Dishonored: Heart In The Right Place?

My usual blogging time went into writing an opinion piece for Game Reactor, which you can read here.

Resident Evil 6: Adapt To Survive

Evolution is all about trial and error. Like uncooked pasta on a kitchen wall, mutations are fired scattershot into the ether by Mother Nature to see what sticks. The weakest links are filtered out through the course of natural selection, leaving only the strongest elements to carry on their legacy. If that’s so, then as an exercise in gaming evolution, Resident Evil 6 is positively Darwinian.

Capcom have always been doomed to be stuck between a mansion and a hard place with Resident Evil 6. Long-term franchise fans clamored for the now-outdated fixed camera angles and slow pacing of the original games, where frankly rubbish controls created much of the tension. More recent Resi adopters want the return of the action-oriented gameplay they first tasted in Resident Evil 4 and 5. And yet to grow, the developers must also strive to net new fans, by bringing the series shambling into line with other popular, more cinematic games on the market today.

Capcom’s solution to this problem? Try and please everyone all at once. But though it’s an admirable effort on their part, it doesn’t entirely work.

Leon still refuses to let the nineties hair go.

RE6’s single player campaign has been split into four distinct sections, each with an emphasis on different elements of gameplay that have, at one time or another, been a focus of the series. Leon’s trek through the town of Tall Oaks tries to bring the terror back with a necessity for resource management, whilst Chris Redfield’s bullet-soaked section forgoes any pretense of survival horror and instead focuses on all-out third person shooter action. Newcomer Jake’s campaign, where he must continually outrun the Nemesis-like Ustanak with an all-grown-up Sherry Birkin in tow was the wildcard of the bunch. It turns out Wesker Jr has inherited more than just his Daddy’s taste in dark clothing and penchant for a good sneer, with some formidable hand-to-hand combat skills lending a different flavor to the fighting. The fourth campaign, unlocked only after completion of the original three, has the player take control of the enigmatic Ada Wong, in a solo adventure that ties up the narrative loose ends left hanging over the other preceding plots, and emphasizes puzzles and stealthy traversal over prolonged shoot-outs. But though each campaign brings something new to the table in terms of gameplay and sheds light on another mystery of the plot from a different perspective, they all, at one point or another, manage to outstay their welcome.

It makes you wonder why Capcom didn’t simply shorten each character’s distinct story and intercut them chronologically to weave one master single player campaign. This may have played a lot smoother than having to go through four lengthy individual plots in a cumulative narrative fashion that at times just feels disjointed. The very separate stories mean that key sequences are actually repeated in other campaigns when the action overlaps, which lessen their overall impact and lead to some unwanted and unwelcome déjà vu.

Ada Wong, who never uses a pseudonym. Best or worst agent ever. 

The result of all this is that, like a clogged and bloated corpse, Resi 6 is abnormally large. In what feels like an effort to make up time, sections that should only last a few minutes are swollen to the half hour mark. Atmospheric locations are overused, and repetition makes some initially thrilling combat sequences and shootouts quickly disintegrate into wearisome monotony. Individual campaigns should have been about maintaining pace and purpose, rather than meandering just for the sake of shooting a few more enemies before moving on.

 Yes, there is a lot of content in Resident Evil 6. But more does not necessarily mean better, and here the sheer amount just dilutes the strength of the truly worthwhile sections found therein. So much content ultimately means that when a real gem of an idea comes along, it is immediately swallowed up, either by overuse or by a deluge of other less inspired tropes, and is immediately pushed to the back of your mind, where you’ll struggle to recall it later.

But for all its flaws, Resident Evil 6 is an enjoyable game. There may not be much in the way of actual scares, but the new and more varied enemies are about as horrific as they’ve ever been in the series, with the gruesome monster design of later stage bosses being a standout highlight. Some of the set pieces are spectacular too, and give a sense of scale to the now global pandemic that we otherwise only see through the confines of a very narrow corridor. For a series once famed for its woeful voice acting, the cast do a great job in bringing the characters to life in more subtle ways than the pantomime performances of old, and this, coupled with a tense musical score and appropriately hideous sound effects, make up an impressive audio landscape.

S.T.A.R.S and B.S.A.A. What acronyms you got, Kennedy?

If there’s one word that sums up the Resident Evil franchise in my mind, it’s atmosphere, and in places, Resi 6 is dripping with as much atmosphere as it is the decomposed remains of the formerly living. Fantastically beautiful and well-placed lighting makes for some memorable moments, like when you see the silhouettes of a ravenous zombie horde stretched on the side of a train tunnel before they come slavering around the bend towards you.

Everything in Resident Evil 6 is about variation. There are different combat styles, different weapons, different characters and different countries, all clearly designed to appeal to and placate as wide an audience as possible. The result is a jack of all trades but a master of none, where Resident evil 6’s biggest crime is trying to do far too much all at once. You get the feeling that the game would have benefitted from a lot more focus and a bit more confidence in itself; there’s a pervading sense that the developers aren’t sure which elements of the series are worth scratching and which are worth saving, and so just do everything in the hopes that the good will ultimately outweigh the bad. But as a rabid Resident Evil fan who has been with the franchise since the Arklay Mountain incident, I still found plenty to enjoy in Resi’s latest outing.

Evolution is to be expected. It’s a natural and unavoidable fact of life that favours the survival of the fittest, so that when mistakes are invariably made, they’re for the benefit of the species as a whole. With RE6, Capcom has tried multiple mutations on the old series strain, and whilst some elements didn’t work, there’s still a lot that did. It’s not perfect, but it’ll satisfy until the next Resident Evil inexorably hoists itself, snapping and snarling, out of the primordial ooze.

As Good As Dead

I’ve always been ‘good’ in games. Whether in Fable, Mass Effect, Black and White, or Fallout, I've constantly opted for the most positive action, regardless of whether I believe in it or not. I’ll play the mediator, keep the peace, sacrifice my youth and turn the other cheek rather than lash out in a moment of frustration or rage. To me, a good ending has traditionally meant the best ending, where I play the hero and always - always - do the 'right' thing.

The latest instalment of The Walking Dead - Long Road Ahead - not so much caused me to rethink my calculated old ways as it held a gun to my head and forced me to change them. 

Episode Three picks up a few weeks after Starved For Help, the second entry in the series. The Macon survivors are still holed up at the motel, and with supplies dwindling, morale is low. Self-proclaimed group leader Lily wants to stay put, but with her increasingly irrational behaviour and murderous bandits closing in around them, there's a growing consensus that the time has come to leave for newer and possibly less contested and infested pastures. Hot-headed family man Kenny in particular is keen to move on, and makes no bones squaring off to anyone that disagrees with him. By the end of this episode's two and a half hour runtime, he gets his way, but it comes at a heavy cost to both him and the rest of the group.

The player character, ex-con Lee Everett, is as always stuck in the middle of the bickering, trying to keep everyone alive whilst continuing to be a father figure to his ward, eight year old Clementine. This presents players with some of their toughest decisions yet, along with a couple of events that they cannot divert the outcome of, try as they might. There are some genuine heart-in-mouth moments, and a few rather cruel touches thrown in by developers to give you a taste of what could happen should you ultimately fail. And to someone invested in this story and its characters, it's a sight far more devastating than any 'game over' screen.

In saying that, Long Road Ahead didn't feel like the strongest entry to the series thus far. There are more traditionally 'gamey' sequences than in previous episodes, but for all their excitement, the shooting and sleuthing are never as torturous - and brilliant - as the seemingly simple task of dividing too-few rations amongst a hungry group. More varied gameplay also means the episode as a whole doesn't feel as well paced, and a few major events, including a rushed cliffhanger, aren't really given the time to resonate that they richly deserve. A few audio/visual glitches also commit the heinous crime of hauling you out of the experience at key emotional moments.

Despite this, Long Road Ahead has continued this series' stellar success. It laid the tracks to tragedy, sent Lee down a no-win path and forced me to deal with the consequences. It taught me that in a world where there is no good and bad, rather than do the right thing, I'll simply do whatever it takes to survive. 

Fighting Games: How To Win

Like a defibrillator shock to the chest, Street Fighter 4 revived a fading genre. Three years on from its launch, fighting games are still enjoying a new lease of life, with most of the major franchises releasing several new titles to varied success. They haven't experienced a boom like this since the heady golden years of the early to mid nineties, when arcades had to draft in extra machines just to accommodate the demand for Street Fighter 2. My fight stick has been getting a lot of use recently, and I for one am hoping the genre isn’t going anywhere any time soon.

Quarter circle forward, punch. Standard.

In the 1990’s, fighting games were synonymous with arcades. On the flip side of this though, when the popularity of arcades began to decline due to the rise of the home console, fighters fell out of grace with all but the most hardcore of players. But though interest dwindled, the games continued to evolve and gather critical acclaim, while dozens of new franchises were born. Some lived on and made the successful jump to console, whilst others floundered and disappeared into obscurity. When the arcades began to empty, the appeal of fighting games all but dried up, and the market that had once been ripe was now over-saturated and unable to draw the interest it once did. 

Online connectivity options for consoles have been one of the catalysts for the genre’s recent revival. They’ve made it easier to find, fight and contend for top scores with others, scratching that itch that competitive fighting games fans had been missing in the absence of the old arcade crowds. 

SF4 was the first numbered entry to the Street Fighter franchise since 1999, and it not only brought the series back on form, but made it more accessible to new audiences than it had ever been. Elsewhere, other fighting game franchises were stepping up too. Tekken 5 was good where 4 had wobbled, and 6 was let down by the technology rather than the game itself, with laggy multiplayer and ridiculous load times killing player’s blood lust mid-bout. Mortal Kombat VS DC Universe was a bizarre but enjoyable team-up, and the 2011 Mortal Kombat reboot was a considerable critical success. 

Soul Calibur 5, on the other hand, is an interesting case study; it sold a staggering one million fewer copies than SC4. A possible explanation for this could be the rather brave - or misguided - decision to move the series’ continuity forward 17 years and replace staple characters with younger interlopers that were similar, but not quite the same. If your preferred combatant was one of those removed, like Taki or Seong Mi-na, you were put at a distinct disadvantage against players whose favourites were retained, such as Ivy, Maxi, and Siegfried. 

A tacky Taki trainee

 This is, in essence, one of the genre’s major issues, and why it may well be doomed to perpetually fight its own nature.  How can you alter a formula or shake up a series when there are long-term fans invested in particular characters, who have spent years - even decades - learning them? Ryu hasn’t changed in 25 years. And he can’t – because to change his Move-Set is to undo the work of Ryu fanatics that now know how to use him in any given situation to turn a battle in their favour. Ryu is Ryu because of Tatsumaki Senpukyaku and Hadouken. Take those away and he’s just another guy in a gi.

Part of the reason fighting games are so loved by their hardcore fanbase is that element of learning - of having to work hard to memorise and perfect your timing and manoeuvres in order to win. Anyone can play, but to be the best takes time, effort and a lot of practice. This is both the genre’s major pull and its main deterrent. Its core complexity is off-putting to casual players, and its long history and high standing amongst serious gamers can be intimidating to newcomers who still need to learn the ropes. 

DOA: combining mastology with matches since 1996

But more recent fighting games have begun to combat this. Developers are learning that Move Lists are all well and good for veterans, but casual or occasional players have no intention of even looking at these complicated equations, let alone taking the time to practice and memorise them. Move Lists simply aren’t fun; they make the fighting feel like hard work when button bashing can seem just as effective. Thus, tutorials and training modes are becoming a more organic and above all more enjoyable part of the experience, rather than a tacked on afterthought. Street Fighter X Tekken had the irrepressible Dan Hibiki take fighters though their paces early on, whilst Tekken Tag Tournament 2’s Fight Lab not only walks newbie players through the basic moves, but teaches them how to apply these to battle scenarios to gain mastery over their real life opponents. It’s this show, not tell approach that will mould flirters into fighters in the long run.

Incentive other than online play is a crucial draw that some fighting game franchises have lost sight of. Personally, I’d like to see more love put into individual character ending movies. Sure, the world doesn’t NEED to see Kasumi’s dreams of being a mermaid or Ling Xiouyu’s theme park owning fantasies or Yoshimitsu fleeing from a giant lab rat, but ending movie galleries and unlockable characters grant replayability and the incentive to master more characters in single player modes. Not only that, but they’re a fun respite and reward after slogging through to the end and overcoming often infuriating end bosses. They’re much more likely to hook new fans than ill-judged modes like the tedious Scenario Campaign in Tekken 6. 

Not only do Tekken characters offer variety, they boast more complex relationships than Corrie

I suppose a cynic could say that the reason fighting games are struggling to find their place is that they are just out-dated; a product of an era in gaming that is now long behind us.  Are they even worth playing any more?

Street Fighter X Tekken is a lesson in how to do it right, with workable learning curves, varied characters and great online options. It perfected basic fighting game mechanics whilst introducing dynamic new elements like the tag function, and remained accessible despite requiring the level of technical skill that serious fighting gamers demand. Simply put, you can play and enjoy it whatever your aptitude, but with patience and practice, SFxT rewards you with impressively rich gameplay. No wonder then that it has quickly taken a place in many eSports tournaments.

I can think of few experiences in gaming more fun, exciting or compelling than sitting down with a friend and going toe to toe in a few rounds of your favourite fighter. There is a level of nuance and skill involved in fighting games that you just don’t find anywhere else in gaming.

Taste my Iron Fist.

Being a good fighting gamer is tantamount to being a black belt in real life. It may not be physically demanding, but the mental battle and subsequent emotional payoff is, I imagine, pretty similar. It’s probably one of the reasons that fighting games can be as fun to spectate as they are to play. Watching a few videos from tournaments like EVO prove as much; seeing two skilled players spar in SFxT is like watching two people play the most exciting game of chess ever, and even non-gamers can appreciate the tenseness of a close match. 

And there’s never been a better time to be a fighting game fan, with a huge amount of variety currently on the market, and even more to look forward to, with Dead Or Alive 5, TTT2 and perhaps even something new from Capcom just around the corner.

They may have taken a shoryuken to the chin, but fighting games have picked themselves up, braced for round two and are still in the ring and swinging. Let’s hope they don’t suffer another K.O.

Dishonorable Mention

I’m in a gilded banqueting hall. It’s a balmy evening, and masked guests are milling; drinking deeply from their cups, admiring the décor, complimenting each other’s costumes and exchanging juicy gossip about the party's hosts. Servants weave in and out of the crowd, eyes diverted and brows furrowed. Mahogany tables groan under the weight of roasted hogs, a shimmering cider fountain, and a sumptuous display of fruit, cheeses and other delectable offerings that make it very clear you’re in the presence of wealth and privilege. In the next room, someone laughs loudly. I look up, and I can see fireworks bursting and crackling through the glass-domed roof.  As I wander through the reception rooms festooned with party favours, stopping to inspect the artwork adorning the walls, my gaze flits innocuously between three almost identically dressed women. These are the Lady Boyles, gracious hostesses of this fine feast.

One of them will die by my hand tonight.

The ill-fated Lady Boyle. Or one of them...

This is Dishonored, and the hands-on demo I had at Gamescom last week. It’s a game that has been turning heads since its announcement in 2011, thanks in no small part to its pedigree; the development team include alumni of both Deus Ex and Half Life 2. 

I met with Dishonored’s co-creators Harvey Smith and Raphael Colantonio at last year’s Gamescom, before anything more than a few stills from the game had really been shown. Spending just a few minutes hearing them talk, however, was enough to convince me that Dishonored was going to be something special. When you have developers that are so passionate and inspired about what they do and where their influences come from, it’s hard to not be drawn into their world.

And the world of Dishonored is certainly compelling. The intricacies of its gameplay and combat ideally need a gradual introduction, rather than the everything-unlocked-at-once approach I experienced, but the picture the game managed to paint in that time, of a dystopian world struck by both shameless decadence and crippling poverty, is as vivid as any I’ve seen for quite some time.

The creepiest masked banquet you will ever attend.

Set in the industrial city of Dunwall, Dishonored sees you play as Corvo Atano; a once-legendary bodyguard who is framed for the murder of the Empress in his charge, and is thus forced to become a ruthless assassin in order to exact revenge on those who wronged him. Like my quarry tonight – the Lady Boyle; a supporter of the oppressive Lord Regent who assumed power following the Empresses’ death. 

And so my hunt continues. This affluent party where I now find myself is in stark contrast with the decaying alleys just beyond the mansion walls. In just the next street over, I ran into violent ‘weepers,’ victims of the virulent plague afflicting the populace. Their eyes ooze blood, and their desperate, angry cries echo after me as I flee. I also had a close encounter with a ‘Tall Boy’ – a stilted trooper who patrols the city high above the putrid miasmas that fill the cobblestoned streets. Swarms of rats, symbols of the fetid state of affairs in all ranks and classes of Dunwall, pour out of every nook and crevice.

 Similarities between the festering Dunwall and City 17, Half Life 2’s ominous metropolis, are inescapable. Unsurprising, as both are the work of art director/conceptual artist Viktor Antonov. With Dishonored, he blends Victorian Steam Punk aesthetics with the rotted architecture of seventeenth century London slums, where the Black Plague and the Great Fire had taken its toll on the trampled underclasses, and the gap between the rich and poor had never been so wide. But where mind forg’d manacles held the unfortunate majority in place historically, in Dishonored the downtrodden have teeth.

Great party - shame about the hospitality.

I identified the correct sister quite quickly, thanks to a loose-lipped guest in a moth mask who I’d plied with cider. A gentleman who claimed to be Lady Boyle’s lover had also approached me. If I left her alive but unconscious in the basement, he pleaded, he’d whisk her away and she would never be seen in Dunwall again. This is something developers Arkane Studios have promised; that all assassinations will have the option of a non-lethal resolution. They’ve also promised moral choices with non-linear consequences, and plenty of different avenues of exploration for each level.  In other words, there won’t just be an ‘action’ path and a ‘sneaking’ path, as tends to be the case with a lot of games that claim an emphasis on player choice.

My short time with Dishonored was cut even shorter due to an overlapping appointment on the other side of Koelnmesse, so my Lady Boyle, though unmasked, was left to enjoy the remainder of her banquet unscathed. It was disappointing to say the least, but if anything, this unresolved mission left me hungrier for more. Reading up on the paths other players took is staggering; there is an unbelievable amount of freedom if your imagination is up to task, and each available solution is more inventive than the last.

I’m even more excited by Dishonored now than I was a year ago. Players are gifted a beautiful, bustling world and a variety of tools with which to influence and shape it; where what you do or don’t do will have a knock-on effect to the events that follow. It’s a dense, rich, characterful world where you rightfully feel very, very small indeed – as small and insignificant as one of the rats you can possess.

A rat that’s about to bring a plague down on the heads of your enemies.

World Of Warcraft: Panda-ing To The Masses?

Pandaria has gotten me all misty-eyed for the old days of World Of Warcraft. I created my first account in 2006, and though I find myself logging in less and less as of late, there was a time when I was a hardcore WoW player. Starting off as an Orc Hunter before graduating to my Main - a Night Elf feral Druid - I still remember my first trek across the barrens, and the first time I set foot inside the bustling city of Orgrimmar. I remember saving up and grinding enough gold to buy my first Striped Frostsaber mount, and proudly equipping the spoils of my first successful instance. Back in the days of the original World Of Warcraft, it was, simply, a very exciting game.

Fast-forward almost eight years and soon to be four expansions, and for me at least, WoW has lost its charm. Or perhaps, after six years of endless fetch and kill quests, I’m just incredibly jaded.

Skidoosh.

The newest expansion, Mists Of Pandaria, promises to introduce a slew of new content to the ageing world of Azeroth following the dramatic upheaval Cataclysm caused when it launched in October 2010. Despite the critical success of that expansion, the MMORPG giant has been haemorrhaging subscribers recently, dropping from a peak of 12 million just after Cataclysm’s launch to the current total of approximately 9.1 million. And whilst 9.1 million active subscribers each paying £8.99 per month still nets Blizzard a tidy sum, it paints a pretty damning picture of a big fish currently floundering in a rapidly shrinking pond. What they really need, at this crucial juncture, is something truly special to entice players into starting up their subscriptions once again.

Could the answer to Blizzard’s woes lie in a race of drunken anthropomorphic Kung Fu Pandas?

I’m not sure what it is about the Pandaren race that bothers me so much. In a world currently populated by Goblins, Werewolves, the bear-like Furbolgs and the Tauren – a race of Cow-People – tossing pandas into the mix isn’t too much a stretch of the imagination. And yet, something about them just strikes me as tonally wrong. 

WTB Portal to Stormwind... anyone? Helloo..?

 
The Pandaren aren’t even a new gimmicky invention, cashing in on the success of Kung fu Panda as many have suggested. Players familiar with Warcraft 3 will remember Pandaren ‘brewmaster’ hero Chen Stormstout aiding beastmaster Rexxar in The Frozen Throne way back in 2003. But even then, they were something of an in-joke. Blizzard art Director Sam ‘Samwise’ Didier has admitted as much, stating that his affiliation with pandas stemmed from a nickname bestowed on him by his brother. Over time, the ‘Pandaren’ people were born from various doodles and references by Didier. But what started as a gag intended only for his family eventually became part of Warcraft canon. 

Although embraced and even requested by some WoW fans, it could be perceived that their inclusion as the newest playable race in Azeroth is indicative of a lack of imagination on Blizzard’s part. For most, it just feels like what it essentially is - an in-joke we’re all on the outside of.

The Mists Of Pandaria expansion brings with it new challenge modes, the new continent of Pandaria, the playable Pandaren race and the Monk class, a martial arts class that can specialise in tanking, damage dealing or healing via the revamped talent trees. 

One big - albeit odd - family.

I stopped playing WoW regularly a while ago, mainly because I simply didn’t have the time to dedicate to a guild or frequent raiding, the focus of most end-game players. If you can’t keep up, your gear and equipment will date fast, leaving you unfit to hold your own in most high-level dungeons and instances. When I last tried to get back into WoW after a lengthy hiatus, I just wasn’t good enough. 

However, many long-term players have recently bemoaned the fact that the game has gotten easier with each subsequent expansion, to the point that many veterans believe it’s now too dumbed down. Blizzard are caught between a rock and a hard place; between trying to keep existing and long standing subscribers happy and consistently challenged, whilst netting themselves new players without completely baffling them with centuries of lore and almost a decade’s worth of gameplay intricacies.

In my eyes, WoW is looking and feeling increasingly old and haggard, and not even fuzzy fighting bears can cover that up. Perhaps it’s because I’ve been with it for such a long time that I notice the tired formula more; I’ve poured countless hours into it and I don’t dare count how much I’ve spent in expansions and subscription fees. 

I still remember the thrill and Thrall of those early days; the brilliant community, the frequent flashes of Blizzard humour, and the epic moments of entering an instance and emerging a hero. Talking about it now almost makes me want to go and play it all again. But in truth, the idea of playing WoW now is probably a lot more fun than actually playing it. I remember all the great moments, but after that initial wave of nostalgia comes the crashing realisation of how mundane a lot of the questing and repeated raiding has become.

Eight years might be long enough.  However Blizzard fare with this new expansion, it’s probably safe to say that they’ve lost this subscriber for good. And that’s the black and white truth.

Splendorous Slender

The recipe for a good horror game has gotten a bit stodgy as of late. A huge cast, convoluted plots, overly complex monster mythos, a small army’s worth of weapons, and an all encompassing threat to humanity as we know it – at first glance, every one of these would appear to be an essential ingredient for a successful scarefest.

But one indie title is currently challenging this trend, and has the confidence to ignore more mainstream, bloated offerings and instead provide only the bare minimum of set-up and gameplay. Slender is a game that knows full well that, given the right atmosphere and just a pinch of urban legend to spice things up, players will do most of the hard work in getting scared witless all by themselves. It’s less of a frightful feast and more of a famine – and that’s exactly how it should be.

You don’t need to know anything about the Slender Man to be thoroughly creeped out by him, but it definitely helps. First spawned on a ‘Something Awful’ web forum as a creepypasta creation, Slender is a new breed of monster who has been well and truly birthed by the internet. Do a quick web search and you’ll find doctored old records, photoshopped black and white photos, reams of convincing video footage and supposed survivor testimonials on Ol’ Slendy. Eventually though, what is presented as fact and what is stated as fiction begin to blur. The monster may have been initially man-made, but over time he’s gone and gotten a life of his own.

The kid at the front is probably scarier.

Slender Man is most often described as preternaturally tall, with impossibly long limbs, dressed in a formal suit and having no distinguishable facial features, or even no face at all. Sometimes he even sprouts tentacles. Slender’s MO varies from tale to tale, but generally he stalks his victims from afar, watching and waiting and growing ever closer until they inexplicably disappear and are never seen again. What happens to them or the bodies, nobody knows. 

Possibly the scariest thing about Slender though is his method of choosing his quarry. The legend goes that he is drawn to and pursues those who try to find out more about him. Remember that quick web search you just did? That probably got his attention. Good luck sleeping tonight. 

Don't worry, he's not real. Probably.

Which brings us roundly to the premise for the Slender game. Created by Mark J. Hadley, under the guise of Parsec Productions, Slender drops the player into a dark, gated forest with only a feeble torch and their own apprehension for company. Your instructions appear silently on-screen – “Collect all 8 pages.” 

The catch in this seemingly simple order becomes apparent as soon as you locate the first page; a scrap piece of notepad paper adorned with a frenzied scribble.  The atmosphere instantly changes; someone is now watching you from the darkness. You’ve drawn Slender’s gaze, and with each subsequent note, you beckon him closer. There’s literally nothing you can do about this, and you have absolutely no way to defend yourself. The ultimate objective, then, is to stay as far away from Slender as possible for as long as you can, without looking directly at him, as this results in your sanity dropping. This increases the chance of him appearing directly behind you, and once he does, it’s Game Over. 

This nerve-shredding experience is made all the worse by the excellent sound design, which begins as a steady, merciless drum beat and gradually layers more oppressive sound on top the more pages you collect. It climaxes as a crashing, chasing, gnashing rhythm, designed to disorientate and panic you into running around in circles. And it works.

The result is a game that fills you with a deep, paralysing dread every single time you turn a corner or dare to glance back over your shoulder. The graphics are nothing special - in fact, they’re quite poor. Especially on Slender himself; once you get a good look at him up close, you’ll be struck with how much his head actually resembles an uncooked potato. But even armed with this knowledge, you’ll be hard-pressed to stop your heart from pounding when you catch sight of his spudly face peering out, unmoving, from between the shadows. 

No no no no no no...

This is a game that gets right to the primal root of fear. It’s not about being the hero or buddying up to save the world or hitting a monster right between the eyes with duel-wielded pistols. It’s about you, alone, at night. It’s about an unknown force, dragging you down into the dark depths of utter hopelessness until you’re gasping and gulping for breath. It’s about complete vulnerability in the face of inescapable foes doggedly pursuing you – not snarling and frothing and lunging - but calmly, silently, slowly. 

Slender doesn’t need to run. He’ll find you eventually. After all, you did find him first.

Good luck sleeping tonight.