In the latest episode of the Brainy Gamer podcast, Michael and his guests Leigh and Mitch have a fascinating discussion contrasting two recent horror releases: Dead Space and Silent Hill: Homecoming. The consensus is that, while Dead Space is technically impressive and features innovative use of the third person perspective, it lacks the subtle psychological elements of a traditional survival horror title. I’d hate to reduce the impact of their arguments by summarizing them, so you’ll have to listen for yourself if you’re not convinced.
The most significant contrast between the two games is their approach to frightening the player. The Silent Hill series is lauded for its use of environment and pacing to instill a sense of perpetual dread in the player. Dead Space, however, relies on more direct scare tactics: enemies jumping out of vents, seemingly still bodies leaping at you, lights suddenly going out, etc. Furthermore, the main character is heavily armoured and outfitted with an arsenal of impressive sci fi weaponry. In horror terms, the game is more Aliens than Jacob’s Ladder (or even Alien.)
While the vast majority of frightening moments in Dead Space follow this direct formula, there are a few exceptions that I feel are noteworthy. These moments managed to scare me effectively and subtly. I’d like to highlight a selection of them here (with minimal plot spoilers).
As mentioned earlier, the game is very technically impressive. This includes the lighting and shadow effects, which are spot-on. At one point in the game, I was once walking into a narrow corridor that was being brightly lit from behind. Entering the doorway, I suddenly noticed that the shadow on the ground in front of me had outline of one of the ship’s ghoulish inhabitants. I quickly spun around to confront it… but there was nothing there. It may have been my imagination, but I could swear that the game scripted an out-of-place enemy shadow in that one spot for exactly that reason. In any case, I was impressed that the game had me literally jumping at shadows.
One setup that was repeated frequently in the game is that enemies move out of sight just as you turn a corner. In one such instance, however, the creature I caught a disconcerting glimpse of was a regular human passenger. He looked at me, walked away and disappeared down a hallway a la G-Man. Counter-intuitively, this freaked me out more than any of the horrible monsters I had seen previously. Who was this man? Why did he evade me? This fear was compounded by the fact that I had picked up an audio diary earlier that claimed that there was a serial killer on board.
The “strategic dismemberment” of enemies is another technically impressive aspect of the game. It was also surprisingly effective at enhancing the fear. In one of the developer diaries for the game, it was mentioned that the dismemberment strategy was based on the fact that it’s difficult to make fine movements under pressure. For instance, the victims in horror movies always struggle with their car keys. The stress induced by the careful aiming is only made possible by the excellent controls, an aspect that is contrary to most survival horror games. Personally, I also think it’s a more interesting combat restriction than ammo limitations.
Finally, I was impressed by the parts of the game that involved entering a vacuum. The noisy machinery found inside of the USG Ishimura was suddenly silenced once I stepped into space. In this environment, enemies took on a whole new light. Not only could they could sneak up on me without making a sound, but I was also rapidly running out of air. Furthermore, there were several points in the game that involved dodging gigantic machinery in the vacuum. Having a ten story machine move silently was surprisingly unnatural and disconcerting, and really played with your sense of scale.
I’m no veteran when it comes to survival horror, but I hope this convinces you that there were a few creative scares among the more generic ones. For more discussion, I highly recommend Daniel Purvis’ impressions of Dead Space and Iroquois Pliskin’s treatise on the psychology of horror.
