly followed on the heals of Resident Evil 4 with a terrible game engine, terrible graphics and a plot that made me want to swallow a shotgun shell. Konami also tried to jump start this dying genre with their new take: Silent Hill 4: The Room. It went in the opposite direction of Resident Evil 4 by trapping the player in their character's apartment while playing mind games and denying the player weapons. And then the 7th Generation took place.

This is where I feel the genre ended. The Xbox 360 released with Resident Evil 5 on the horizon, Dead Rising slated for an early release date and Silent Hill 5 on the books. All of these games were made with more action in them than the earlier incarnations of the genre. Left 4 Dead introduced co-op first person players to the genre in a setting that they felt comfortable in and subsequently put the final nails in the coffin of the genre.

It's no secret that this genre is stale. 90% of Survival Horror games play exactly the same as one an other and the stories are getting rehashed and old. But, the elements that made Silent Hill, Resident Evil, Fatal Frame and Eternal Darkness so frightening and refreshing have been removed from the industry (including the aforementioned series') and have been replaced with "humorous" romps in malls, first person action shooters and rehashed "he's insane" story lines.