Whether you are interested in visual novels or not will determine how this list will work for you. If you are an avid visual novel player/reader, this list will be very familiar to you, they are all well-known and widely praised. But if you have read only one or two, or a few, or none, then this list may be comprised of ten games you have never heard of. Some of these games contain adult themes, some of them are hardcore. If you do not read eroge by principle, you might not play some of them.

Anyway, if you have not played these games, especially the top 4, you are missing out. These games are all great experiences, and I am sure you will enjoy them. But why? Let us talk about that in each entry.

#10: 999: Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors

SFW? Yes.

I have a feeling that this would be the game that everyone would go “FAIL WHY IS NOT ON THE LIST MY HEART IS BROKEN REAG” if I had ultimately decided to leave it out. And I seriously did contemplate leaving it out, not because it is not an amazing game. It is. But… is it horror? Really? I was not scared, furthermore, I’m not sure what was supposed to scare me. Am I too jaded? Have I desensitized myself to something which is present in this game? Anyway, everyone seems to consider this game real scary so I submit to the opinion of the majority.

999 is a 2009 game developed by Chunsoft. It seems to be the inspiration behind Herman Cain’s presidential campaign. Really? You didn’t get that joke? That joke is soooo 2012. Anyway, it tells the story of nine people (or persons) kidnapped by someone called zero (it’s also a number, get it? GET IT?) and they are abandoned on a ship and they have nine hours to escape or the ship will sink. They have to solve zero’s puzzles and reach the door number nine to escape.

This game is amazing because of the character interactions. Each of them has a distinct personality, and convincing background, and a game of suspicions begins, but they have to work together in spite of this suspicion. It is a very interesting look at the psychology of the characters, and therefore a very compelling story.

But I still don’t know what is scary about it.

#9: School Days HQ

SFW? No. You can play it in a way that it is, but come on…. you won’t.

A 2005 PC game developed by 0verflow which was also later ported into PS2 and PSP. You are Makoto Ito, a high school student who is a child of a divorce and lives with his unseen mother and may become the love interest of various high school students who are also in the school.

The reason that I have put this on # 9 is that I had problem deciding if it was really horror or not. It could not be a horror story at all, because if you make all the correct choices along the way, you may not see any of the horrific things. But make terrible choices – and I promise you, you will make terrible choices if you’re on your first playthrough without a walkthrough – you will end up with the bad endings, which are very infamously gory and violent and the game does become quite scary and dark. And I suggest you do so – it is not a nice experience if you’re the type who identify with the main character too much, but if you want a good story, the dark path is much more rewarding.

This game is interesting because the choices matter much more than many other VNs. While in many other VNs the choices make no change at all, or you can pursue a relationship with all the girls in a single playthrough, here each choice changes the dynamic of the whole game and affects other characters too, and therefore makes the end result quite unpredictable. It’s also prettier and more animation-like than most other VNs. It is overall an interesting experience that I recommend to everyone.

#8: Corpse Party

SFW? Yes.

This 1996 game is a dojin soft, which means an independent, usually nonprofit Japanese game. A “circle” called Team GrisGris developed this game with RPG maker for PC-9800. The story takes place in an school called Kisaragi Academy. There’s a closed school in the campus called Heavenly Host in which a series of murders took place some years ago. One day, the students of Kisaragi perform a ritual which transforms them into an alternate reality into the Heavenly Host school, and now they are haunted by the ghosts there. It is now your job to navigate and survive. The game has been also remade and released for PC in 2008, PSP in 2010, and iOS in 2012. There has also been an anime adaptation.

This game takes credit for starting it all. It is the first indie horror game. There are many great indie horror games out there, and this game broke new grounds for them. Its anime-style graphics and intricate plot, the fact that you have to replay the game many times to get all the endings, you might abruptly face game overs, all and all built up a lot of ground for the genre of visual novels as a whole, and horror visual novel especially imitates this game a lot. There is no doubt that this game will go down in history as a major factor in the horror genre and video games as a whole.

It also stands up the test of time and it’s really scary and fun, and also innovative even to this day, and you will enjoy it as much as those who enjoyed it back then. Sure, it might not be a masterpiece of characterizations and philosophical themes, but it is fun and entertaining as hell, so why not play it?

#7: Umineko no Naku Koro ni

SFW? Yes.

The name actually means When the Seagulls Cry but in English it is named Umineko: When They Cry. It is actually a series of stories and this is the third installment. It was developed by 07th Expansion for PC in 2007. There has been various manga and a 26-episode anime adaptations of the series. It has sold a lot and it is critically well received.

Eighteen people are trapped on a secluded island in a mansion. Murders ensue. Now they you have to investigate and determine whether these murders are natural or supernatural.

What I love about this game is the fact that it’s Gothic. My love of the horror genre is actually rooted in my fascination with the Gothic novel as a teenager, with novels such as The Castle of Otranto, Vathek, and the queen of them all, Anne Radcliffe. And everything that there is to love about these novels is present here. Dark, mysterious mansion? Check. Over the top characters who are not deep but fascinating nevertheless – vulnerable damsels in distress, hilariously villainous villains? Check! Looming sense of danger? Check! A creepy mystery with unknown origins? Check! How can people not love this genre – and by extension, this game?

Also, this game is similar to another famous novel – And then There Were None by Agatha Christie, which is, in my humble opinion, her best one.

#6: Divi-Dead

SFW? Nope.

This 1998 game developed by C’s Ware is another game with historical significance. Its English translation helped spark interest for the genre in the west. The story of yet another poorly-supervised horny student, one with a poor health record (that’s also popular in the genre). Ranmaru Hibikiya is his uncle’s spy in a school, and although he is skeptical about the investigations, but soon he is trapped in a series of supernatural events and mysteries that just get ugly.

Divid-Dead is not a flawless game. While some of the hentai scenes are integral to the part, some are just there to be there. The pacing is not balanced – some parts are boring [oh forgive me SSpecter!] because nothing happens and you have to labor through useless dialogues. Then the game suddenly becomes violent and scary and then suddenly a light-hearted porn scene.

But you still should play it because the advantages outweigh the disadvantages. That is, if you are a plot-junkey like I am. The plot is a labyrinth, and it gets more and more confusing, mysterious, and scary the further the game goes. People constantly acquire new personalities and change loyalties, every clue leads to multiple new mysteries, every answer brings up new questions. It’s a rubic cube of questions. And you have to play the game multiple times to understand the story fully.

#5: Gore Screaming Show

SFW? Not at all. Not even a single bit.

With a name which sounds like a Death Metal album by the Cannibal Corpse, you know what to expect from a game with that name and sure as hell it doesn’t disappoint. Developed by Black Cyc, this game also involves a student (Kyouji Jinno), who is also parentless (they are abroad) (you better get used to unsupervised high school libertines if you want to get into VNs), and also goes out of his way to woo the delicate race, but the game is not a high school dating sim because soon the elements of occultism and detective stories enter the frame, and he becomes the investigator of myths surrounding a monster who kills women on the forest on the behalf of his creepy aunt.

So, is this game violent? It is. Is there rape, murder, gore, and many other horrific events, there is. Is the violence over the top? It is. Is the sex gratuitous and disgusting? It sure as hell is. Then should you play it if you are not a psychopath? You should. The story is extremely compelling. It is so suspenseful, so engaging, that you are glued to your chair before the screen and you have nightmares every night. The game doesn’t let you go. The mystery is so horrifying that you just have to – simply have to – go on and find out the answer. The twists are all meaningful, and there is a great theme of loyalty and friendship undercurrent as well. The characters are real people. This game is not a needlessly violent festival of rape, it is a great story.

However, if you are the type who cannot stand the high levels of violent material and disturbing sexual imagery, stir clear of this game, but you’re missing out.

#4: Theresia

SFW? Yes.

A 2008 game eveloped by WorkJam and released exclusively for the DS. A fictional country ruled by a military dictatorship is at war. It follows the story of two protagonists who try to uncover their past. You start as a girl with amnesia who has to solve puzzles. The central mood of the game is mystery and ambiguity, and that is the driving motivation for you to play it, to unweave the mystery little by little with patience and trial and error.

This game is psychological, its story is mature and creepy. Maybe no other DS game (including 999) is so creepy and scary. It is also one of the few games that utilizes the full potential of the dual screen feature of DS. One screen shows a computer-generated image with a pretty good graphic (for DS) and the other a pretty hand drawn picture, and you can always see the map and then the writings and dialogues. It’s the most convenient way to play a VN.

The horror of this game is the embodiment of a mature and artistic attitude towards horror. There is no over the top violence (it is violent thought), no scare jumps, nothing. The game is actually quite slow. The horror creeps in from the atmosphere, the sensation of loss and confusion, the compelling mystery at the core, which build up to make you feel like an alien in a hostile world. It is psychological in the true sense of the word – it targets your weak spots as a human and builds its monument of fear there.

Do yourself a favor and do not miss this amazing, enigmatic experience.

#3: Shikkoku no Sharnoth: What a Beautiful Tomorrow

SFW? No.

A 2008 game developed by Liar-soft, a sequel to other “What a Beautiful” games. Fans of the series might chew my head off but I like this one more than Inganock- WAY more. Anyway, you are Mary Clarissa Christie, a girl in London in 1905, she suddenly develops a case of heterochromia – one of her blue eyes turn yellow. She begins to see visions and you have to uncover a mystery.

The plot of this game is incredibly complex. Not only there is a complex puzzle yo have to unweave patiently, that you have to repeat the game again and again, but there is more. A great immersive atmosphere, which leaves you in a state of awe and sublime in every step, enriched by steampunk and fantasy elements, a rich mythology behind the game, and its highly allusive nature. Like every other literary masterpiece, every line and word can be analyzed.

There are also some minigames! You have to survive by escaping from monsters in a turned based game. So it’s not all reading!

This game is truly avant-garde. You need patience and effort to understand it – but it’s worth it.

#2: Saya no Uta

SFW? No.

Literally meaning “Saya’s Song”, written by Gen Urobuchi and developed by Nitroplus and released in 2003. Fuminori Sakisaka, a medical student, receives a brain damage in a car accident and he develops a case of agnosia (copy/pasted from Wikipedia: ” a loss of ability to recognize objects, persons, sounds, shapes, or smells while the specific sense is not defective nor is there any significant memory loss.”) But it’s not the normal agnosia, as he perceives everything through a warped veil. The world appears to him like hell, with a black sky, fleshy buildings, and gory streets, and he perceives other humans as monsters. But then he meets Saya, a girl who looks human and beautiful in this grotesque world. He wants to stay with her in her quest to look for her father, and she agrees. They embark on a quest together.

You have to be able to tolerate much to go through this game. This includes the grotesque imagery, shocking and frankly disturbing sadistic sex scenes, unsettling music and sound, and the psychological burden of playing through one of the cruelest and scary games and stories of all time.

But then again, this is horror at its best. The gradual death of humanity, the way that the atmospheric mercilessness of the story numbs you and instills a psychological fear that will stay with you. “Fatigue” is usually an emotion not brought up in a compliment to a game – but if the works of art are supposed to let us experience all there is to humanity, from the darkest to the lightest, Saya no Uta will wear you down and weaken you, and that is why it’s great.

This is an experience of madness – a bleak, nihilistic look at human nature. In writing it is reminiscent of the cruelty Marquis de Sade, in visuals, of surrealist horror. If you are not weak, it is one of the best journeys through the madness you can find.

#1: Kara no Shoujo

SFW? No.

Developed by Innocent Grey in 2008, this game puts you in the shoes of Reiji Tokisaka. He was a police officer but he quit in a series of grotesque murders which took the life of his beloved fiance, and became a private eye. Now his old friend and colleague recruits his help to investigate a new series of murders similar to the old ones. At the same time, Toko Kuchiki, a high school student who studies at the same school that the murders take place in, asks Reiji to find her “true self”. The events of the past and present become entangled in more than one disturbing ways.

This game is more than its complex and intricate plot. Sure, the abundance of choices will make you play through the game many times and get stuck at moments many times before making the correct choices advancing through the plot. But in spite of that ultimately the plot and the central puzzle are not as complex as games like Divi-Dead or What a Beautiful Tomorrow. The central mystery is gripping and intense and certainly very scary, but there’s more to this game. Sure, the scepter of the serial murders is very scary, and you follow the story with gripping fear, but that’s not what makes this game great.

Behind the veil of blood, gore, a series of rather unnecessary porn scenes and some necessary ones, this game is an incredibly human story of grief, loss, and identity. Richly allusive, deeply symbolic, at its core it tells the story of husbands mourning their wives, wives mourning their husbands, children mourning their parents, people asking who they are and what is their place in a cruel and unloving world, trying to define themselves, trying to find their “true self”, sometimes willing to go to incredible violent lengths – sometimes gone mad. It is a story of unfulfilled dreams and unrealized dreams.

Toko Kuchiki remains one of the best written characters of all time, as she is all that there is to a typical character of horror detective story but more- much more- she is vulnerable and strong. Reiji is not a simple detective and perv, he is a human who filters the world through incredibly human eyes, and whether it’s his stoic sister, or the grieving inn-keeper, we discover that each of these characters are human, they are like us, and their condition shows the tragedy of humanity. As the game ends, as we approach the climax, it is not the depth of horror or excitement that the game takes us to, like normal horror detective stories strive to, it is the depth of sorrow, and empathy.

This is why I select this game as number one. I am a great fan of the works that take us into the darkest and the least desirable realms of our psyche, and Saya no Uto is such a game. But nothing beats a great paradox in art: behind the curtain of blood and gore and mindless porn, beyond all the murders and disturbing imagery, Kara no Shoujo is an incredibly humane game- with nothing but love for the embattled and unfortunate entity that is human.

Conclusion

Many people believe that VNs are inferior to books and games. They are not books and they are not games. They are an unfortunate hybrid without identity, a mindless gore and porn festival for juvenile people without conscience or human decency. If you suffer from such prejudices, you harm no one but yourself. The truth is, although the main body of VNs might be just that (and in what art isn’t? 90% of movies, books, and mainstream games are crap too), VN as a new, yet uncensored media provides opportunities for real artists to venture into the grounds and make experiments that would be impossible in any other market.

I cannot discuss this matter without delving into spoilers, so don’t read further if you haven’t finished the game.

The article starts with a questionable request from the reader. “Let’s imagine watching the opening of the game as if we’d never played a video game before.” Urm, why? The game does not make any claim to be suitable for someone who has never played a game. Or read story. Or even studied philosophy to some extent. You have to be familiar with the previous games in the series, and the game is richly allusive, so you have to have a rich background in entertainment in order to fully appreciate the game. The article follows with a series of screenshots that convey the point that the game is pretty – and yes, it is pretty – and then presents some snapshots that convey that the game is violent, and yes, it is violent. And what is wrong with that? Well, here goes the rationale:

BioShock Infinite is in many ways so, so close to being That Game, the one we can show to our non-gamer friends and say “See? Look at this! It is so awesome! Check out the story! It’s like LOST! How neat is this?” But it’s not That Game, because it’s so hilariously, egregiously violent that a large number of people will never give it a chance. [...] I tend to look for games that I could show to my sister. [...] I wish I could show her this game, but after about the hour-mark, I’d lose her attention. She’d see the absolutely insane violence of the melee kills and say “Well, this is dumb,” and get up to go do something else.

That’s a very strange and – excuse me for my rudeness – stupid anecdotal criteria for judging a work of art. He is wrong because my sister played the game and loved it. OK, I’m joking, I actually don’t have a sister. OH MY GOD! I cannot judge any game because I don’t have any sisters! I have to ask my parents to spice things up in the bedroom or I will have to abandon gaming once and for all, you know?

You’re right, I’m needlessly mean. But it’s really hard to not poke fun at such ridiculous reasoning. Of course, it is not BAD if a game could appease Hamilton’s sister. I have absolutely no qualm with Hamilton’s crusade to find THAT game which convinces his sister to join the ranks of gamers. But that raises some questions. Why should he feel disappointed if a game doesn’t? Are games supposed to be designed in a way to appease his sister? Should a game creator prioritize his sister over plot, theme, and the philosophy behind the game? Should artists be so eager to broaden their fanbase to include his sister to forgo something they artistically decided to put in the game? And finally, has Hamilton shown f***ing Harvest Moon to his sister?

Of course, he is not alone in this regard. He quotes Chris Pilante from Polygon who has another close-minded relative and feels Levine’s artistic universe should revolve around her ass. We first hear how his wife was excited about Bioshock: Infinite but she couldn’t stomach the violence, and then he asks: “But what about my wife? What about the people who can stomach only so much aggressive violence and unchecked cruelty?” As you can see, there is this repulsive sense of entitlement. I’m sorry Chris, but Bioshock: Infinite is not human rights, or healthcare. It’s an artistic expression from an artist to people who might appreciate his works.

So even if the game really WAS mindlessly violent, Hamilton’s criticism would still be irrelevant, because it ascribes a task to the game which it has never claimed to want to follow, and also, he can find another game for his sister, the rest of humanity should not suffer a watered-down game for it.

But why Bioshock: Infinite is so violent? The answer is clear. This is a bleak, nihilistic, and sad game, which questions the nature of power, and the nature of human society, and even transgression against this system. The beautiful surface is in contrast with the bleak themes and realities below, and this contrast. The game creates a pretty box with ugly contents. And that is the point of the game, that there is no heaven, and heaven is a lie. People like Hamilton are so overtaken by the heavenly aspects of the game that they forget that it is a deception, and how the game is supposed to portray the ugliness of its world if not through violence? Look at this quote from Hamilton: “The ridiculous violence stands out in such sharp relief when placed against the game’s thoughtful story and lovely world.” The world is not lovely. That’s the point. It’s a racist theocratic dystopia.

When you first begin the game, you are in awe of the beautiful scenery, and yes, the shock of your first kill is a legitimate shock, you wince, but it is because of the contrast. You suddenly realize that it is the real world, where people bleed, and death and murder are real things. Violence drives Fitzroy so mad she becomes a greater villain herself, and tries to kill a child. Would a bloodless, harmless revolution drive its leader so mad? Booker DeWitt not only becomes the villain, he IS the villain, he is Comstock. We know Booker is traumatized by his own atrocities in Wounded Knee, but they twist him so much that even after he is born again he is again a monster. Where would the game be without this trauma? Without violence, the game is meaningless. Violence does not detract from the experience of the game, it IS the experience of the game. This is a game about violence and its roots in religion, history, racism, and how it pollutes everyone.

But our detractors have their retorts ready. Pilante says: “If violence is necessary to confirm Booker’s status as villain, the first dozen kills more than get the message across.” Umm….. what? Has he forgotten that Bioshock is a video game, and games have these thing called gameplay, and combat, and levels? But then when he goes on to say “BioShock Infinite has little to say about violence. The story of Elizabeth, Comstock and Booker is one of personal dramas and familial traumas that owes more to 1960s American theater than 1990s independent cinema.” It shows he has misunderstood the game, and he has missed entirely the racial politics, and religious themes and imagery.

And then we go to Pilante’s last argument. “The argument assumes everyone makes it past the dozens of sticky and explosive headshots — and doubly assumes that we need yet another violent video game about how violent video game players are. The best attack on violent games, after all, is not making violent games.”

Well, yes. You have to be violent in order to make the violence real. The best works on violence are themselves very violent. The best works on trauma are traumatic. The best works on love are romantic. And yes, we still need them. We will need them as long as there is violence in the world.

Which brings me to my final point. Hamilton manages to be the most irritating in the final lines of his article: “And in the meantime, hey, I’m actually okay with ripping digital heads off, as far as it goes. I’ve been playing video games for ages, after all.”

Which brings up the question – why is it that, most of the times and with a few exceptions, the well-thought works of art illicit such complaints? Why Taxi Driver and Clockwork Orange and Django Unchained enrage people, and not Bullet in the Head or Dead Man Down? OR why not Tom and Jerry? With the exception of Mortal Kombat and Rapelay the other famous games which ignited the flames of controversy are great works of art that criticize the society, including the GTA series. So, are people offended by the violence or by the message, by the unmasking?

To me, such responses only strengthen the value of a game like Bioshock: Infinite. In a corrupt world anything worthy of being said is discomforting, after all.

Before everything let make it clear that I have never been a diehard fan of these series. Sure, I have played every game in the series and I have looked forward to every new installment, but that’s it. Therefore, I’m quite happy with the direction that this reboot is taking the series – now Lara Croft is much more than simply an Indiana Jones with glitchy boobs. She is now a real character with real human emotions and weaknesses. That’s a good thing. The rest of the game? That’s good too, but not great, or special. Ultimately, this game takes advantage of being a Tomb Raider. As a part of that series, this game is innovative for its redesign of the beloved heroine, but apart from that it has nothing else to offer. The game pretends to be more innovative than it really is. It is still an entertaining game I recommend to everyone, but it is not a great game, or a masterpiece.

The greatest strength of the game as I said before is the character of Lara. There has been a trend to give the beloved characters of the past a new gritty and dark reboot which shows their dark side. Christopher Nolan’s Batman (although Batman was already dark and gritty in the original source material, this was a great change for cinema audiences), Daniel Craig’s James Bond, Zack Snyder’s upcoming Superman, Sam Fisher in Conviction…. the list goes on. Now you can add Lara Croft to the list. This game takes us to the years before the original Tomb Raider, it shows us how Lara became Lara, how she grew from a normal girl to a heroine. The answer is, by going through lots of painful ordeals. Seriously, this game is brutal. Lara is stabbed, burnt, shot, hit more than you can imagine, and she falls on the ground so many times you wonder how she has any bones left in her body. Physical calamity befalls her in every turn of the events and they are more painful and horrifying than all the African tribes manhood quests rolled into one. Seriously, my face muscles worked as much as my fingers playing this game, so many times I cringed.

Violence in this game is used intelligently and effectively. Lara does not become the butt of sick jokes on the part of the gamers and creators, because her pain and calamities is conveyed in a way that we all feel and share the pain, and therefore we praise Lara because every time that she hits the ground she rises again and continues on her quest. This is true not only when it comes to violence done against her but also violence committed by her. The first instances of violence are shocking and painful. And they seem to leave Lara emotionally harmed. She reacts realistically to the events, she is scared, she is vulnerable, but she chooses to resist and push on. That makes her a real heroine, because she is no more the wise-cracking, invincible, and heartless woman of the previous games. She is a human character, a convincing one who evokes empathy. She is desexualized to a great degree, while she is still sexy. She is realistic. A real human. If this was the movie she would deserve the best actress Oscar or something.

In this regard this game can be compared to Far Cry 3. Both games shove an everyman character into an impossible situation in which s/he has to adapt to the hostile environment quickly or die, and both games deal with the emotional and psychological consequences of such a predicament. The main difference is that that Far Cry 3 is much subtle and complex, because the protagonist seems to lose his sanity and develop a taste for murder, but here Lara becomes Lara Croft, a heroine and a survivor.

That’s how you become a real woman.

And the game, as I’ve said, does an excellent job of integrating the gamer into the experience and forcing him to share Lara’s feelings and situation. The game is brutal and gripping in its gameplay and plot, most of the times the sense of emergency and danger is ominously present at every turn. You can rarely feel safe. Combat is designed that way, stay a little bit in one place and they will flush you out with an explosive. Platformer levels are designed that way, and there are many instances in the game where everything begins to crumble and you have to get the hell out or get crushed. And Lara dies in quite creative ways to reward you for a little mistake. There are few levels that you feel relaxed, like the optional tombs which are the most like previous games in the series, and few levels you truly explore somewhere and you are free to wander around and loot stuff. But these relxed levels are only intermissions, and soon you are thrust into another whirlwind of trouble and press this frigging button on time or do this move the prefect way or die.

That is why the game was correct to shift the emphasis from puzzles and platformer levels to actions and speed. It does it well. It remains exciting throughout because the danger is always looming above, and it makes sense. In every other situation Lara might have not been pushed to do so many things. But she has to, and she delivers. This game is about the making of an action heroine and it delivers.

So if the games are supposed to be entertaining, this game is. If they are supposed to be something more, this game is not, and that’s why I won’t call it a great game or a masterpiece.

Lara with the most dangerous weapon in the history of war.

First of all, the gameplay has nothing new to offer. All the normal cliches are here, few weapons, few upgrades and experience points for giggles, (which are quite ineffective), cover and shoot gameplay or slowly walk behind them and kill them with stealth, jump and use ropes, solve centuries old puzzles, and collect meaningless Assassin Flags to reach 100% completion. There’s no need to explain the gameplay in full detail, because you already know everything there is to know about it, it’s pleasant, well-designed rehearsal of all the norms we are used to see in the video games. Its world pretends to be explorable but it’s not. It pretends to have RPG elements but it doesn’t. The gameplay is linear with a deception of non-linearity, which is not a bad thing, but it is a tried and true thing. It never gets boring or anything, but it never gets something exceptional.

There are a few problems. Pistols seem to be more powerful than rifles and shotguns, at least I was more comfortable with them. The bow is certainly more powerful than all of them. I killed a boar with two arrows and three shotgun bullets. This bow fetishism is a strange trend in video games these days, from Far Cry 3 to Crysis 3. Playing these games one wonders why humanity ever bothered to invent guns if it had such a death machine at its disposal. Also, sometimes the camera suddenly switches and leaves you confused for some time. But the most annoying aspect of gameplay by far was the automatic switch to bow in every major turn of the events. I WANT TO USE THE PISTOL, DAMMIT! STOP SWITCHING AUTOMATICALLY TO BOW! Really, I get it, you love bows, you want to marry bows, you want to have children with bows who look like real thin and curvy humans. I don’t. I don’t feel cool when I have a bow in hand. I love GUNS. Please don’t force me to change my weapon every ten minutes, OK?

I have to commend the game for its use of save/load points. Although you can’t save the game whenever you want (ARRG!) you really don’t need to, because the checkpoints are not far away, when you make a mistake, you don’t have to repeat everything and that’s good. As I’ve said, the whole game is designed in a way that it never becomes tedious.

The plot? Again, gripping and exciting, but nothing more. The supporting characters are bland, boring, and cliche. We never see them much. There’s the father figure, the damsel in distress, the greedy one, the exotic one, the cynic one, and the snarker who wants to be a hero. Yes, we find notes written by them which gives some sense of background and story, especially for Roth and Reyes. But ultimately they are noises in the background, and they never get any real characterization and depth. The same can be said about the antagonist. The crazy cult leader? Yes, we’ve had that before. Also, the supernatural explanation of the events is in contrast with the realistic tone. Also, the main plot is bereft of any real meaning, or any real conflict. It is all an excuse to plunge Lara into trouble, and Lara is the only one who stands out from this carnival of cliches and overused tropes.

The technicalities? The game was relatively bug-free, but then again, I rarely notice bugs, so don’t trust me on this. I loved the graphics, the characters look realistic and the environment is alive and picturesque, but then again, nothing groundbreaking here as well. Lara’s voice acting is superb and the others ordinary. Music can get irritating when it comes to combat scenes, because it keeps being played, but otherwise, fine. Again, nothing special or remarkable, but everything is acceptable.

I don’t think anyone would want to play this game more than once, and I doubt anyone would choose it as the game of the year (although it certainly deserves the character of the year award). It is a worthy prelude to the legend of Lara Croft, so play it. The real question is, how will be the next games in the series? Because here we’ve established that Lara becomes the flat Lara we all know (of course, not physically flat *wink* *wink*). Will the next games be the rehash of older Tomb Raider games and therefore lose all the advantages of this game? Or will they go the MGS and Splinter Cell route, and give us an old, grumpy Lara who’s too old and tired for this s***? Come to think about it, we’ve never had an old woman as a protagonist of a game… yes! It’s time to make one!

George R. R. Martin is the author of the hit epic fantasy series A Song of Ice and Fire, which was adapted into the famous HBO series Game of Thrones. An American born in New Jersey, he has also written great science fiction and vampire works. His fantasy series are famous for being too serious. They deal with the inner workings of politics, the evils of war, and the heroism of people who stand against the odds. The world is violent, cruel and ugly, winters are deadly and they can last years. No one is safe, any character might turn up dead any moment unceremoniously and many fans have to grieve for their favorite characters. Valar Morghulis, indeed. The politics is dirty and everyone plays immoral tricks. Good and bad are hardly distinguishable;le and all characters are deeply flawed. It is fantasy for adults. And not soft-hearted ones.

Thankfully, many games are just like that.

#10: Game of Thrones

Is it cheating to include the game based on the television series based on the novel? Well, maybe. But this is still an important game especially for for the fans of the books. The game has two main characters, a Red Priest called Alester Sarwyck, who has the power to manipulate the fire, and the skinchanger Mors Westford, who can penetrate the mind of his fog. Alester was the heir of a wealthy family which is now in trouble and he has to return and save his family from his pious exile. Mors is a guard of the Night Watch. He is someone who has sworn to guard the Northern border of the country, which is very cold, and savage tribes and monsters roam beyond it, but it is now in dire need of money, and people keep deserting.

Now, none of these characters are from the book. The events are parallel to the events of the first novel A Game of Thrones and the first season of the TV series, and you do meet some of the main characters, including the Old Bear Mormont, the Queen Cersei, and Varys. Even George R. R. Martin himself has a Cameo appearance as Maester Martin in Castlewood. Since Martin himself oversaw the writing of the script, there are some questions and the theories of the fans which can be answered by the game, such as (the following paragraph includes spoilers so don’t read it if you haven’t read the books or watched the series:

Did Cersei really order the killing of Robert’s bastards? Well, we see her give the order here.

As a fan of the book series, this game is mandatory.

However, it is not a very good game, and not a very good story in itself. The game fails to grasp the complexity of Martin’s world, and therefore overall it’s a failure. It’s more interesting for the trivia and the giggles than anything.

#9: Baldur’s Gate series

Now there are two sides to the world of Westeros. Fantasy, and politics. If you enjoy ASOIAF (acronym of A Song of Ice and Fire), then it is plausible to assume that you enjoy a world which combines the magic of fantasy genre with the darkest aspects of power and war. We’ll get into these games. But first, let’s separate them and talk about a fantasy game and a political one separately. Let’s now focus on one side of that coin: ASOIAF has a vast carefully constructed fantasy world which feels completely real and yet it is imaginative you can feel you are exploring a land of wonders while you read the books. Is there a game which does the same- constructing a beautiful fantasy world with all its ups and downs and dangers and wonders and beauties and- of course- dungeons and dragons? Of course there is. There are many. Diablo fits, World of Warcraft fits, many games fit. But here I have chosen Baldur’s Gate series.

You have to agree that the world of BG is quite cool. The world includes cities, mountains, plains, forests, and seas. The geography is very similar to that of ASOIAF, with the city of Baldur’s Gate similar to the great cities like Winterfell and King’s Landing. There are, like many great fantasy games, many classes and you fight a large variety of monsters and enemies. Just like ASOIAF, (and admittedly many other great games), these games provide a plausible experience of life in a fantasy world.

#8: Metal Gear Solid series

Now let’s look at the other side of the coin. ASOIAF is also a very political book with clear messages, and in that aspect the closest game to the series is the spy fiction and sci-fi series MGS. Both works are anti-war, as we can see it in MGS in the scenes dealing with the horrific past of some enemies like The End or The Sniper Wolf, and in the book when Brienne visits war-ridden towns and other characters witness the horrors of war. Both works are very skeptical about the inner wokings of the political world. ASOIAF shows characters like Varys and Littlefinger and Doran plot in the shadows withour really thinking about the effects on the people, and we have the shadowy works of the Patriots in the game. In both works, we see the how fanaticism can destroy the world, as in the characters of Vamp or Mellisandre. Also, in both works we are shown that power is a corrupt entity which drives people insane, as in the character of Liquid or Cersei.

Also, in both works we are shown that heroism is not meaningless, and even though it might take you life, and although they might be flawed, ultimately the world is full of real heroes, maybe Jon and Samwell and Arya or even Solid Snake or Boss or Raiden.

So if you liked the political messages of ASOIAF, you’re going to love MGS.

#7: Dishonored (PC, X360, PS3)

We tend to forget that GRRM is also a great science fiction writer. His first works were science fiction, and he has also edited Wild Cards, a science fiction and superhero steampunk anthology series set in a shared universe, composed of either individual short stories with a shared theme or mosaic novels. A virus infects the world and it either kills people or turns them into monsters or grants them super powers (somehow like the magic bestowed upon Corvo). The books are inspired by superhero comics, and many of the authors play with the conventions of the medium.

Actually, think about it, a superhero story set in a dystopian bleak sci-fi steampunk world? What more do you want to think that this is exactly like the world of Dishonored. Like Corvo, the superheroes of these books are usually a deconstruction of normal superheroes and their awesomeness, and the bleak side of these abilities are pictured. Both works portray poverty and how it affects the people who live under it and the celebrities and how rich feed on the poor. So the books and the games also share a strong social theme and commentary.

If you know GRRM only by ASOIAF, I really recommend Wild Cards. Also, the game.

#6: Vagrant Story (PS)

One of the central themes of ASOIAF is the fact that heroism is impossible, that idealism is useless in the real world, that our heroes need to take a cue from Hobbes and the pragmatism of Machiavelli. This is a theme these books shares with this incredibly sad and solemn game, which follows its lonely hero who fights alone and is accused of the crime he had never committed, and disappears without us knowing what happened to him in the end. Vagrant Story is a requiem for heroism, a game which deconstructs the normal RPG themes and tropes to create a bleak reality. The same can be said of ASOIAF. Both works are one of the best examples of their respective genre, and both turn its conventions on their heads and undermine the tropes to create a more realistic and pessimistic version of it.

They are different in tone though. ASOIAF seems to be more gritty while VS is more sad and serious. ASOIAF takes place in epic proportions and deals with many characters while VS deals with an individual hero and villain and few supporting characters and everything is minimalistic. Also, I have always find the story of VS lyrical, so maybe this game is also very close to the world of Cormac McCarthy and surely I will add this game to his list when the time comes.

I’m leaving this entry short because to elaborate would spoil the books and the game.

#5: The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

I talked to many people about this list series before embarking to write it, and they all seemed to agree on one thing: Skyrim should be on this list. And the reason is completely clear. Both Skyrim and ASOIAF have a very vast and detailed world. Both of them make the life in a fantasy world completely authentic and both of them are long. ASOIAF is a famous door stopper which is already 8000 pages long and two more volumes (at least) are in the way. As for Skyrim, I personally have spent 1500 hours of my life in that universe (so far). In addition to authentic fantasy experience and length there is thematic similarities too. A side story of both works are a civil war, the war of the Five Kings and the war between Nords and Imperials. [If calling the war of the Five Kings a "side story" seems strange to you, remember that ultimately the series is about the dawn of winter and the Others]. In both of these side stories the morality is gray and gray and each side has its own weaknesses and strengths. You might remember the debate between me and Blue Gunstar Hero in Gaming Symmetry about which side we rooted for in the Civil War, and you might also remember that I was completely right and he was completely wrong. Haha, kidding, actually we were both right and we both had our point and I believe the whole point of that debate was to illustrate this point. And if you look at the forums of Westeros.org you will see how readers have rooted for different characters – Stannis, Danny, Lannisters, Starks, etc, and how they all find textual evidence to support their characters. The books and the games are also similar because you can’t go to some parts of Skyrim and NOT think of the Wall, and also Dovakiin reminds me of Danny somehow in her quest to perfect her Dragon abilities.

There is one crucial difference between the two works though. First off, Skyrim is not as realistic as ASOIAF. While people who dislike fantasy love ASOIAF, Skyrim goes to the other extreme and indulges in all manners of fantasy and supernatural. ASOIAF thrives by undermining fantasy tropes and expectations and Skyrim thrives by adding as many as possible. Although both works are great in their own place (greatest of their in my humble opinion), their philosophy of existence is radically different.

#4: Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos and The Frozen Throne (PC)

Another central theme of ASOIAF is this: power is evil, power corrupts, it corrupts people and nations alike, it destroys good men and women and bad ones equally, that the quest for it is mad and stupid and to desire power is a sure path to one’s doom. And the exact same can be said about these games. Now this section will be full of spoilers. Don’t read the second paragraph if you haven’t read the books (all five of them) and don’t read the last one if you haven’t played the game.

Robert Baratheon was a good brave man who was in love with Ned’s sister and helped people a lot. But when he became King the power took its toll on him and he became some fat dude who abused his wife and didn’t care for his children and spent his time whoring and drinking and hunting. Speaking of his wife, what would Cersei be if not a loving mother if she was not Queen, and the power led her to be increasingly paranoid until she created enemies in everyone even her own uncle and her ultimate (possible) downfall? Why would Ned lose his head if not for the politics of power? Why would Jon do things against his own conscience if he had not become Lord Commander? What about the tragic fate of Theon? And while it’s true that characters like Joffrey and Ramsey are evil by nature, they would never have an opportunity to commit their cruel deeds without power, or at least the scale would be less horrifying. A psychopath without power is at worst a serial killer, one with power becomes someone like Idi Amin or Hitler.

And the same is true about the game. Arthas was a good prince, a brave man, but he made a pact with the devil to gain more undead powers, and he makes that deal only because he is blinded by his own prejudice against Orcs and the Undead, and he ends up massacring an entire village, killing his own father and mentor, and then he BECOMES an Undead, the very thing he had tried to fight against. He then moves on to become the Lynch King, a classic case of hero turned villain.

All these examples support real world evidence – you can easily compare Cersei and Arthas to real world dictators, and it is one area that fantasy is never as absurd as reality. So these works are similar because they are both fantasy works supporting freedom, by deconstructing the evil of power.

#3: Final Fantasy Tactics (PS)

There are many characters in both works. In both works, it’s hard to decide who is the main hero (although the best answer is none). In both works each character has his/her own philosophy of life, which come to clash in the context of the novel/game and there is never a clear winner. Ned has his stoicism and honor, Stannis his rigid idea of justice, Renly believes in the popular voice, Tywin is a fascist who believes in nothing but his own power, Tyrion is a pessimist who believes the world is an ugly place…. and so on and so forth. Ramza Beoulve is a free spirited heretic, his free-thinking attitude is symbolized in him being a mercenary- belonging to no creed, just a man of himself. Delita Hyral, another major character, is a commoner who has turned into a hero, and his ideas clearly represent those of a democrat. There are also many supporting characters who represent social Darwinism, aristocracy, etc. There are tons of characters and tons of ideas. Both works ultimately embrace all differences and accept that we all have a share of truth.

The setting is also similar, an authentic medieval world which actually deals with the modern preoccupations of our time rather than medieval topics. A country with a rich history and mythology of its own – Ivalice and Westeros. Both works also strongly emphasize the role of power in their world. Also, both works undermine the expectations of the reader, someone you thought is good turns out to be bad, vice versa, also character development is always in progress and people change from hero to villain all the time. In both works anyone can die and people drop like leaves.

Yeah, they’re quite similar.

#2: Dragon Age: Origins (PC, X360, PS3)

Now this is interesting. There are few works which share more thematic similarities with ASOIAF than Dragon Age. Both works deal with the world of politics, although ASOIAF is more political in nature. While ASOIAF deals with the inner workings of a political system with excruciating detail DAO merely deals with some corrupt power grabbers. An exception to that rule is the side quest which deals with solving the issue of Dwarves and who gets to be their king. Like ASOIAF, these kings have no moral superiority to each other, one stands for tradition and one for modernity, while both are not beyond sneaky means to obtain power and both are tyrannical, so this particular side quest is pure political struggle with a gray and gray morality. Apart from this, if ASOIAF doesn’t dramatically change course in the upcoming books, it seems both works deal with the surge of a mighty amoral race of supernatural beings who threaten to destroy the world and in both works these races are very symbolic.

Both works deal extensively with religion, and in both of them the religions mirror the real world religions to an extent. The Faith of the Seven and Chantry; are the organized clergy-based and hierarchy-structured religions which are reminiscent of Catholic or Orthodox Christianity and Orthodox Judaism and also Fiqh Islam. Old Gods; of the books are like the Old Gods; of the game (which is rather obvious by the name) and they reflect the pagan animistic religions. There are also atheists in both works, such as Morrigan in the games and Stannis in the books. Both books and the games leave the question of religion largely unanswered and leave it to the reader/gamer to decide for him/herself.

Also, both works have a fantastic supporting cast. I remember few other books with so many memorable greatly written supporting characters, and DOA is the same. Both have memorable and great dialogue, both are fantastically written. Finally, both have gray and gray morality with characters you can root for and/or hate, based on your own choosing. Personally, I think many individual characters can be even compared, including Morrigan and Tyrion, scarred traumatized individuals who are really smart and have questionable moralities but we love them for their wits and snarks, Zevran and Jaqen H’ghar, lovely assassins who refer to themselves with 3rd person, Alistair and Renly, foolish fabulous young men with ideals in their hearts, and the list goes on.

Seriously, if you love ASOIAF, you love DAO.

#1: The Witcher series

Both Witcher games are great pleasures for anyone who loves ASOIAF. The similarities are so many that they could be easily written by the same authors. First off, both worlds are very realistic when you compare them to the other works of their genre. Secondly, they both deal with the political intrigues and the corruption of the the world of politics behind the shadows, especially in the first game. Thirdly, both deal with sexuality in rawness and with no shame, and although in the first game this could get ridiculous at times, in the second games all sex scenes advance the plot and help build character. Fourthly, they both have a gray and gray morality, and you have to choose between two sides that are not completely right. While in the second games the Elves are slightly more right than the other side, in the books the same can be said of the sides opposing Lannisters. Fifth, in the both works we have a compelling cast of characters, which is less large in the games.

Sixth, in both works you choices have unexpected real consequences which shape the series. Seventh, both works are gritty and violent and this violent serves to prove their point. Eighth, both works have social themes like poverty and how powerful people exploit the poor. Ninth, both works are anti-war at heart, showing the negative horrifying images of war and destruction. Tenth, both are superbly written and emotionally powerful.

They say McCarthy writes anti-Western. If that label is accurate, then Martin writes anti-fantasy and The Wicther games are the anti-fantasy of video games. No more similarity is possible. Not only in theme and style, but also in spirit these works are brothers. Play the games and enjoy.

Conclusion

Well that’s it. I began with GRRM because I thought he was the easiest to find games for. There are endless great authors and this list series could go on forever. Who would you like to see next? PM me or post in the top 10 board in GameFAQs, or comment in Gaming Symmetry. Until the next episode, bye!

As an avid gamer, I’m sure you all know where I stand on this issue. I believe we can easily poke some holes in the most arguments raised against video games, however, some of them are more serious than the others. I think ultimately video games are a target of people who don’t want to see the real problem.

Wayne LaPierre, the president of NRA, issued a statement today in which he blamed video games, among other things, for the disaster. He has said that:

And here’s another dirty little truth that the media try their best to conceal. There exists in this country, sadly, a callous, corrupt and corrupting shadow industry that sells and stows violence against its own people. Through vicious, violent video games with names like ‘Bullet Storm,’ ‘Grand Theft Auto,’ ‘Mortal Combat,’ and ‘Splatterhouse.’

Every sentence of that statement is simply false. First of all, the media has never attempted to conceal such a thing. I believe any unbiased person can attest that media is quite negative when it comes to video games. Every mass killer with the exception of Bin Laden was somehow linked to a video games. We were told Adam Lanza may have played Starcraft and Call of Duty. We were told that the Norwegian mass killer played World of Warcraft, even while it was completely evident his own ideology had led him to such actions. Every research showing a negative side effect is fully reported and the researches which demonstrate the positive side effects are either downplayed or ignored. Secondly, video games are not a “shadow industry” the last time I checked- they seem to be working in public and heavily regulated too. We now come to the third claim, that video game industry “sells and stows violence”, which I’ll discuss later.

Wayne LaPierre is hardly alone in this opinion. LaPierre is clearly a pro-gun, but the other side of issue is not better. Senator Jay Rockefeller is a Democrat and he is in favor of gun control, but he also hates video games. He introduced a bill to target video games, saying:

Recent court decisions demonstrate that some people still do not get it. They believe that violent video games are no more dangerous to young minds than classic literature or Saturday morning cartoons. Parents, pediatricians and psychologists know better. These court decisions show we need to do more and explore ways Congress can lay additional groundwork on this issue. This report will be a critical resource in this process.

Here are top 10 greatest.

#10: Nina Williams from Tekken series and Death by Degrees

Dubbed the “world’s sexiest assassin”, Nina Williams almost didn’t make this list, because we never control her assassinating someone, but her profession is completely imbedded in her background and story and it’s not simply a job title for some fighting game character. And also because she seems to suck at her job, because she never actually succeeds in her missions. But then again, her targets are protected by thick plot armors, and they survive falling into volcano as well, so maybe we shouldn’t be too much hard on her. Anyway, although Nina is still one of the most alluring assassins of video game history, in spite of being a character in a fighting game and not actually killing that many people. Why?

Honestly, it’s hard to say. There’s no doubt that the response to her has been very positive, and she has been regarded as an enchanting character almost universally. She is sexy, without being too eroticized to make the gamer feel insulted (unlike her sister), and she’s very deadly, powerful, and distant. We are at the same time attracted to her and frightened by her. And yet there are moments that we see her heart and human side. Also, she chronicles a true struggle for her identity throughout the games. Humanity, sexuality, and deadliness: everything attractive in a fictional character is here. Really, Nina transcends the game she’s in, and quite accidentally I guess. That was why I had put her on my list, sub-plots more interesting than the main plots. She’s the only “character” in the festival of one dimensional types which is Tekken, and you don’t even get it if you play one game, her character develops throughout her career. And it can’t be something intentional. It’s just the power of fiction, because sometimes when you stretch something out of its proportions, it becomes awesome.

I mean, just look at Death by Degrees. That is a pretty bad game. But it’s still a great game, because you are too fascinated by watching Nina in action to worry about gameplay and graphics. As a game it was doomed to be great.

#9: Travis Touchdown from No More Heroes series

Nerds love assassins. That’s why they appear in so prominently in the nerd culture. But Travis Touchdown is at the same time the king of the nerds and the king of the assassins. He spends his days watching anime and porn and spends his night assassinating the s*** out of people. He collects action figures. Loves western style wrestling. He plays video games a lot. He loves Star Wars , he even wields a “beam sword” as his weapon (Lightsaber is a copyrighted material of Disney film Productions). He lives in a motel in poverty, and he never gets laid.

He runs out of money to buy video games, and therefore he turns into a life of crime in order to secure the money. (So video games don’t lead to violence, but their price might). One day a woman called Sylvia Christel pays him to kill Helter Skelter, also known as “the Drifter,” which causes him to earn the rank 11th in the United Assassins Association. Then he is the target of all assassins who want his rank, and now he has to kill his way up the ladder to number one.

This game is at the same time a parody and a celebration of pop culture in general, using gratuitous sex and violence without becoming vulgar, funny without being ridiculous, and it has truly absorbed its sources and has deconstructed them- a truly postmodern game. Travis is at the same time us, the gamers, and our dream hero. He’s the ultimate representation of what is wrongly called male desire, something which might provoke some criticism but I think it is great and it represents a subculture, which might be dominated by men but through no fault of its own but bad parenting. He’s a great character. However, I don’t rank him high in the assassin’s list because we don’t see him assassinating much, he could be gunslinger or a bounty hunter or just plain a fighter, and still kill his way up a ladder.

#8: Thane Krios from Mass Effect 2 and 3

So Commander Mary Sue Shepard goes around the galaxy to collect best badass motherf***ers in the universe, and like I have mentioned at least twice in previous occasions, these supporting characters are the coolest part of the game. Now, no league of extraordinary ladies and gentlemen is complete without an assassin, so he gets an assassin. He is a drell (some kind of alien), he has a wide range of abilities (stealth, firearms, hand-to-hand combat, and biotic) and he approaches his targets and finishes them up close. He is also very religious, praying all the time. I mean, that would be a contrast, before you realize a vast majority of assassinations in the real world are motivated by religion.

Thane is a very compelling character. I believe his story is the most emotional story of the game. Unlike what his fish-like yellow face suggests, he is a very sympathetic characters. It’s not only because of his conflicted conscience, which is conveyed really convincingly, or because of his problems with his son, as he wants to stop him from going down the wrong road. It’s mainly a mixture of writing and voice acting. His lines are really good. I mean, basically, Mass Effect series has great dialogues, but they seem to bloom when it comes to Thane. And Keythe Farley has a great voice and a great way of speaking. For example if you romance him as female Shepard he will say: “Time for me is short, siha, but any I have is yours to take.” Isn’t this really a memorable line, deeply emotional and yet not very sentimental?

Although Thane is a very memorable character, he belongs with Nina and Travis in the category of “Not really assassin assassins”, because what we see of him is mostly lamenting and then fighting for a team for free. But he is the last one on the list who is like that.

#7: Desmond Miles and his ancestors from Assassin’s Creed series

The word assassin is etymologically rooted in the Arabic/Persian word “Hashashin”, which is a plural of “Hashash”, which means “marijuana smoker”. You might want to ask what marijuana and assassination have in common. Well, in Iran, during the crusades, in a region called Alamut, (now called Taleghan), marijuana just grows out of the ground, and there were a sect led by Abu-Mualem who were really good at two things, killing people and smoking pot. They were the main enemies of the Templar sect, and finally defeated them and this enabled the Ottoman Empire to conquer Europe up to Spain. While high. Isn’t that a lovely reason to legalize pot? Anyway, in case you were wondering “Is there any historical root for the Assassin’s Creed universe”, that’s all there is, and the rest is fiction.

Now, the developers thought to themselves, what if we take Prince of Persia, make him an assassin, and let him loose in an incomprehensible plot which makes no sense? Well, the answer is this series. So the main character is Desmond, an American dude who doesn’t want to be an assassin, but he totally has to be or else the Mayan prediction of 12/12/12 will become true, but anyway he doesn’t wanna, so he goes off to somewhere, but then he is captured by Templars, who decode his genes for the memory of his ancestors, and his ancestors are totally not as wimpy as him. First one is Altair, a member of Hashashins who fights the real Templars during the crusades, and then there is Enzio, an Italian Renaissance assassin whose best buddies are Machiavelli and Da Vinci, and finally some dude during the American Revolution.

You have to confess that the concept is irresistible, assassinating people throughout history, while getting friendly with real celebrities from history. For at least this concept, Desmond and his ancestors deserve recognition on this list, even if they use biology, history, and rationality as toilet paper.

#6: The Dark Brotherhood from The Elder Scrolls series

Now, none of the individual members of this sect are worthy enough to be added to such a list, but as an organization, they are extremely cool. Assassination is not only their profession, it’s their faith. Their god is Sithis, the oldest god, who might be nothing, and he symbolizes grimness, despair, and death, so I guess he’s a pretty goth god. Now if you want to hire their services you have to sit down and pray, perform a ritual called “The Black Sacrament”, and then pay up, and then the target dies. The prayers are received by sithis’s wife, The Night Mother, who talks via her dead body to only one member, who is the listener, the most important member. They are the most feared organization in Temriel, and for two good reasons. First, they’re creepy. Their sign is a bloody hand (symbolizing their Five Tenets), their hideouts are ruined houses, they wear black, and they have an immortal horse. Secondly, they’re pretty much omnipotent. If they decide you die, you die, and that’s it. When the Emperor himself says of some group that “I told him you can’t stop the Dark Brotherhood. Never could”, you realize how powerful they are.

Add to that the fact that their plot-lines are usually the best ones in an Elder Scroll game, especially in Oblivion and Skyrim that you can actually join the group. Unlike most entries on this list, they are just plain evil and creepy with horrifying cult beliefs. The creators do not white-wash them. They are not saving the world from Mayan prediction, they are not noble ninjas. They do not even kill people more evil than themselves, they usually kill innocent people. They are evil at its most fascinating and pure.

They are also very elevated in their style. This is their question and the answer is the password into the hideout: “What is the music of life?” “Silence, my brother.” Tell me that’s not cool.

#5: The Smiths from Killer7

Two disclaimers for this entry: (1) This entry is going to be spoilerishous, so don’t read it if you care. (2) Oh a second entry by Soda Goichi! I’m such a fanboy! I have to go marry him and stuff! Now that you’ve got that out of your system, let me continue.

Killer7 is also a postmodern game. But while No More Heroes is Quentin Tarantino postmodern, meaning it has a very playful style enriched with allusions to pop-culture, Killer7 is David Lynch postmodern, meaning it has a disturbing, insane style, it’s extremely dark, and it questions human understanding and nature. Meaning, the plot is complex and narration is unreliable and you can’t really be sure that what I’m writing is the plot. However, let’s attempt it:

We think we control seven assassins, each with a particular set of abilities, but they’re actually one, Garcian Smith, who’s actually the alter ego of another assassin, Herman Smith, who had killed these assassins and had incorporated their personalities. So this is a very VERY screwed up case of dissociative identity disorder (DID), and our mentally deluded assassin is trapped in a conflict between US and Japan, who is entrapped in an eternal battle between him and his arch-nemesis and target. It’s pretty convoluted.

Now why does/do him/them make it to the pantheon of the coolest assassins of all times? Apart from starring in one of the greatest games of all times, you mean aside being maybe the most complex video game character/s of all times, and being a very compelling commentery on human psychology? Well, imagine an assassin/s who’s/’re so cool he/they can’t fir into one persona, and need/s a separate personality for each of his/their cool abilities. That’s pretty cool, no?

#4: Sniper Wolf from Metal Gear Solid

The only antagonist on this list. She’s a sniper (duh), so she’s very close to real assassin. She’s hired by your twin brother to kill you. She’s one of the bosses on the game. She arrests you once, and then you fight, and then you kill her (oops! spoilers). So pretty much a standard cliche boss who can be found in any game, no? No. She transcends her typical cliche and becomes a very compelling character because of her backstory.

She’s an Iraqi Kurdish. Now, you might not be familiar with the plight of the Kurdish people, but they have it pretty rough. They are one of the most discriminated people of the whole world. Right now, in the age of so called equality where everyone hates racism. They are prosecuted and suppressed in Iran and Turkey, where they are not able to speak their own tongue or to uphold their own customs. But the roughest they had it was during the time of Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, where he killed many of them in many mass murders. He used his WMDs on his own people, who were Kurdish. I gave you this historical background to stress how educated and becoming Sniper Wolf’s choice of background has been. In the game we learn that she was born and raised during a violent military conflict between Kurdish freedom fighters and the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein, and she saw war and death everyday in her life. She was forced to move from one hideout to another constantly. Everyday she used to lose a family member or a relative. The international community did nothing to stop the fighting, which made her hate the political world. What finally unhinged her was the 1988 Al-Anfal Campaign in the Iran-Iraq War, when Saddam used chemical weapons on the Kurdish people. Now, I can’t stress this enough: this is real, there has been things like this going on. This is REAL. She was taken up by the British army, and later joined the Big Boss. She looked up to Big Boss and called him “Saladin”. (Who is Saladin? A Kurdish Muslim who was the Sultan. You know what’s cool? He was the boss of those pot smokers we mentioned earlier).

MGS games are known to be anti-war games. Sniper Wolf completely personifies this particular message of the game. She waits for days before killing her targets, and develops emotional attachment to them. Then by killing them, she continues the suffering of her life. She is also addicted to diazepam and pentazemin. Her life story is told through pain, and she personifies the horrors and the immorality of the world and war. She’s incapable of a happy life and love although she is really a scarred person, someone like us. Her relationship with wolves is an indication of her heart.

As you watch her dying, you truly mourn her. She is much more than just a boss. She is an unforgettable testament of the horrors of war, and because of that a great character.

#3: Corvo Attano from Dishonored

I’m very happy to be able to add this character to the list. He is very recent, actually the game came out just this year (2012), and I believe the game is an instant classic and its hero should be canonized right now. Before becoming an assassin, Corvo was a bodyguard of the Empress, but she was murdered, and her daughter was kidnapped. So Corvo joins a band of rebels, working for them as an assassin, in order to save the girl and avenge the Empress. So he’s somehow mixed all the possible plots into his- revenge plot, rebellion plot, and saving plot. But wait, there’s more! He’s contacted by a goth kid who is a mixture of god and devil, and grants him magic power. So, he’s an assassin with magic! You can use your powers to see through walls, move fast, possess people, and cool stuff like this.

What kind of an assassin Corvo is? Does he kill everyone who stands in his way? Is he noisy or silent? Is he evil or noble? Or something between these polar opposites? The choice is yours, as the game gives you absolute freedom in how to handle your mission. Would you like to be nonlethal like Batman (then practically not an assassin), or would you like to kill only your target and none else, or would you kill armed enemies too? Would you move silently or would you act like Clint Eastwood? What I mean to demonstrate in this entry is that Corvo is not simply cool, he is every manifestation of cool. He covers the whole range.

And whatever your choice, Corvo will have a meaningful role to play in the game. He is not a faceless hero- well technically he is, you only see his face in the ending- and he is not a silent hero- OK, he never actually talks, but you know what I mean. There’s a lot of personality behind that mask and a loud voice is embedded in that silent. Dishonored is a fantastic game, buy it and play it.

#2: Rikimaru from Tenchu series

Rikimaru is the youngest Master Ninja of the Azuma Clan, a band of extremely noble and righteous assassins. His main enemy is a demon ninja and he undergoes many tough trials to get where he gets. He is a master swordsman and spy, extremely skilled in both kenjutsu and iaijutsu. He strikes from the shadows and he is a master of stealth, as he can kill his enemies unseen. Like a good ninja, he is extremely loyal to his master. He is extremely stoic and disciplined, and completely lacks any a sense of humor. He is very spiritual, and very moral. So if he was not a ninja, he would be very boring. He would make an awful headmaster or boyfriend. But he’s not. He’s a ninja. He’s charismatic and has been a born-leader. Therefore he’s awesome. That’s pure Aristotelian deduction.

This is the original assassin. Not original in the sense that he was the first video game assassin, but in the sense that Tenchu games invented the delicious mixture of action/stealth which leads to the perfect assassin experience, and the series are the main inspiration behind all the assassination games on this list. Basically, every level is goddamn hard to be completed in the completely stealthy mode, and you had to repeat every move again and again and again in order to make it right. Or you could kill everyone and get a very rotten rating in the end. Now this series is not perfect- the camera movements were designed by some sadist, and saving and checkpoints were never used. But nothing can change the fact that these series were simply revolutionary at the time, and opened many new doors to the industry.

And you get to be a ninja! A real ninja! How cool is that? The games exactly create the illusion. You have all the cool ninja skills and gadgets you can think of. You could be a master swordsman and yet use all your stealth abilities and never be seen. You have to admit that no other game has put you in the shoes of a ninja like this one- Ninja Gaiden and games like that are action games, you could supply it with Commando Gaiden or Police Officer Gaiden and nothing would happen. In this game, you are distinctly a ninja. As a reward, you only have to finish the game silently, and the game rewards you for killing all the enemies silently. And most ninja-like you feel are the great finishing animations.

#1: Agent 47 of Hitman series

Agent 47 was created to be an assassin. I mean literally. And I’m not misusing the word literally here. You were not literally born to be a rock star (sorry for that) but he was literally born to be an assassin. He’s the very successful result genetic experiment which meant to create the perfect assassin. And he is the perfect assassin. And he is. he’s physically strong. He’s a master of disguise. He’s fast. He’s an expert in using all sorts of guns. He can manipulate the environment to serve his needs. He can infiltrate the heart of an enemy stronghold undetected, and make his target’s death look like an accident. Or he can face a whole garrison by himself and kill them all in epic gun shoots. More importantly, even his psychology is right. He has no moral inhibition when it comes to killing people. He does not lack compassion- he has displayed it many times, but his finger never trembles while pulling the trigger. Also, he ain’t smokes no friggin’ pot.

What began in Tenchu, was perfected in Hitman. The main thing which make Hitman games great is the absolute freedom you have in the game, the sense of experiencing the mission as a real assassin does with finding ingenious methods to beat the missions. You are truly challenged to beat the level with the perfect score. It is not an easy thing to do. It requires a lot of hidden work and planning, and like always, there are multiple ways. This makes also the game extremely replayable, which was another great thing about the franchise. The last missions are especially tough, and finishing them silently is an extremely difficult challenge.

You may disagree with my ranking above, but no one can doubt who the number one is. He is easily proved superior to all of them. If you hire all the nine assassins above and send them to kill him, he will sneak out of his bedroom and he will kill all of them, and then he will hitch a ride to your flat and he will kill you.

Conclusion

Honorable Mentions:

HK-47 from Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. I didn’t add him because Thane was on the list who is another Bioware character, and also because Agent 47 is another 47. Really, honestly, I didn’t add him because he’s a robot and robots are not sexy. (Sorry, technosexuals).

Khan from Broken Sword. Because clowns are not sexy. (Sorry, coulrophiliacs).

Assassin from Assassin. I couldn’t stand the sheer power of creativity and originality gone into naming this character and his game. Also, an assassin whose main weapon is a boomerang kinda sucks.

Goglo13 from Goglo13. I have no reason. Sorry. I just wanted to add Nina to list in hopes she might call me.

Mega Man from Mega Man: Because when your later games turn you to a wimp you get expelled from the Assassin Hall of Fame. Also, and I can’t stress this enough, robots are just plain not sexy.

Shadow from Final Fantasy VI. I should have added him too. This list totally fails. Adding him would have brought more variety to the list (there’s no JRPG), and he’s a very interesting character. I’m such an awful list writer.

Vega and other assassins from their respective fighting games: Nina, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul.

Zevran from Dragon Age: Origins: Listen, there are tons of supporting assassin characters from RPG games. I gave you Thane!

Gray Fox from MGS: Because that’s enough MGS.

So, that’s it, the best assassins in the world. Make sure and watch out for them. Till next time, bye!

Can a game have the highest standards possible when it comes to gameplay and graphics, but the lowest possible standards when it comes to story? Apparently, yes, it can. Hitman: Absolution is a very great game with a very bad story. Ultimately, I would never call this game a disappointment, because it does its job the best: your experience as the hardened super-assassin Agent 47 is as breathtaking and fantastic as ever. I personally disagree with many of the criticisms addressed against this game- that it is not a true Hitman game, that it is simplified in relation to the other games in the series, or that it is not true to the spirit of the game. The differences between this game and the previous ones in the series are almost nonexistent, and all that there are there improve the game overall.

Gameplay

If Corvo has magic, 47 has his instincts.

The basic idea behind every Hitman game is to put you in the shoes of a very powerful assassin who is free to either shoot his way into the building and kill everyone who moves or to find a silent way around the mission in order to kill your target undetected. The way that the series handle this is very unique. You can knock out or kill enemies, wear their clothes and infiltrate the target’s safe house, kill the target, or even fake an accident. The levels are large and crowded and the target and the NPCs go about their business and you can finish every mission in a multiple ways. The game very directly encourages the silent method by rewarding you scores after each mission, and the best score is only achieved when you go about the missions undetected and having killed no person except the main target. This mechanism is at the heart of any Hitman game, and a game is a Hitman game unless it abandons this mechanism. Therefore the reviewer of VideoGamer.com is mistaken when he says: “The problem with Absolution is that its new custodians from the Kane and Lynch team seem to have fundamentally misunderstood what made Hitman great.”. He is wrong because the changes are simply tweaks, nothing major is touched, and there is no other game which plays like this in quite this way.

If we want to address this argument, we need to first remember what made Hitman games great. By doing so, we can see that the elements are present in this game as well. The main thing which made Hitman games great was the absolute freedom you have in the game, the sense of experiencing the mission as a real assassin does with finding ingenious methods to beat the missions. In the absolute majority of the missions the same thing still exists, and it is done brilliantly. You are truly challenged to beat the level with the perfect score. It is not an easy thing to do. It requires a lot of hidden work and planning, and like always, there are multiple ways. This makes also the game extremely replayable, which was another great thing about the franchise. The last missions are especially tough, and finishing them silently is an extremely difficult challenge.

But what are these changes which have brought the curses of the reviewers and the fans? Well, to my two cents, nothing major, and also good. Let’s go through them one by one.

First, there are some missions in which you do not have a specific target and you just need to reach somewhere in order to finish them. They include missions like infiltrating a factory or fleeing the police. These missions were almost absent from the previous games, but they do not compose the majority of the missions. You can still choose to finish them silently, and stealth method is equally tough when it comes to them. Some of them are required to advance the plot, and some change the pacing of the game. They are not bad missions, therefore it’s wrong to nag about them.

Second, your “Instinct Ability” is one of the things which is supposed to make the game more “accessible”. This ability which is similar to Dark Vision in Dishonored or Bat Vision in Arkham Asylum, grants you many abilities, these abilities include seeing the enemies from behind the walls, the pattern of their walking, hints, also disguise yourself from them. Now this is clearly a departure from the stark realism of the previous games, but why is that necessarily a bad thing? The challenge to keep your instinct meter filled adds an entertaining dimension. Some parts of the game are clearly impossible to finish without this ability, because there are hordes of enemies gathered in one place who will recognize you if you walk into them and distracting them would prove very troublesome. You have to learn and manage your instinct. this is not a bad addition, it makes it more entertaining, and it doesn’t make the game easier.

Apart from these two changes, there is no other major difference between this game and its predecessors. Therefore, I have no idea what the critics are talking about. Usually, we nag when a game is too similar to its predecessors, but we are ready to nag when the slightest changes are made.

Also, for the first time, I actually recommend playing the game in the action mode as well. First, there is this point shooting thing, which enables you to pause the game, to go around the room and target the enemies, and then bring them down with cool slow-motion shooting. You have absolutely no use for this when you play stealthily, but GOD it’s fun when you do it. The enemies are intelligent and tough, you have an abundance of cool weapons, covering works perfectly, and all this build up a very fun and entertaining and also challenging action experience too. Usually, the real fun is in stealth, but this game can be played as two separate genres and be equally fun in both.

The multiplayer mode added to the game is also very fun. Thankfully, the creators have not added it just for the hell of it, real imagination and work has gone to it. The Contract mode is free for everyone. It can’t be called a level editor actually, but it’s still very entertaining. You have to load a mission, with an outfit and a default weapon, all you should have unlocked during the single player, and you can use them to tag three other characters and kill them. Basically, you compare your assassination skills with other people.

Generally speaking, I believe the gameplay to be fantastic and almost perfect. Now up to complaining.

Story

These BDSM nuns are a commentary on sexism and war, and how it turns people into slaves. Nah, kidding, it’s just borderline porn.

Horrendous. Terrible. Shameful. And a lot of words like that. Now, Hitman games have never had a Shakespearean plot. But at least the story was not so much in your face in those games. Yeah sure you just crossed yourself before that priest, whatever, now let me kill people. The story was just an excuse. But in this game, the story comes to the forefront. The very tagline of the single player mode is this: “It’s personal.” The creators have tried, and they have failed, to tell a more personal story of Agent 47, one he goes on a personal mission, one which is emotional and stuff. But the failure lies in the fact that no real emotion is delivered, no real suspense is felt. The story falls apart and there’s no redeeming quality that I can think of.

Basically, the plot is identical to Super Mario Bros., you have the same damsel in distress and the repetition of “the princess is in another castle”. The difference here is that the ones feeding on the mushrooms here seem to be the writers of the game and not Mario. You just don’t get enough information and background on the girl to care for her fate. She’s too flat of a character. The first scene of the game in which you kill Diana is supposed to be emotionally heart-wrenching, but you’re just too busy checking her ass in the shower to worry for that. The villains are too one dimensional, too psychopathic, too flat to come across as real people. Now, I know, Agent 47 is not the best person alive, and it’s hard to make him look sympathetic, so maybe the easiest thing to do is to make his enemies so worse in comparison. But believe me when I say that it fails to be believable after the third psychopath. Flat characters, silly dialogues, mindless violence, juvenile sex, they all make the experience so cheap it’s not even worthy to be criticized.

Now, I’m not a puritan, and sex and violence never offend me. It’s bad writing that offends me. You can add all of these elements in a game and it can still be great- strippers, BDSM nuns, hot assistants, whatever. A great example of a story with all these elements is Sin City. But you have to do it the right way. First, you shouldn’t treat the gamer like some sex-deprived maniac who will be go off such things. Secondly, weave these elements into the plot somehow. Listen, I don’t mind it even if you use it just to appeal to the gamer’s sexual abilities. I don’t think every sex scene should have a deeper meaning for the plot. A writer has a right to excite the reader with things, and sexual desire is a thing. But do it right. Do it respectfully. Thanks.

It is a great shame for such a great game to have such a weak story.

Technical Issues

If this is the last thing I’m going to see, then at least make it with good graphics.

Great graphics. Fantastic. I really felt amazed when I saw 47 showering, and with the character models. People look like real people, and their faces really moves like a human, and everyone looks pretty (in an aesthetic way). People’s eyes, especially 47′s, look real and live. The scenery is beautiful, vast, and each level has a unique feel to it. The animations are fantastic, especially the ones where someone dies. Blood and gore are very realistic. This is one of the best graphics I have ever seen.

Sound is also great. All the voice actors and actresses do a perfect job. Now, since the dialogue sucks you might fail to notice that, but the voices do a great job. There are many celebrity actors, and many of them also appeared on Deadwood, so something is going on here perhaps. The music is also acceptable. One of the few great moments of the games was when Ave Maria started playing in a church, which is nostalgic for the gamers of the second game.

Overall, the game is successful in the technical department too.

There are of course bugs. One of them provided a very pleasant experience for my friends, when you undress a dude he suddenly turns black. This “racist bug” was very amusing to my friends who kept analyzing it to mockingly prove I’m racist. Other bugs are when the AI chooses not to function all of a sudden, and things like that. None of these bugs are that serious, unless you are a PS3 or X360 gamer. I have read that these versions of the games faced crashes, freezings and corrupt saves. IO Interactive has promised to work on these issues. As a PC gamer, I never saw a serious bug.

Overall: No matter how bad the story, you know how the cliche goes: what truly matters is the gameplay. Well, the gameplay is great, so buy the game and play it. You’ll grind your teeth through the story, but the overall experience is worth it.

The game can be called a predecessor to Deus Ex, or the steampunk Deus Ex. Like that game, there is the dualism of stealth and combat, as you are free to explore the game and have almost endless possibilities on how you decide to finish your missions. The duality of lethal and pacifist ways of gaming is also there. A pacifist run is possible, and each assassination target can be neutralized in a non-lethal way. Of course you can also kill every last living soul, either by stealth or with a ruckus. Again, just like Deus Ex, the game actively encourages stealthy non-lethal approach. Not only you are rewarded and encouraged, but the game quite explicitly states that the less people you kill the less rats and weepers you face (plague victims) and the outcome of the game would be less dark.

Equally the game can be considered a steampunk Bioshock. Like that game you assume the role of a faceless hero in first person who never talks out loud, and carries a sword in one hand and a magic power or secondary weapon in the other. Although in Bioshock you are not stuck with a sword as your primary weapon, the dynamism is clearly inspired by that game.

Can we call it a steampunk Arkham Asylum? Like that game you are a superhero with unimaginable agility who strikes from shadows and wears a mask which inspires fear in his enemies. Like Batman, you have a special vision which shows your enemy, their field of vision, and illuminates the items you can interact with. And the philosophy behind the game is similar to Batman’s, if you go for the non-lethal way you are noble and the lethal way makes you as bad as you enemy.

But none of those epithets, as appealing as they may be to lazy journalism, do not describe Dishonored. Dishonored is Dishonored and it is the steampunk version of no game. Because ultimately, no other game has had all these features at the same time. The game is stealth and combat and magic and Batman- and much more, also social commentary and deep meaning, also with a doze of cosmic nihilism. It’s a cocktail that works. It’s a cocktail you should try.

Let’s take a look at the game in detail:

Gameplay:

Your power wheels, the things the game leaves in your disposal to play it.

Basically, you are an assassin and you are left in the field to finish the mission as you please. You can go about murdering anyone in action sequences or you can kill them or knock them out sneakily. You always have a sword in your right hand. You can use it to attack or kill stealthily. Also you have a mask which enables you to zoom in or zoom out.

In your left hand you can either have a secondary weapon or a supernatural power. The weapons include a pistol, a bow with three types of arrows (lethal, nonlethal, and explosive), and a grenade. These are clearly not meant for the quiet approach. The ammo is really really scarce, and you will find them all useless, unless you aim and shoot very carefully. Normally (without upgrading them) your weapons hold up to ten bullets/arrows, and the enemies leave only one or at most two left. So if you prefer the action way to finish the game, better work on you aiming! But honestly, if you choose the action route, you are a very boring person and I don’t want to date you, because all the fun is using magic and stealth.

You must collect runes to the Outsider (a figure which blends God and Devil) to unlock interesting powers. You can also upgrade them with said runes. The powers are these:

• Blink – allows you to teleport a short distance and remain hidden in the process. You can use it to discover very interesting passages on rooftops ans such, and to cross the field without even meeting an enemy.
• Dark Vision – shows enemies and their field of vision through walls. It’s exactly like Batman’s detective mode in Arkham Asylum. If you follow the stealth route you will be using this more than any other ability.
• Devouring Swarm – summons a pack of rats to devour your enemies, or to destroy their corpses. You can use in the action mode or use it a distraction in the stealth mode.
• Possession – take control of animals and people for a short duration. You can use it to reach places you couldn’t reach, like behind the lock doors and security checkpoints, or – and this is not the prescribed use in the game- to take your enemies to a hidden place and finish them off. An awesome ability.
• Bend Time – slows down time to a near stop so you can make a quick get away. It is mostly used for escaping after getting caught, or in the action mode to enable you to easily slash your enemies down. In the stealth mode I have used it to get away from the machines that ruthlessly shoot.
• Windblast – small gust of wind that knocks enemies back and can break down some doors. Something like Fus Roh Duh in Skyrim. It’s usually a useless power because the important doors are unbreakable anyway and it’s too loud, used only in action mode. It can be fun though, if you use it to blow the enemies from the edges into their fall.
• Vitality – increases your overall health and the speed of its regeneration.
• Blood Thirsty – allows the use of adrenaline to take out targets with brutal fatalities. For those of you who like bloody messes. I loved this.
• Agility – allows the user to jump great distances and sprint faster. Very useful when combined with Bink in order to travel shortcuts and such.
• Shadow Kill – turns enemies to ash when killed. You won’t have to bother with hiding the bodies anymore.
• The Heart – A very creepy thing which makes this game a masterpiece. It leads you to the runes (used for unlocking and upgrading powers) and wood charms (which give you a slight edge in different things). But also, it has a great thematic importance because it whispers secrets in your ears. It gives backstory to all the locations and characters. She is very pessimistic, dark and misanthropic, and shows you how dark the personality of all characters are.

You now have an idea of how the game can be played, freedom and these powers. The game can either be too easy or too difficult, and that depends if you can discover the best way to go around the mission and how to use your powers. This game requires to be learned, and it’s very challenging. At the same time it is extremely rewarding, because you really do feel like a superhero assassin which strikes from the shadows and instills fear in everyone. It is one of the best gameplays every created.

The Story

A rune which enables to upgrade, and the heart which whispers secrets to your ears.

The game is also a masterpiece when it comes to its story. I am not inclined to write about it now, because I have to replay the game many more times and think about it a lot. The plot seems simple at the first glance. The story takes place in a fictional city which is set in a steampunk atmosphere, and it is ravished by a very lethal plague. You are the Empress’s bodyguard. She is killed and you are framed for her murder, and now you have to kill (or knock out) your way to the top, and save her daughter along the way. Seems simple and cliche, no? No.

You are not really free to change the main event of the story, but your actions can have a deep impact anyway on how dark it is. You could be a vengeful soul who cares for nothing but revenge and loses his soul to the darkness. Play it like this. I know there is no correct way to play it but this way the game becomes so dark it’s fascinating, and it becomes much more interpretive. Of course you can also be Batman who never kills anyone and all he cares for is justice.

Apart from that there are layers of meaning to the game. The plague, the Outsider, the Heart, they all have symbolic significance. The game is a social commentary because it meticulously constructs a fictional but authentic society with all its ills, it is a political commentary on the nature of power and also it is a deeply philosophic game because it deals with human nature, the problem of evil, chaos in the nature of the world, and the dark aspects of the universe as a whole. You suddenly discover that insignificant details mean much more. Therefore, I believe this game should analyzed carefully, and that would be out of the scope of this review. Hopefully I will do so one day.

Technical Issues

The Empress whose death started everything

The graphics is great. The most important thing is that they completely create the dark steampunk atmosphere of the game. Everything look the way it should and the artistic aspects of the design are great. The locations are dark, infested, and scary. We know that the city once prospered as an industrial metropolis but now because of the plague and wars it has fell into ruin. These two aspects are completely illuminated in the game. People look alive and believable. Their design completely brings them to life. The graphics does what it should do perfectly.

Voice acting is done superbly. The game boasts of a great celebrity cast which includes Susan Sarandon, Brad Dourif, Carrie Fisher, and Chloë Grace Moretz, Michael Madsen, Lena Headey, and April Stewart. All of them without a single exception have nailed the job, and this game is one of the best games when it comes to voice acting. The music doesn’t draw too much attention, while builging the mood, so it’s great.

The game is long enough, but it begs to be replayed. You should replay it so you can follow all the possible routs, lethal and nonlethal or action and stealth. But you should also replay it to discover new symbols and meanings in every playthrough. This game shines, it exceeds expectation, and it is one of the best games I have played. I might change my mind, but I am fairly sure that now I have my choice for the best game of 2012.

The United States presidential election is less than a month away, and it is time for speculations, debates, attack ads, and competition. All of us here at Gaming Symmetry have our own opinions, but we find it funnier to speculate which video game character would run for the office, and how could she win the primary of his or her own party. Imagine the US election was between these candidates! It would be fun, no? So, we have five main parties in the USA, Constitution, Green, Libertarian, Republican, and Democrat. The most powerful parties are the Democrats and Republicans, and here I considered Democrats the most powerful one because they are now the incumbent party. So this is the game: try to find a character who most symbolizes the ideology of that party. Let that character be the nominee. Then, you can imagine voting for one of them as the president of the gaming world.

Note: For the sake of fun, I have discarded logic and common sense. They don’t have to be alive, or even American.

Note 2: I’ve tried to be as nasty as possible in my every choice. Sorry for that, but that would be more fun.

So let’s get down to business.

Constitution Party

The Constitution Party is a country which more right-wing than the Republican party, and its support usually comes from the most devout Christians. The most important policy of the party is its opposition to immigrants, and it supports the harshest way to stop people from immigrating to USA. They are pro-life, against drugs, against gay marriage, and in general, they are people who presumably couldn’t find Rick Santorum and Rick Perry Christian enough. Also unlike the Republicans they support a non-interventionist foreign policy.

The nominee: Meredith Stannard

She is the leader of the Templars in the game Dragon Age II. She is extremely religious, even more than the Pope herself (I mean the most important priestess). She will go to any extreme measure to protect her city, especially from the outsiders. Her religious extremism and her hatred of people who are not like her, i.e. the mages, make her the perfect candidate for the Constitution Party. She really wants to close the borders of the city from the outside world and let no one in.

What might separate her from the party is that she’s very prone to violence. However, you will be hard-pressed to find any unboring video game characters who is both an extremist and peaceful. What makes her suitable though is that she never shows any sign that she wants to attack anyone outside her city, she just wants to keep her own turf of what she dislikes. She is a leader of a religious militia, and the Constitution Party is very fascinated with the Second Amendment, so maybe they are looking forward to the same thing.

Closest real-life politician: Jan Brewer, governor of Arizona

Green Party

Well the name is pretty clear, isn’t it? Green Party is mostly concerned with the environment and its conservation, but apart from that, it’s also the most progressive and left-wing party in the USA (yes, I know, they also have Communist and Socialist Party… but come on). They support abortion, higher taxes, finance regulation, getting money out of the politics, gay marriage, universal health care, gun control, and peaceful (some might say a bit too peaceful) foreign policy. So far they have succeeded in electing one president into the office (George W. Bush).

The candidate: Fay

Fay is one of the main characters of the point-and-click adventure game A New Beginning. She is a pacifist who comes from the future to warn the denizens of Earth from the dangers of polluting the environment, and the disasters of nuclear technology, and the importance of green energy. This is pretty much how the Green Party imagines itself. She constantly complains about the unclean behavior of people, about how the cars and engines pollute the earth, and one time she throws a fit over the death of a single bird. She shuns violence and even the sight of guns.

She shares the main flaw of Green Party too, bad PR. She constantly lectures the gamer in a very self-righteous way, so the gamer thinks she considers him/her an idiot. Her voice actor is horrible with the emotional range of Siri and her writing is terrible. Still, her heart is in the right place.

Closest real-life politician: Al Gore, former Vice President who won an Oscar for his Power Point presentation.

Libertarian Party

The basic tenets of the Libertarian party are small government and freedom. They believe in borderline anarchy. So they are are more right-wing than Republicans in the economic issues, and more left-wing than the Democrats in the social issues. They are against taxes, and are for civil liberties (including support for same-sex marriage and other LGBT rights), legalization of drugs, separation of church and state, open immigration, non-interventionism, freedom of trade and travel to all foreign countries, and a more responsive and direct democracy.

The candidate: Andrew Ryan

He is the main antagonist of the great game Bioshock. So the intellectual mother of Libertarianism is Ayn Rand, and this guy is called Andrew Ryan…. see the similarity? Cool. Like most Libertarian candidates, he would first run in the Republican primaries, but he has no way of winning. His ardent atheism, his disregard for social rules, and finally his interest in sophisticated arts will cause him to come last in every primary. But this guy can easily be the Libertarian nominee. He started a libertarian haven for God’s sake. An underwater city with minimal government, no limit on business whatsoever, no regulation, no censorship, and only the concept of individual responsibility exists. To Ryan a man does not fight for God, country, or anything else, but for himself. He is an example of a great villain because he is sincere, honest, and not portrayed in a way which belittles his character.

Closest real-life politician: Penn Jillette, famous libertarian and atheist activist.

The Republican Party

The two main political parties in the US are center parties, and the Republicans are a center right party, although after Bush and especially after Obama’s election they have substantially shifted to the right. They are fiscally conservative, supporting the ideals of free market and individual responsibility, especially for the wealthy and big corporations, and also social conservatism, as they are against abortion, gun control, marijuana legalization, and they are strong in religious parts of the country.

The candidate: David Sarif

Adam Jensen’s employer in Deus Ex: Human Revolution. He is a CEO and a very successful businessman, something that Republicans really like. Furthermore, he built up his own business, following the Republican model of a good life. He values hard work and dedication. He also believes in Free Market, believing that we should leave people do what they want to do and nothing will go wrong with the lack of regulation. Like the Republicans, he believes in using force to fight with the enemies from the outside of the countries.

Also, he’s not very honest and transparent, he is secretive, and encourages Jensen to lie about the events of the game, so you somehow get the feeling that he’s willing to lie to get what he wants.

Closest real-life politician: Mitt Romney, former governor of Massachusetts and presidential candidate.

The Democratic Party

The Democrats are the center-left part of the USA. They represent progressive ideas, and modern liberalism. Like the Greens, they support limiting private financing of campaigns, gay marriage, universal government health care, progressive taxation, and less immigration restriction. There are however issues that they certainly lean right and not left. They generally don’t support the legalization of pot and they are not much different from the Republicans in the foreign policy, they are somehow as hawkish and as interventionist.

The candidate: Ashley Graham

Why Ashley Graham? She is someone who symbolizes the strengths and the weaknesses of the democratic party today. She is likable and irritable at the same time. Her mind in the right place. She comes from a political family. Her father is the president. She’s competent and brave. She keeps her relative cool in trying situations. She reminds you of someone you really really love (Heather Mason). You think if she was modeled

But, she has no fighting spirit. She just stands there, getting eaten by the zombies. She’s helpless and needs protection. It is true that she uses Leo to effectively crush her opponents’ brains in, but still, her own demeanor, behavior and way of talking, just makes her come out as a weak character, and it doesn’t matter how accurate that description is, it is the perception and in politics, only perception exists.

Closest real-life politician: Bill Clinton, former president.

So that’s it! Among these candidates, for whom would you vote? Or do you disagree with the choices? Whom would you nominate? Comment below!

This is a three part series of lists aiming to celebrate the greatest and the most influential games in Survival Horror genre of games. A small history lesson which aims to give credit to the games which have shaped the genre we know and love.

The ranking is not based on how influential or great a game is but based on the year of its release, so the list can be read as a single chronological text. Since there are 3 parts to the series, there will be 30 games mentioned but many other games deserve the title as well. I have refrained from using Honorable Mentions because they could get long. You can look at this as an introduction.

I recommend all of the games on the list. The lists are completely spoiler free so you don’t have to worry about reading the entries on the games you have not played.

Part Two: The years marking two Resident Evil games, the first one and the fourth, are the most productive and valuable years of the horror genre. Masterpiece came out after masterpiece, and definitely I don’t have space there to cover them all. Here are the ten I thought had the most impact on the genre as the whole, not necessarily the best games in those years.

10) 1996: Corpse Party (PC-9800) introduces the indie horror

The Game: This game is a dojin soft, which means an independent, usually nonprofit Japanese game. A “circle” called Team GrisGris developed this game with RPG maker for PC-9800. The story takes place in an school called Kisaragi Academy. There’s another school in the campus called Heavenly Host (because children are not to be taught subtlety). That one is closed now, because years ago a series of murders took the lives of some of the staff and students. One day, the students of Kisaragi perform a ritual which transforms them into an alternate reaction into the Heavenly Host school, and now they are haunted by the ghosts there. It is now your job to navigate and survive. The game has been also remade and released for PC in 2008, PSP in 2010, and iOS in 2012. There has also been an anime adaptation.

The Impact: Let me begin, before anything, that this game stands up the test of time and it’s really scary and fun, and also innovative even to this day, so it’s definitely worth getting your hand on. Other than that, let’s talk about is impact. It is the first indie horror game. There are many great indie horror games out there, and this game broke new grounds for them. Its anime-style graphics and intricate plot, the fact that you have to replay the game many times to get all the endings, you might abruptly face game overs, all and all built up a lot of ground for the genre of visual novels as a whole, and horror visual novel especially imitates this game a lot. (This game itself is not a visual novel but they have been influenced by it).

Plus, the idea of games created by independent developers was in its infancy at that time, and I believe the whole indie movement owes a lot to this game. We usually think indie movement is something fairly recent but that’s wrong, both western indie games and Japanese dojin soft are as old as video games themselves. This game is one of the best older indie games and therefore you should try it if you are a supporter of indies.

9) 1998: Parasite Eve (PS) defines the RPG horror

The Game: This RPG game with horror elements is a sequel to the novel Parasite Eve by Hideaki Sena, Japanese writer and pharmacologist, and developed by Square. I prefer to say nothing about the story of the game, because the experience is intense and extremely creepy and I want you to go there unprepared. The gameplay puts you in a semi-open world environment, with random encounters with the enemies. The combat is pausable, and it is a mixture between real-time and turn-based, as you have a meter called Active Time Bar, which determines your turn for an attack, but while it’s not your turn you can use that time to dodge enemy attacks. You can alternate between weapon attacks and specials attacks known as Parasite Energy. The battle system is quite deep and challenging and fun to meddle with. The game has two sequels, which completely changed the genre, which is a shame.

The Impact: There has not been much RPG horrors, as much as for example FPS horror or action horrors. There has been games like World of Darkness series, Kult, and the old Call of Cthulhu. But I think still this game deserves to be on this list because of that. It’s an interesting mix which really ought to be used more. Horror is something which can work well with all the other genres, and RPG is one of them.

Other than that this series have influenced horror genre as well, by showing the possibility that horror games can have RPG elements as well. Aya Brea is an influential hero, setting a prototype for female characters stranded in city plagued by monsters. She is the survival horror’s first (or one of the first) sex idols, creating the image of sexy horror hero as well.

8) 1999: Silent Hill (PS) takes the psychological horror to the next level

The Game: Harry Mason drives with his daughter Cheryl to the resort town of Silent Hill. Along the road, he suddenly sees a girl, and drives off the road and has a crash. He has a nightmare in which he is killed by a bunch of monsters, and then wakes up in a diner, where a female cop gives him a gun and informs him that all connection to the outside world has been cut. Now he is stranded in the city, looking for his daughter, a search which will involve a lot more than what he thinks at the first. If I describe the gameplay, it looks similar to Resident Evil in many aspects, controls, combat, exploration and puzzle solving, but it is radically different in the fact that it is based on suspense and atmospheric creeping fear rather than shock and scare jumps. Your radio omits statics when you approach monsters and therefore you anticipate them with fear, you have a very limited vision, with darkness and fog surrounding you.

The Impact: This game reshapes the genre in artistic aspects. It takes everything about the genre and perfects it, by using it for a more artistic goal. So far, I think you have seen a trend; most games take place in a mansion or a bizarre city, and the hero is either a small girl or a badass cop or something. This game turns scaring to an art, which was done before, but not in the same way. It is not the first psychological horror game, but it is the first one which makes it clear that everything is psychological, that the whole thing is a manifestation of a troubled mind, and that there is a meaning behind every note and monster. So far the games have been psychological in that they tried to use the effects to scare the gamer, but silent Hill makes everything a big trial for the minds of characters and gamers alike.

But to me the other innovation of the game is even more crucial. So far, the games have been strange and exotic. They took place in strange settings and had larger than life or vulnerable heroes. But Harry Mason is not a significant character in that sense of the word, he is an ordinary man trapped in an extraordinary challenge, or a situation which is a horrifying culmination of ordinary situation, as school, hospital, and other places which feel familiar and scary at the same time, making it a familiar threat. It is not about strange people, it’s about you. This makes everything more intense and horrifying.

It is said that novel, in comparison to romance and as a relatively modern form of art, is not about gods (that is myth) or extraordinary people (as in romance), but normal people like you and me. In that. Silent Hill is the first Survival Horror novel.

7) 1999: Galerians (PS) puts the “survival” into Survival Horror

The Game: You are Rion, a boy who wakes up in a hospital realizing he has lost his memory. A girl comes to his rescue, and he shortly realizes that he has psychic abilities. The game employs Resident Evil controls while discarding the use of guns entirely and instead focusing on your psychic power to survive, which makes the situation more intense. Your offensive powers consume something called PPECs (short of Psychic Power Enhancement Chemicals) which are extremely rare, so you have to really save up, and consume your energy. Plus, killing enemies rewards you with nothing. There are sequels and anime adaptations for this game.

The Impact: In many aspects this game has not aged well. Its gameplay is clunky and the RE control style really becomes annoying and unnerving, and because of that the game got some negative reviews because of that. But if you can cope with that, the rest of the game is amazing. A great story, great cut scenes, but aside from them, the game truly challenged you in order to survive. All the games before this one were relatively easy, and although they all had survival at the center of their attention (RE had scarce ammo as well) none of them went so overboard with this survival thing, making you feel like your main challenge is not necessarily finishing the quests and levels but just staying alive. In this aspect this game is very important.

6) 1999: Blue Stinger (DC) introduces action-shooter horror

The Game: A Sega game for its sadly doomed console Dreamcast. An island had emerged out of the hole created by the impact of the meteor which destroyed the dinosaurs. A biotech company is opened there. Eliot Ballade, an officer of some agency (ESER [Emergency Sea Evacuation and Rescue], what’s with horror games and acronyms) is spending his holidays there, but then finally a giant energy dome entraps the whole island. Then a monster begins chasing him, and now he has to survive this horrifying island and unravel its mysteries too. The game emphasizes on both action- you use guns like a typical shooter and there are beat ‘em up style melee fights- and survival, as healing takes time and you need to be safe in order to heal yourself and you have to interact with the environment to ensure your safety.

The Impact: Action horror is a very popular style, as it is the dominant style in horror games today, but we’ll get into that in the next list. This game is important for creating the genre. Unlike recent games, in which many would ask if you can really consider them a horror game, this game is undoubtedly horror, as it uses horror elements in equal proportions to action ones. The game is very entertaining, though I never once found it scary, but I’m sure many (I included) would enjoy it. It is a precursor of mixing action and horror and because of this it is important in the history of horror games.

5) 2001: Silent Hill 2 (PS2): The first masterpiece?

The Game: James Sutherland receives a letter from his wife asking him to meet her at their favorite resort in the town on Silent Hill. That would be fine, but for the little fact that James’s wife is dead. James travels to Silent Hill, and from then embarks on a nightmarish journey which will take him to the darkest depths of his mind. The gameplay is roughly the same as the previous game, but it has been polished and perfected, and the atmosphere, and the story, make this game the scariest experience of your life. Every bit of the game is soul crushing and scary, and there is great symbolism behind every action and scene and monster in the game. The game has met extremely positive reviews, and it is talked about today as it was the day it came out.

The Impact: So far we have had masterpieces in the genre, masterpieces which have been on these two lists and those which were not. But this game is THE masterpiece, the one most frequently talked about, analyzed, and respected. If Resident Evil brought the games to the heart of the people, while SH2 brought it to critics and proved the genre can be taken seriously as a medium of art. As in, if RE is the Star Wars of sci-fi films, SH2 is 2001: A Space Odyssey. This game made everyone realize that they should take the genre seriously, that they should not think it is something for kids and it deserves serious analysis. Maybe we can claim this game has been instrumental in attracting more serious analysis to the gaming on the whole. I, personally, when someone says video games cannot be art and things like that ask him/her to play SH2.

The game also brought disturbing sexual imagery into the gaming. Not in the Cluster’s Revenge way, which is porn that only appeals to serial killers, or Beat ‘Em & Eat ‘Em, which only appeals to serial killers with a sense of humor, or as in Clock Tower which hid its sexuality behind such a thick veil that only a student of Kristeva could decipher the symbolism. It was about human sexuality in the real sense of the word- unsatisfied desires, urges, objectification, rape, and complexes. It was disturbing because of the meaning behind it, and it was deep and very valuable because of that. So maybe this is the first game- or maybe the first horror game- which deals with sexuality in a deep, “mature” way.

4) 2001: Fatal Frame (PS2) an innovative game with a lot of impact

The Game: Also known as Zero and Project Zero, the story is about a teenage girl called Miku, who goes to a haunted mansion to look for her missing brother and his mentor. As she investigates the mansion, she learns horrible truths about its past. The story is based on true urban legends revolving around a real mansion in Japan. Your only weapon throughout the game is a camera, which has the ability to capture the ghosts. So, instead of fighting the ghosts, you have to take pictures from them. Your film is limited, and there are different films with different abilities in the game. Your save point is also a camera. So I guess horror for the fans of photography? You have a flashlight, and the game is pretty difficult because your HP (called strength in the game) is extremely limited and healing items are scarce.

The Impact: Well the obvious impact is the fact that the game is still as scary and effective as it was in 2001, and every other game in the series was a great game. However, a deeper impact, I believe, was introducing a formula which brought what was best about Clock Tower and games like Resident Evil together. Let me explain. Clock Tower was a great game because the protagonist was completely helpless, and it was therefore scary because gamer felt the danger on his/her skin. Games like Resident Evil bring action and tension by throwing you in a difficult fight or fly situation, but then they were badass heroes so you wouldn’t feel vulnerable and scared. But Fatal Frame has the both things in one place, so it’s double scary and effective. You are a small girl, you have no real weapon, you can’t actually fight the ghosts, but then again you can defend yourself with a seemingly normal day to day item.

I believe this formula is what makes the game very scary, and it is a game very imitated, and it will imitated as long as Survival Horror exists, because it brings two seemingly contradicting factors together, fighting and being helpless. This is also what makes it so goddamn scary.

[Note: The image belongs to Fatal Frame 3, because it looks pretty]

3) 2003: Siren (PS2) introduces Japanese occult myths to the gaming world, and adds stealth to horror

The Game: Hanuda is a recluse village in the mountains of Japan, with a very closed society with traditional values. After a weird-ass ritual, meant to reawaken a creature who has a siren, an earthquake comes and then the village is ripped off from time and space, the mountains surrounding it turn to a red water, and the town folk turn to Japanese zombies, which are called shibito. Now the story of the game takes place in three days, and you take control of ten survivors and see what happens through their eyes. There are multiple scenarios you have to unlock with an action in order to unlock. What you do in each scenario has a butterfly effect on the other scenarios in which you control other characters. You have the ability to use stealth, and therefore avoid the zombies…. I mean the shibito. Like stealth games the shibito chase you and then if you hide go back to what they did. Of course if you prefer more traditional methods there are weapons available too. You also have a cool ability to “sighjack” your enemies and look through their eyes.

The Impact: The game is extremely innovative in its gameplay, it is an avant-garde visionary masterpiece. Stealth and horror are too very potent genres to be mixed, and I wonder why there hasn’t been many more games like that. Hopefully there will be. Using stealth itself creates tension and suspense, and makes your experience more dramatic, and if you do that in a horror setting it can get really scary because the dark, the existence of the monsters and the other things compel you to run away or plunge into fight because you can’t stand the atmosphere, now imagine that under this situation you have to keep calm and remain hidden, which turns the game into a mental practice and a very tense and unforgettable experience.

The other impact of the game is to popularize the trope of Japanese occultism. Before that the monsters were either a product of experiments or related to western literature, but by bringing Japanese folklore and myths the game made the Survival Horror culture richer. Many games use the same occultism now, one of the best is Ku-On.

2) 2003: Resident Evil Outbreak (PS2) introduces teamwork and multiplayer

The Game: T-virus has erupted in the raccoon city and now you control 8 of its citizens as they try to survive the absolute chaos. They each have different abilities and items, and they are indeed some misfits, they include a waitress who can heal others, a former security guard who can fight, a worker who is strong, a cop who can shoot, a plumber who is completely useless to my understanding, a surgeon who makes the waitress useless, a reporter who can unlock doors, and finally a student run away really quick (she’s useless too). On the single player, you choose a character and a scenario and you have to complete certain tasks to unlock the final scenario. Before Capcom shot down the severs you could connect and play the game in the co-op mode, finishing the game with your friends.

The Impact: There has been many horror books and films which pits a group of people (teenagers, schoolmates, friends, or strangers) against zombies or a common threat, but before Outbreak no game replicated this trope and this feeling. Unfortunately, like other REs, this game is not particularly scary, and it suffers from certain design flaws, but it is one of the most innovative REs nonetheless. The teamwork is the main idea here, with characters who must complement each other, and the gamer must really act as a manager of a team, and the possibility of coop was entirely new. The game could be much better, with better AI, less repetitive action and recycled lines, and a more complicated story. It would also be great if the characters were not safe and the whole game played like the suicide mission in Mass Effect 2. Yes, it is a diamond in the rough, an idea which is brilliant but not executed perfectly. But it is still a pioneering game, and it has its place in the history. Many games picked up the idea, and many more will.

1) 2005: Resident Evil 4 (GC) redefines the genre

The Game: You are Leon S. Kennedy and your mission is to rescue Ashley Graham, the daughter of the president of the United States, who has been kidnapped by the members of an evil cult in a small rural village in Europe. You travel there and you find out that the whole village wants to kill you. This game finally discards the annoying tank controls, and now the controls are context-sensitive and normal, and now you can aim freely! The camera has changed to a third-person, over-the-shoulder perspective. You can either shoot your enemies down or kick them in the ass. So basically, it’s Resident Evil without the annoying controls. And you can save you progress without being tortured to death.

The Impact: Our own beloved David “BGH” Kempe, who ranks this game at number 10 in his Top 12 Games of All Times, believes that the features RE4 got rid of were not really valuable game design but simply prolonged the game, while “RE4 took these thoughts out of the equation to have you focus on the challenges they built for you, all the while putting together a game that was longer than any of the ones before it. This was not just a leap forward for the RE franchise, but an admirable achievement to gaming culture as a whole, developing a lengthy (your first play can be roghly 15-20 hours) experience without resorting to cheap tricks in order to do it.” (Quotation marks mean I’m quoting him of course). I agree with that 100%. RE4 did what must have been done years ago, it got rid of the annoying aspects of the genre which had unfortunately became its defining elements. It reformed the genre. So just like RE was the game every survival horror game imitated and used as blueprint, now RE4 became such a game.

Now there are many, our own Ethan Sheaffer (Eesgooshee) among them, who believe we can’t really consider RE4 a horror game. Well, while I agree that it is not scary, like not even a single bit, like I find Fallout 3 and Mario Kart scarier games, it still is a horror game because (A) horror games are a series of tropes and conventions and they might fail to be actually scary and (B) RE series were never scary and will never be. This game still remains the best RE title because of its fabulous gameplay. But of course, it’s still more important because of its historical impact rather than its own merits.

After RE4 not only changed the controls and the camera of the Survival Horror games forever, it caused the genre to shift from a more Japanese attitude towards horror to a more Western one, emphasizing blood and gore, violence, action and combat over atmosphere, helplessness, and survival. The genre has become more accessible and popularized, in short. Whether you think this is a good change or a bad change, you can’t deny the fact that RE4 is one of the most influential games of all times and has changed the genre forever. As for my own two cents, I think atmospheric games still exist in large numbers, and I don’t really mind the change. What really matters to me is the fact that genre is reformed in many aspects as well.

Conclusion

About the title: In the previous list I had promised you to give you a list called “from Silent Hill to Resident Evil 4” but now it is “from Corpse Party to Resident Evil 4“. That is because at that time I still had not decided to put Corpse Party on the list and I mistakenly thought that Silent Hill had come out in 1997, while it came out in 1999, after Parasite Eve. So there’s that.

An elegy: “Kill your darlings, kill your darlings, even when it breaks your egocentric little scribbler’s heart, kill your darlings.” This writing advice from the legendary horror writer Stephen King. And I broke my heart today: I did not put Silent Hill 3 on this list. This the game I love the most, and I consider it the greatest game ever made. I wish its impact was greater than the games listed above, but it’s not, and objectively speaking I can’t put it here, but it’s still a horror list without Silent Hill 3, and therefore I hate you all.

Anyway, the next list is more speculative, because it deals with very recent games. Tune in to read the next and final installment of this series, “The Top 10 Games Which Have Shaped the Horror Genre. Part III: the present, from F.E.A.R. to Slender.”