Horror Video Games: Essays on the Fusion of Fear and Play

311 Pages·2009·3.03 MB·English

by  Bernard Perron (Editor)

HORROR VIDEO
GAMES
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H V
ORROR IDEO
G
AMES
Essays on the Fusion
of Fear and Play
Edited by Bernard Perron
FOREWORD BY CLIVE BARKER
McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers
Jefferson, North Carolina, and London
LIBRARYOFCONGRESSCATALOGUING-IN-PUBLICATIONDATA
Horror video games : essays on the fusion of fear and play / edited
by Bernard Perron ; foreword by Clive Barker.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-7864-4197-6
softcover : 50# alkaline paper
I. Video games—Psychological aspects. 2. Horror. I. Perron,
Bernard. II. Barker, Clive.
GV1469.34.P79H67 2009
794.8—dc22 2009026379
British Library cataloguing data are available
©2009 Bernard Perron. All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form
or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying
or recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system,
without permission in writing from the publisher.
Cover art by Frédéric Côté.
Manufactured in the United States of America
McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers
Box 611, Jefferson, North Carolina 28640
www.mcfarlandpub.com
Acknowledgments
First and foremost, I would like to thank all the contributors for having
taken part in this dark and fun ride in the world of horror video games: Clive
Barker (the master mind), Inger Ekman, Ewan Kirkland, Tanya Krzywinska,
Petri Lankoski, Christian McCrea, Simon Niedenthal, Michael Nitsche, Mar-
tin Picard, Dan Pinchbeck, Richard Rouse III, Guillaume Roux-Girard, Lau-
rie N. Taylor, Carl Therrien and Matthew Weise.
A big thank you to Shantal Robert and Léa Elisabeth Perron who, once
again, let me spend all those sleepless nights in horrific worlds, and all those
sleepy days recovering from my nightmarish visits.
To my parents, as always.
To Shanly Dixon who has helped me have and keep clearer thoughts all
along the proofreading process.
To Kelly Boudreau who has taken a rigorous look at each and every
essay.
To the “Ludiciné Strike Team” (Carl, Dominic, Guillaume and Martin)
for its constant support, help and friendship.
v
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Table of Contents
Acknowledgments v
Foreword: A Little Light in the Darkness
CLIVEBARKER 1
Introduction: Gaming After Dark
BERNARDPERRON 3
APPROACHINGTHEGENRE
Match Made in Hell: The Inevitable Success of the Horror
Genre in Video Games
RICHARDROUSEIII 15
Games of Fear: A Multi-Faceted Historical Account of the Horror
Genre in Video Games
CARLTHERRIEN 26
Gothic Bloodlines in Survival Horror Gaming
LAURIEN. TAYLOR 46
Storytelling in Survival Horror Video Games
EWANKIRKLAND 62
Shock, Horror: First-Person Gaming, Horror, and the Art
of Ludic Manipulation
DANPINCHBECK 79
Haunting Backgrounds: Transnationality and Intermediality
in Japanese Survival Horror Video Games
MARTINPICARD 95
The Survival Horror: The Extended Body Genre
BERNARDPERRON 121
ENCOUNTERINGTHEGAMES
Plunged Alone into Darkness: Evolution in the Staging of Fear
in the Alone in the Dark Series
GUILLAUMEROUX-GIRARD 145
vii
viii Table of Contents
Patterns of Obscurity: Gothic Setting and Light in Resident
Evil 4 and Silent Hill 2
SIMONNIEDENTHAL 168
Hair-Raising Entertainment: Emotions, Sound, and Structure
in Silent Hill 2and Fatal Frame
INGEREKMANand PETRILANKOSKI 181
Complete Horror in Fatal Frame
MICHAELNITSCHE 200
Gaming’s Hauntology: Dead Media in Dead Rising, Siren
and Michigan: Report from Hell
CHRISTIANMCCREA 220
The Rules of Horror: Procedural Adaptation in Clock Tower,
Resident Evil, and Dead Rising
MATTHEWWEISE 238
Reanimating H.P. Lovecraft: The Ludic Paradox of Call
of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth
TANYAKRZYWINSKA 267
About the Contributors 289
Index 293
Foreword: A Little Light
in the Darkness
Clive Barker
This is an important time for games, because they are being ignored.
Not, of course, by the millions of players who make gaming one of the
most popular pastimes in the world, nor by the obsessive and hyper-critical
individuals who play and review games for the plethora of glossy and heav-
ily illustrated magazines dedicated to the subject. The people who are ignor-
ing this significant phenomenon are the very people who should be most
concerned with its power and its influence upon the predominantly young
and therefore impressionable minds of our populace: the Zeitgeist-watchers,
the professional commentators who make it their business to read the auguries
of our culture in the entrails of pop phenomena. To them falls the very sig-
nificant responsibility of creating a critical vocabulary which will need to be
unique.
After all, whatever the shortcomings of games at their present state of
development, they are shaping the imaginations, intellects and even the sex-
ual development of the voting populace who will shape the world tomorrow.
(Here, a short footnote. I realize that not all games are enjoyed by younger
players. There are a lot more gamers over twenty who are having fun with what
are essentially adolescent power trips. Second short footnote. There are many
honorable exceptions to the generalization that these games are adolescent
power trips, but this collection of essays focus on Horror Video Games, which
by and large play into the primal of those initiation journeys.)
In an earlier time, this audience would have been satisfied with the won-
ders of Ray Harryhausen’s wonderful stop-motion monsters and Raquel
Welch’s pneumatic breasts in “One Million Years B.C.” or had their gonads
tickled by the stylized sex games of Comic Books (all those tight-fitting gar-
ments that reveal everything and show nothing; the vast array of phallic
weapons and monstrous vaginal dimension breaches). Now the audiences
that would have lapped up Raquel and her dinosaurs are immersed in far
more murky territory and it is serious stuff.
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