Not Starved of Emotions

                There is no more emotionally engaging medium than video games.  Unlike movies, music, books, or art, video games make the player more than just a spectator.  I become involved in the story because I interact with it to push the narrative forward, but this interaction is more than merely button inputs.  When a game forces me to make decisions a part of me becomes embedded in the character. I begin to make decisions based on what I would do or say.  The character that I am controlling becomes me and sometimes that is a scary thing, especially when horrible things happen because of my actions.  The Walking Dead Episode Two: Starved for Help is one of those games that makes me scared of myself.

Not the most positive of title screens.

                Starved for Help begins three months after the events of the first episode.  The group has made the motor inn their home, but things are looking grim.  Food supplies are almost nonexistent so the present supplies have been rationed.  In need of more food the survivors begin to try their hand at hunting which is where the episode opens.   Lee and a new member named Mark hunt for food in the forest.  It does not take long for trouble to arise causing the episodes second most gruesome moment (the first occurs near the end and had me feeling sick to my stomach).  As the group returns to the inn, it becomes apparent that these three months have caused riffs among the survivors.

The group is pretty high-strung this time around.

                Lilly has been promoted to the de-facto leader of the group.  She and Kenny constantly argue about what is best for the group, but when it comes down to it, Lilly has to make all the hard decisions like rationing the food.  After arguing with Lilly, Lee has to pass out rations for the day bringing about one of the worst moments for me in the whole episode.  There is no right decision.  No matter what I decided, someone was going to hate me and someone was going to starve.  This is the kind of decision making that the whole game is built around: the no win scenario.  The only obvious choice was to not feed myself.  I am not nearly a big enough p.o.s. to feed myself while other group members starve.

If you feed yourself you deserve to be eaten by zombies.

                Before long, two brothers named Danny and Andy St. John stumble upon the survivors.  They are looking for gasoline to power the generators of their dairy farm.  In exchange for gasoline they agree to feed the group and even let them checkout the farm to see if it is to their liking.  After years of reading the comic, I knew these two were not to be trusted.  Everything spewing from their mouths was too good to be true.  Electricity, food, a safe compound, room for everyone, all of these were promises they made, but nothing good ever happens in The Walking Dead.  I repeat, nothing good ever happens.

Looks can be deceiving.

                Every conversation with the St. John’s brothers is a tension filled chess match.  They always seemed to be probing me.  How many people are in our group?  Are we heavily fortified?  Do we have enough food?  Who is the leader of the group?  Each question seems friendly enough, but the multitude and curiosity behind them brings unease.  Countering and answering with a volley of my own garners an equal amount of unease from the brothers.  They are hiding something.  This nerve wracking chess match continues for two hours all the way up to the big reveal at the end.  I could see the twist coming after almost 30 minutes on the farm, but that does not mean the conversations or actions it causes are any less impactful.

Gas is not the only thing they want.

                Telltale really streamlined the experience for this episode.  The puzzle moments of the last episode are pretty much gone.  The focus this time around is solely on the conversations and the interactions they cause.  While I welcome this wholeheartedly, it does not present much difficulty.  Animation seems to also have taken a tiny hit.  I found more moments of lip syncing being off and animations freaking out in this episode than the previous one.  This is only slightly distracting though, and does not harm the experience much in the long run.

A nominee for most awkward dinner ever.

                No game has ever left me more emotionally spent than this episode.  I finished the game with a migraine, heavy heart, and a yearning for alcohol to soothe my wounds.  No decision made in this game makes me the hero.  If anything, every decision makes me closer to the likeness of a savage.  One stat in particular at the end of the game hit me in the gut.  Only 31% of the millions who had played the game made the same brutal decision I made.  At first I thought that maybe 69% of these people are better human beings than me, but I’ve slowly changed my mind about this.  I’ve decided that those 69% don’t understand the world of The Walking Dead.

Approach everything with caution.

In the words of Rick from issue #24, “We're surrounded by the DEAD.  We're among them -- and when we finally give up we become them!  We're living on borrowed time here.  Every minute of our life is a minute we steal from them!  You see them out there.  You KNOW that when we die -- we become them.  You think we hide behind walls to protect us from the walking dead?  Don't you get it?  We ARE the walking dead!  WE are the walking dead.”  No one walks out alive.  69% of the people who played this game just don’t realize that yet.  I may end up emotionally drained again, but I’m ready for The Long Road Ahead.

A New Day But Not A Brighter One

 (This post is going to be a bit different than my previous ones.  This isn't so much a specific moment from a game as it is a short article about my impressions after having time with The Walking Dead game.  Enjoy.)

               A news reporter, a farmer, and a tech nerd walk into a drug store.  They are each completely different people with dreams, motives, and unique stories, yet they all share the same fate: you are the architect of their future.  There is a good chance that someone will not make it out alive, but how do you decide who lives and who dies?  Is there even a fair way to make that kind of decision or do you just decide on a passing whim?  People will hate you; grudges will be held, but in the end you cannot dwell on the dead, because they are the ones trying to kill you and time is not a luxury that they will allow.  This is the world of Telltale Games’ The Walking Dead, and it is a world of despair and harsh consequence.

This looks deceivingly peaceful.

                By now if you do not know what the world of The Walking Dead is then you have probably been living under a rock.  For you rock dwelling folk, Robert Kirkman’s The Walking Dead is a critically acclaimed graphic novel set during the zombie apocalypse.  If the comic was not already enough, it also became a hit TV show that continues to set basic cable viewing records with each new season.  To put it simply, the Walking Dead is a huge deal.  Telltale Games had some very big shoes to fill coming into this project and I am delighted to say that they have done a pretty astounding job.

Some characters from the comics make appearances like Glenn here.

                The game sets you in the shoes of Lee Everett, a university professor turned convicted killer.  At the start of the game, Lee finds himself in the back of a police car being driven to prison.  It isn’t long before all hell breaks loose as the car hits a walker (term for roaming zombie) and careens off the road.  Injured and confused, Lee crosses paths with a cute first grader named Clementine who manages to save his life.  Indebted to her, Lee and Clementine band together and venture off to find more survivors while protecting each other along the way.

The relationship between these two will be the core of the whole game.

                I need to make one thing drastically clear: this is not a traditional adventure game or even a traditional video game for that matter.  The game is more of an interactive movie.  You won’t be fighting off hordes of zombies or solving intricate puzzles.  What you will be doing is largely talking with gruesome zombie murder peppered here and there to break things up.  The conversations are the true heart and soul of the game.  Each conversation brings with it a quick time event giving you four different responses.  Whichever response you choose is final and people remember and react based on your decisions.  Whether it is siding with someone in an argument or lying about your true identity, your choices shape the world around you.

One of the more grisly yet heartfelt moments in the first episode.

                The conversations are wonderfully acted and strongly emotional making this one of the most personal games I have ever played.  The Lee that I created through my choices is a caring yet no bullshit individual.  He is governed by realism and a desire to protect those around him.  I will start a fight to save a friend’s child one minute and allow a bitten woman to use my gun for suicide in the next.  These are not easy choices, but these are ones that I could see myself making in real life.  This Lee is me, and the attachment that I already have for him through one episode speaks volumes for the astounding job Telltale has done on the dialog for the game.

Choose your words wisely.

                There are only a few things in the game that stood out as slightly off and most of them have to do with animation.  The comic book style of the game is beautifully fitting.  Hard lines accent the characters giving the art the same feel I get when I read the comic, but the look isn’t perfect.  What bothered me most were some of the facial animations.  For example, there were multiple occasions during my talks with Clementine that I found the positioning of her eyes to make her look slightly possessed.  She looked like her eyes had rolled into the back of her head.  It completely undercut the conversation taking place between us.  In a game that heavily relies on the conversations, facial animations cannot be distracting during these moments.  There are also moments where animations will glitch or lip syncing will falter.  This doesn’t ruin the game by any means, but at times it can be bothersome.

Clementine's babysitter has seen better days.

                At the end of the two hours that it took to complete the first episode, I was itching to continue Lee and Clementine’s story.  Telltale has crafted an incredibly faithful adaptation of Kirkman’s comic in both style and tone.  The first episode taught me many valuable lessons.  I cannot save two people; old men are ass holes; Clementine is friggin’ adorable; and, most importantly, fear the dead.  Going into the second episode, I am ready for the game to teach me the greatest lesson of the comics: sometimes the living are worse than the dead.

The Return of Vlaew

                After creating Exmortis in 2004, Ben Leffler (the creator) promised to release another as soon as he could.  There was a lot of waiting involved but in 2006 he released Exmortis 2.  I’m still not going to spoil the end of Exmortis, but the sequel takes place years after the first.  Humanity has been shattered by the cult of the Exmortis and the world’s best attempts have been futile at stopping them.  The world event went so far as to drop a nuke on the Exmortis in order to stop them, but even this was unsuccessful.  The Exmortis have killed most everyone in the world, but the few left fight with an unwavering resistance.  This is where the protagonist of Exmortis 2 comes in.

The opening church in Exmortis 2.

                The protagonist of Exmortis 2 is named Joshua Hannay.  He was a family man before the cult of Exmortis killed his wife and daughter.  Now all he wishes to do is rid the world of this unending evil.  As the second game opens, Joshua is found standing outside of a church.  This is where the revolutionaries were supposed to rendezvous after the final battle with the Exmortis.  Upon entering the church, Joshua finds it completely unoccupied and looking as though no one has entered the premises in a long time.  Even here just at the start I got a first good creepy scare.

Bloody footprints appear on the ground.

                As I entered the church, bloody foot prints began walking down the middle aisle.  These foot prints proceed to the front of the church and veer off to the right.  Watching bloody footsteps appear while attached to no body is unsettling, especially when they finally stop and enter a confessional.  I had to lead Joshua to a confessional in order to have a conversation with a foul entity.  Being a Catholic, this was one hell of a creepy start to the game.  The church is supposed to be a place of safety, but the Exmortis starts off with one clear intention in mind: nowhere is safe; no hope left.

Even the bathroom isn't safe from death.

                After talking to the presence with no body, Joshua goes to a ranch the presence spoke of.  It is here that things set back into the way of the original game by exploring a desolate house ridden with gruesome dead bodies and evil spirits.  I would actually say that the appearances of the corpses in this game are more unsettling than the one before.  Each corpse is dead in a different way and the vibrant red of the blood stands out against the muted colors of the world around it.

A mutilated corpse hangs from the rafters.

                The first corpse I ran across was in a downstairs room off to the right.  Found strung up from the rafters is a mutilated corpse.  The corpse was first hung and then had its appendages and heart ripped from the body.  It was left dangling from the rafters so now blood is pooling beneath it as it slowly swings from side to side.  The creaking of the rope is a nice touch that makes the room all the more ominous.

Some malevolent spirit located at the end of the hallway.

                Traveling upstairs in the house causes a spirit at the end of the hallway to yell “GET OUT,” and slam a door shut, causing all doors in the hallway to slam shut.  I have politely designated this hallway was the hallway of death.  Located in each of the four unlocked rooms of the hallway of death is a different dead body.  The first is a woman who is laying face down dead in a bed with blood spatters on the wall behind the bed.  She is described as having a gaping hole in her chest, most likely from a gunshot wound.  The death found in this room is substantial, but it is nothing compared to the room across the hall.

The corpses of four children found in a bed.

                This room contains possibly the saddest body count of the game.  Located on the bed is the bloody remains of four dead children.  They’ve been neatly covered with an old bed sheet, but blood is slowly seeping through.  Joshua remarks on how he’s gotten used to death, but the corpses of children are still unsettling.  I could not agree more.  The next rooms with a bathtub full of blood and a blood spattered window can’t hold a candle to the depressing picture of four children’s corpses.  Mr. Leffler quickly makes it obvious that the world of Exmortis 2 is far worse than it was in the first game.

Mr. Lochear's final resting place.

                What I eventually found in the kitchen explains the horrors of the house.  The head of the house, Mr. Lochear, had learned the horrors of the Exmortis were approaching, so refusing to let his family suffer horrible deaths at the hand of the Exmortis, he murders his wife and children.  After killing them all, he barricades himself in the kitchen and shoots himself in the head.

                This is the greatest picture of a world gone mad.  What Exmortis 2 brings to the table is world terrified, desperate, and broken.  This game is another wonderful point and click flash game that can be found for free at Newgrounds.com.  I recommend playing it for a good, unsettling scare.  Ben Leffler is a master flash designer and he knows how to weave a terrifyingly apocalyptic story.  The half an hour spent exploring this free flash game is well worth it.    

http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/303832

The Simplest of Scares

                When I was a small child, I used to check the site called Newgrounds.com religiously.  Everyday someone was uploading a new flash game or movie that was a visual marvel to behold.  Some of my fondest memories of the internet can be found on that website.  Newgrounds is a hub of great creativity and one day I stumbled across a wonderfully though out horror game called Exmortis.

The house in the woods.

                This game is a simple point and click adventure game.  You play as a man who has some form of amnesia.  He wakes up in a forest on a freezing cold night and can only see an ominous building a good distance away in the forest.  In order to not freeze to death, you lead the man to the building in order to take shelter.  As soon as he enters the house, it becomes drastically obvious as to why it is abandoned and this memory damaged man has the chance to change the world forever.

Just one of the creepy hallways in the house.

                The bulk of the game is pretty slow.  To play the game now takes a good deal of patience because of the point and click style of gameplay.  In order to investigate the house, I had to click in the exact spots I wished to explore so that my damaged protagonist could navigate down the hallway.  This style of gameplay works well enough, but it was maddening when I couldn’t find the right places to click in the room.  When everything did fall in place though, the game was surprisingly scary.

A kitchen with blood dripping from the microwave?

                It doesn’t take long for things to become creepy in that house.  Trails of blood can be found everywhere and slowly I began to find mutilated bodies throughout the house.  An arm in a library, a bath tub full of blood, a head in a microwave (points to the creator for that being the oddest place to find a severed head), all of these things are scattered about this creaking death hole of a house.  Eventually diaries in the house are found and this is when I began to feel truly creeped out.

I don't think that's where a severed head should go...

                The first diary is that of a man who finds this house at the edge of the forest.  He begins to investigate the house little by little even though he is terrified of it.  The house seems to call out to him, pulling him to return time and time again.  One night he becomes trapped in the house and must stay the night.  The house whispers to him and slowly unseen creatures in the dark begin to torment him.  The diary is a terrifying to read as I pictured this man’s slow decent in to madness.  The diary talks about a book called Exmortis (hey, that’s the name of the game) which is the book of an ancient being called Vlaew.

The book of Exmortis located next to a bleeding heart.

                Without revealing much more, I just have to say that the diaries in this game are terrifying.  I found three of them when I played it again recently and each one of them ends in such twisted ways.  The first ends with the explorer in the woods basically being a madman and succumbing to the voices in the house.  The next one is the actual book of Exmortis which talks about Vlaew’s conquest of the world and his brothers.  It speaks of a way for Vlaew to be brought back to the world of the living.  The last is by a man called Xavier Rehayem who used to live in the house.  He translated the Book of Exmortis and as soon as he finished it, the house started talking to him.  Demons began to torment him and his daughter.  Xavier watched as his daughter slowly deteriorated and he had to take her life.  When he stabs her, she regains control for a moment and thanks her father before she dies.

Just another blood stain found throughout the house.

                That part about his daughter being murdered in the house sets up a pretty terrifying moment.  There was one door in the house that just refused to open and after some triggered sequences, it eventually is left ajar with a moaning sound coming from beyond the threshold.  As I entered the room, a ghost of Xavier’s daughter, Gwen, is seen standing next to a bed.  The bed is covered in her blood.  Clicking on Gwen sets in motion the final moments of the game; she screams and causes the protagonist to pass out.

                I will not spoil the ending, but for the twenty minutes it takes to play this free flash game, it is completely worth it.  Ben Leffler created this game back in 2004 and its two sequels many years later.  With the lights off and volume cranked, Exmortis can offer some of the simplest scares possible for a flash game.  I thoroughly enjoy this game and hope anyone reading this will try it out at Newgrounds.com: http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/189227.