October 27, 2008

Horror through the Years: A Look at Some Pivotal Titles in the Horror Genre
By: Steven Hopper

From Texas Chainsaw Massacre to Dead Space, the Horror Genre has seen some change for the better over the decades.

With titles like Dead Space earning critical acclaim and sales numbers, and highly anticipated titles like Resident Evil 5 looming on the horizon, the horror genre is alive and well in the video game industry. However, while some may feel that the genre may be a recent development beginning with the Resident Evil franchise a little over a decade ago, the genre has been going strong for even longer, representing some of the finest games ever created and fan favorite franchises.

The horror genre began fairly unremarkably, usually as tie-ins with licensed slasher movies. The both the Atari 2600 and the original Nintendo Entertainment System saw their fair share of lousy horror movie tie-ins, including infamously bad titles based on films like Nightmare on Elm Street, Friday the 13th, Halloween, and Texas Chainsaw Massacre standing out as having little to do with the films on which they were based, and relying on silly gimmicks like huge spiders and skeletons in an attempt to illicit a horror feeling. There were certainly some standouts like Splatterhouse and to a lesser extent the Castlevania franchise, the genre was unfortunately littered mostly with lousy film-based games.

A Nightmare on Elm Street was just one shallow attempt at cashing in on an existing film franchise,
and didn't bear much of a resemblance to the movies.

The game definitely changed when Infogrames’ Alone in the Dark hit the PC in 1992, pioneering the survival horror genre in America and introducing gamers to a new brand of gaming. Combining the exploration elements of the then popular adventure genre with a terrifying storyline based on the works of well-known horror author H.P. Lovecraft. Also being one of the first titles to make use of 3D-polygon character models, the game was an instant success and spawned a franchise that is going to this day.

Alone in the Dark added some great new mechanics to the horror genre, as well as a brand new direction. The Resident Evil franchise came along about four years later, owing a great deal to Alone in the Dark while adding its own brand of terror and zombie shooting. The game series has garnered massive critical acclaim as well as a huge fanbase over the years, spawning several sequels and spin-offs, as well as a trilogy of feature films.

The Alone in the Dark franchise was pivotal in bringing horror games to the mainstream.

Resident Evil’s influence has also been felt across the genre, with titles like Silent Hill, Clock Tower, Fatal Frame and Siren, each offering their own distinct takes on horror, but also adding the element of survival to it. In survival-horror games, you’ll be faced with situations that have you outnumbered and outgunned, requiring you to utilize your mind and wits, often running away from combat situations instead of taking them head on. Factors like ammo and health power-ups are often few and far between, creating a unique sense of suspense that isn’t present in other genres. This has made the survival horror stand out and create some of the most popular game franchises around.

Aside from the survival horror genre, there have been a great many games that offer some pretty impressive scares. Clive Barker’s Undying is a good example of a horror title that offered some truly terrifying gameplay within the FPS genre, weaving an impressive story through the gameplay without relying on cutscenes to progress the story. The game was a critical success, but didn’t make a huge commercial dent, making it one of the most underrated PC games out there.

Additionally, the adventure genre made a nice transition into the horror genre during the late nineties. Titles from Sierra like Shivers, Gabriel Knight, and Phantasmagoria presented some frightening narratives intermixed with classic point-and-click gameplay. These games bore the great adventure game pedigree that Sierra titles had for years, as well as horror based storylines. Unfortunately, when these games where released, the adventure genre was waning in popularity and never quite recovered from the downslide. However, these great titles were a great swan song for the genre and a fine representation on horror gaming.

Clive Barker's Undying was a terrifying and underrated PC horror title.

Recently, the horror genre has been continuing to go strong on the current generation of consoles, making an impressive transition to high-def with great atmosphere and ambience. The just-released Dead Space stands as one of the strongest horror games to launch this year, appropriately capturing the cold, frightening atmosphere of films like Alien, and providing some genuine scares. The game boasts a truly terrifying aesthetic, and should definitely be given a look by horror fans this Halloween.

The future holds great things for horror gamers, with the zombie shooter Left 4 Dead coming next month, Resident Evil 5 down the pipeline, as well as new Wii entry from the Fatal Frame franchise currently out in Japan with a possible US launch later on. The horror genre has certainly grown leaps and bounds over past few decades, and will continue to be one that will garner huge fans with high-profile launches and a chilling feeling that you can't find in other genres.

Watch this space this Wednesday as GameZone's Louis Bedigian gives us a rundown of the Resident Evil and Silent Hill franchises.

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