Sunday Thoughts: Monsters

Games rarely actually call monsters monsters do they? They’re zombies or  aliens or necromorphs or any other of a few dozen possible names. Really we know what they all are, we’ve known all the way back to stomping Goombas in Super Mario Bros. that these are monsters that must be stomped on, shot at and generally killed with whatever’s to hand. After all it’s us or them when it comes down to it, kill or be killed. It’s never in question that they might be friendly, monsters are clearly bad and must be destroyed. If Sulley from Monsters, Inc. turned up in Dead Space we’d shoot him without question, although there’d probably be a mild feeling of guilt afterwards.

To be honest I prefer monsters as the main enemy of a game, there’s so much more opportunity for creativity in the design process. When it comes down to it an enemy soldier is just another human. Yes, they’re probably going to be trying to take you out of the picture but they’re pretty the same as you. You can add armour and make them look as scary as you like, at the end of the day you’re going to have to have a frame with two arms and two legs that’s probably within a foot or so of your height. It’s just not that interesting.

By contrast your standard monster can be designed however you want. Take a look back at Goombas. They’re basically mushrooms with legs and a dislike for mustachioed plumbers. I’ll be frank, if you’ve seen anything that looks even a little like that outside of a game or movie you are probably on some very good drugs.

The thing is, as the Goombas show, monsters don’t actually have to be all that scary or even used in a frightening context to be monsters, at least not to me. However, what I really enjoy is when you get a mixture. Take Halo. Grunts are not scary in the least, in fact they’re kind of amusing and seem like they’d be fun to keep around if they’d just stop shooting at you. The situation changes a little when a Hunter or two turns up though; suddenly you turn and rush for cover in fear of your virtual life. It’s that mixture that can make a game fantastic, the variety that keeps you guessing.

I mean look at Dead Space 2. I won’t comment on the original, as I haven’t played it, but I’ve enjoyed what I’ve played of the sequel. It’s a good game and Visceral have done an absolutely fantastic job of setting up a fiction and atmosphere that you can get your teeth into. However, I’d say I’m at least half way through now and over 75% of the monsters I’ve encountered have been jump scares (that is a monster that suddenly appears and jumps out at you as you turn a corner etc…). There are the occasional ones that will charge at you along a corridor, as well as those weird pulsating squidgy things that explode when you get too close, but the overwhelming majority is simply jump scares. After a while it gets a little tedious.

That’s not to say it doesn’t fit in with the world of the game, it absolutely does, but it really makes you cherish those moments when Necromorphs come at you a different way. That point in the school audiotorium where they all seem to suddenly wake up and emerge? Superbly done, and just as terrifying as a jump scare. If the aim of your game is to have people hiding behind the sofa using the same effect over and over doesn’t really work that well, you come to spend your whole time scouring rooms inch by inch in case something suddenly comes out at you. It loses the impact completely.

However, what Visceral really has got right with their creations is the variety of them, the different combinations and the fairly horrifying appearance of them. On top of that their relentlessness really can be terrifying, and is perhaps the best aspect of them. The way they just keep coming, crawling towards you bloody and broken is deeply unsettling and actually something I’d love games of all types to include.

Well maybe not simulation FPSs like Flashpoint. That would probably be a little silly.