Tag Archives: Jasper Byrne

Horror Done Right: Horror as a Pejorative

Posted on June 4, 2012 by Karl Parakenings

“…there are all these games in which your health regenerates after a while but they aren’t about finding shelter or moving from one point of cover to another. they’re just there because they’re cruft that’s been accumulated. a lot of what contemporary video games are is the accumulation of that cruft. it’s all borrowed material that’s been completely divorced from its original context. we’re not looking carefully at our history, we’re just taking the shiny thing and running with it.” -Anna Anthropy, interviewed at ctrl-alt-defeat May 1st, 2012 A great deal has been made lately of ‘evoking emotions in players’ by game developers and the writers who love the games. The recent Lone Survivor by Jasper Byrne spends a fair bit of time trying to get under your skin in familiar ways. Players commonly remember Silent Hill 2 and 3 as the last great horror games, with pretenders such as F.E.A.R. and Continue reading →

Posted in Features , Horror Done Right | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

im just trying to take care of myself a little better every day

Posted on May 8, 2012 by Andrew Vanden Bossche

The goal of Sole Survivor is to take care of yourself a little better every day. It’s a little hard but you should think about this first. Think about it before you worry if the monsters are real or just a delusion. Before you start trusting the man in your dreams who wears a box over his head. Before you trade pills to strangers or worry about the woman you can’t quite remember. Before even you worry that the next trip you take outside the apartment might be your last, that the monsters real or not may kill you, that you might not find food or medicine. The first thing you should worry about is right now: have you had a decent cup of coffee? Did you warm up your food before eating it? At least try not to eat such obviously spoilt milk if you can help it. If you’re lonely try listening to the radio before you talk to your stuffed cat. Remember to sleep when it’s hard to see clearly, when the dusky blur settles over the scanlined screen, and rub your own real life eyes out of empathy. It will save your game and you’ll have to live with the consequences. But rather than fret about how many bullets you spent or the mistakes you made or the things you regret, the first thing you should think about is: are you okay? Did you have a good day? Surviving doesn’t mean staving off zombies for another hour. Surviving means living day to day. Continue reading →

Posted in The Game Lists | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment