What makes videogames memorable to you? I wish I could see the answers, but for now, there is no way to leave your feedback.
What makes them memorable for me are ideas. Ideas take different form. Sometimes it is a well written, unique story. Sometimes, gameplay mechanics. Sometimes, it is just about the feel of the game. Or maybe, about some message, or even an unintentional twist, that sneaked its way from the mind of its creator, straight into the work of fiction, uninvited and unnoticed.
Can we distinct one from the other? Maybe someone, but not me. I am not proficient enough and honestly, even if I wanted to, I do not have enough time. Life is too fast and too busy. Here, I just want to share the games, that had this little something, spark of inspiration. Or at least, that made me see this spark, even if it was not really there.
Or just something I played recently. Why not?
Silent Hill
Silent Hill is a survival horror, developed by Team Silent and published by Konami in 1999, exclusively for original Playstation. Currently, it is aviable for PC as well, but desktop port of the game is based off one of the alpha builds and is of a much lower quality. The game follows story of Harry Mason, a lone father, who got into a car crash in the town of Silent hill. As he wakes up, he finds out, that his daughter, Sheril, disappeared, the streets are empty and all ways out of town are blocked.
The game still plays well. It is creepy, the puzzles are hard and make you think (sometimes, they are unreasonably hard), controls are relatively responsive for a PS game. But that really makes it special, is the feel of wrongness that will follow you through. Our vision is obscured, so we constantly feel lost and confused, relying on map, that can be deemed useless at developers' whim.
The locations are barebone, holding bare minimum needed to convince the player, that people used to live here. Monsters are featureless, as if they were not fully formed and exist in a state of metaphorical fetus, when you can see the rough outline of what they are Supposed to be, but not what they are. Even characters themselves speak unnaturally, as if somebody was just reading text without knowing the context. Together, those factors make the journey feel like a fever dream.
I highly doubt it was their original intent though. Fifth generation of consoles was very limited in its powers, the project was very ambitious from technical perspective and developers team hand to work on many workarounds to make the release possible.
Is the game worth playing?
No, but yes.Even if this weird, suffocating atmosphere of the original Silent Hill was not intentional, the developing team behind the game managed to recognize its appeal and made their best to recreate it in following titles. Silent Hill 2 checked all the same boxes, but is just better as a game.
However, if you are a completionist, interested in lore of the Silent Hill series, or want to appreciate a piece of a media, that was there at the beginning of the genre, I encourage you to give it a try...
CONTINUE READING
Classic DOOM
Classic DOOM is a common name for DOOM (1993) and DOOM II: Hell on Earth (1994), a two iterations of a firs-person shooter, developed by ID software. Both games use the same engine and, aside from the new set of levels, have very few noticeable differences (a new weapon, three new mob types and a new boss. That's it).
The game is a fast paced first-person shooter, featuring 3D enviroment and 2D actors, with a limited use of the third dimension. We are playing as an unnamed space marine, who clashes with a horde of zombified soldiers and demons, that use a mix of magic and technology to fight. The game holds up well to this day, with crunchy, but stylish graphics and simple, yet addictive gameplay.
The process of development of the game is pretty interesting by itself. A messy, creative process, full of logistical problems and shortcuts. I am not feeling competent telling about this though. Let's jsut say, you should look into it, if you like peeking "behind the scenes".
The most interesting thing about DOOM, however, is the community of the game. From the very beginning, DOOM was an easily moddable game, with developers team actively interacting with the community. It brought a lot of creative individuals, that were willing to express themselves through the mods (called WADs, after the file rashirenie). In year 1997, the source code for the games was oficially released, making it possible for the modders to modify the engine itself, overcoming its limitations and creating things, that were previously impossible.
The community is thriving to this day, enjoying the game, remastering it, creating their own levels, making ports, and even recreating other games on the engine... CONTINUE READING