Unlike almost every other cultural medium (literature, art, music, film), displeasing the recipient in a video game is regarded as an unacceptable fault, essentially a sign of weakness on the part of those responsible. The problem lies in the perception of the role video games have to play in society. To many, the clue is in the name, with the purpose of a game to please, to entertain and to occupy, acting as a pleasant distraction from the bad-tempered adrenalin rush of modern times.
However, while respected musicians have indulged in noise and drone, celebrated authors have streamed their conscience to great acclaim and revered movie makers have delighted in not making sense, few (if any) video games have ever been successfully recognised or applauded for being deliberately bad, clichéd or difficult. There are many examples I could cite for the purposes of this essay, but the two I will discuss are a pair which I believe to be among the most important anti-games - Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty and Silent Hill 4: The Room. The former is essential because it was heavily criticised yet still regarded as instant classic, but for all the wrong reasons, while the latter is even more impressive as an example of the type of game which knowingly makes off-putting design choices, almost purposefully inciting derision purely for thrill of being perceived a failure.
Throughout the months of trailers leading up to the release of MGS2 we were treated to more than enough shots of the Playstation 2’s unofficial mascot, Solid Snake, cavorting aboard an oil tanker in the Hudson River. However, when the game was released, Snake was only playable for the first fifth of the game (the section included on the pre-release demo), before the player was suddenly burdened with a young, blonde, androgynous, idealistic and sentimental protagonist by the name of Raiden. This was a stroke of genius for so many reasons, the most notable of which was the deliberate exclusion of the reason many people may have bought the game in the first place.
Tough, masculine and oh so heterosexual, Snake was as formulaic a hero as you might expect to find in any cheap and cheerful action game/movie/book. He was Slash, Jack Ryan and John McClane all rolled into one, definitely cool and definitely male; all the men wanted to be him, all the women wanted to be of him. Raiden, on the other hand, was more of a Ziggy Stardust or a Travis Bickle - unsure, awkward and unwanted - and rapidly became the most loathed character in videogame history.
And all this from Hideo Kojima, the industry’s bright light and the one who could not stop sounding off about why he loved Bond films, why everyone loved Snake and why games should be more like movies. And then, when everyone had their backs turned and was relieved to be approaching the end of the game and the end of Raiden, he plunged in the knife, turned it into a movie, complete with half-hour cutscenes, nonsensical plot developments and thousands of lines of radio dialogue heaped on top of one another, pushing the player’s patience to breaking point. “You made your bed”, he whispered, “now lie in it”.
The game was also infused with a unique blend of magic realism that many found off-putting, featuring a vampire, a fat guy on rollerblades who plants bombs (called Fatman), the return of a ninja character and, perhaps most significant of all in videogame terms, a physicallyunattractive female character. The hairy, crop-topped, treacherous Olga was such an affront to video game convention that, even today, she remains the only significant character of her type that I can recall.
And all this from Hideo Kojima, the industry’s bright light and the one who could not stop sounding off about why he loved Bond films, why everyone loved Snake and why games should be more like movies. And then, when everyone had their backs turned and was relieved to be approaching the end of the game and the end of Raiden, he plunged in the knife, turned it into a movie, complete with half-hour cutscenes, nonsensical plot developments and thousands of lines of radio dialogue heaped on top of one another, pushing the player’s patience to breaking point. “You made your bed”, he whispered, “now lie in it”.
The game was also infused with a unique blend of magic realism that many found off-putting, featuring a vampire, a fat guy on rollerblades who plants bombs (called Fatman), the return of a ninja character and, perhaps most significant of all in videogame terms, a physicallyunattractive female character. The hairy, crop-topped, treacherous Olga was such an affront to video game convention that, even today, she remains the only significant character of her type that I can recall.
In such a conventional setting (New York, terrorists, presidents, guns, bombs, gore), Kojima crafted a masterpiece of an anti-game heretofore unmatched which, despite being critiqued as much as it was praised, still managed to earn tremendously high review scores. Why? Simple - because it is Kojima and because it is Metal Gear Solid.
Not knowing what to make of it, critics loved it through gritted teeth and clenched fists, no doubt skipping most of the later cutscenes, longing for original’s simplicity but knowing that, because of all the features and first looks and interviews and exclusives, to slam the game would have been akin to smacking a small child. MGS2 was their baby - they had brought it up and unleashed it on the world - so the perceived faults were overlooked as minor teething problems, a man’s mind stretched too far for its own good, an honest mistake. In reality, he duped us all, critics and fans alike, by being antagonistic and successful, proving once and for all that a game could be great by not being fun.
The case of Silent Hill 4: The Room is not so clear cut as MGS2 because, by their very nature, Silent Hill titles exist as anti-games to an extent; they are short, unfair, disturbing and mature, avoiding survival horror clichés like the plague (or should that be like the T-Virus). However, where the first three games in the series were each an example of meshing playability with the unpleasant, SH4 attempted to be unpleasant aesthetically as well as structurally. By the time the third game had garnered the series more reserved praise and an even more limited market, the developers clearly realised they had room to experiment like never before.
With the dark, brooding atmosphere and intellectualism remaining firmly intact, Team Silent took it upon themselves to really screw with your mind, breaking more taboos than any carrier bag or shard of glass ever could. Instead of looking for new ways to be controversial, they scoured video game archives for the various techniques and methods which infuriate conventional gamers, often driving them to give up on a game entirely.
I’m talking about a limited inventory system (where ten bullets use up as much space as a golf club), excessive backtracking, respawning enemies, mixing first- and third-person perspectives, limited save points and, perhaps the most unforgivable offence of all, invincible enemies. Apart from some backtracking, none of these things appeared in previous Silent Hill titles, so the obvious question is, “If it ain’t broke, why try to fix it?” The answer, though, is an effortlessly simple one of the Piperian variety: “Because we want to.”
When Lou Reed made Metal Machine Music, he wanted to piss people off. He was rich, talented, famous and admired, but he chose to do that which is so often frowned upon: he went pretentious. In SH4 it was no different; Team Silent must have tired of experimenting with light, texture and sound in order to assemble as unpleasant an atmosphere as possible and, instead, indulged themselves in the forbidden fruit of video game development - the noble art of the deliberate mistake.
Not knowing what to make of it, critics loved it through gritted teeth and clenched fists, no doubt skipping most of the later cutscenes, longing for original’s simplicity but knowing that, because of all the features and first looks and interviews and exclusives, to slam the game would have been akin to smacking a small child. MGS2 was their baby - they had brought it up and unleashed it on the world - so the perceived faults were overlooked as minor teething problems, a man’s mind stretched too far for its own good, an honest mistake. In reality, he duped us all, critics and fans alike, by being antagonistic and successful, proving once and for all that a game could be great by not being fun.
The case of Silent Hill 4: The Room is not so clear cut as MGS2 because, by their very nature, Silent Hill titles exist as anti-games to an extent; they are short, unfair, disturbing and mature, avoiding survival horror clichés like the plague (or should that be like the T-Virus). However, where the first three games in the series were each an example of meshing playability with the unpleasant, SH4 attempted to be unpleasant aesthetically as well as structurally. By the time the third game had garnered the series more reserved praise and an even more limited market, the developers clearly realised they had room to experiment like never before.
With the dark, brooding atmosphere and intellectualism remaining firmly intact, Team Silent took it upon themselves to really screw with your mind, breaking more taboos than any carrier bag or shard of glass ever could. Instead of looking for new ways to be controversial, they scoured video game archives for the various techniques and methods which infuriate conventional gamers, often driving them to give up on a game entirely.
I’m talking about a limited inventory system (where ten bullets use up as much space as a golf club), excessive backtracking, respawning enemies, mixing first- and third-person perspectives, limited save points and, perhaps the most unforgivable offence of all, invincible enemies. Apart from some backtracking, none of these things appeared in previous Silent Hill titles, so the obvious question is, “If it ain’t broke, why try to fix it?” The answer, though, is an effortlessly simple one of the Piperian variety: “Because we want to.”
When Lou Reed made Metal Machine Music, he wanted to piss people off. He was rich, talented, famous and admired, but he chose to do that which is so often frowned upon: he went pretentious. In SH4 it was no different; Team Silent must have tired of experimenting with light, texture and sound in order to assemble as unpleasant an atmosphere as possible and, instead, indulged themselves in the forbidden fruit of video game development - the noble art of the deliberate mistake.
In addition to the aforementioned changes, the men and women at Konami opted to deconstruct that which they had created: the Silent Hill cliché. Along with the lack of save points (normally there is one around every second corner), they removed the flashlight and the radio (akin to taking herbs out of Resident Evil titles or summons out of the Final Fantasy series), removed the choking darkness and much of the legendary mist and even set the game outside Silent Hill; to all intents and purposes, it wasn’t a Silent Hill game.
As a result, it was arguably an even greater anti-game than Kojima’s glorious spectacle because, unlike MGS2, it actually angered gamers as much as, if not more than, it set out to. “Roll out the 6/10!” cried the video game world, “Its Silent Hill, folks, but know as we know it.” What they meant to say was that The Room was Silent Hill, but not as they wanted it. The nurses, the lead pipes and the stuttering hiss of radio static had become the norm to such an extent that the slightest whiff of variety was a crushing disappointment.
What most critics didn’t count on was the fact that, as well as collapsing the foundations of their own, strenuously-established reputation, Konami wanted SH4 to be known as the game where the even best in the business could prove to be fallible. In doing so, they successfully galvanized anticipation ahead of the series’ next-generation debut - the arena where the series will surely thrive - without anyone the wiser. And anyway, everyone who bought Silent Hills 1, 2 and 3 would have bought the game anyway, so the risk factor was minimal all along.
Was it cynical ploy, a cheeky shot of revenge on behalf of the anti-game, or neither? You decide.
As a result, it was arguably an even greater anti-game than Kojima’s glorious spectacle because, unlike MGS2, it actually angered gamers as much as, if not more than, it set out to. “Roll out the 6/10!” cried the video game world, “Its Silent Hill, folks, but know as we know it.” What they meant to say was that The Room was Silent Hill, but not as they wanted it. The nurses, the lead pipes and the stuttering hiss of radio static had become the norm to such an extent that the slightest whiff of variety was a crushing disappointment.
What most critics didn’t count on was the fact that, as well as collapsing the foundations of their own, strenuously-established reputation, Konami wanted SH4 to be known as the game where the even best in the business could prove to be fallible. In doing so, they successfully galvanized anticipation ahead of the series’ next-generation debut - the arena where the series will surely thrive - without anyone the wiser. And anyway, everyone who bought Silent Hills 1, 2 and 3 would have bought the game anyway, so the risk factor was minimal all along.
Was it cynical ploy, a cheeky shot of revenge on behalf of the anti-game, or neither? You decide.
1 comment:
Silent Hill 4 was not initially planned as a silent hill game, but a new franchise. Have you seen the trailer for MGS4? Kojima has said "MGS4 will make you love Raiden" and I believe him. Just play SH1 on PC actually, fantastic, using an emulator on the PS One version to get nicer graphics. SH2 is the series strong point though, best twist ever.
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