Why am I interested in horror survival games?

The lecture of digital cinema arouses my interests in doing a research on horror survival games. The required reading stated that full digital cinema only involves the post-production work among the 5 phases of film production.

According to Manovich’s theory, DIGITAL CINEMA = DIGITAL FILM + PAINTING + IMAGE PROCESSING + COMPOSITING + 2D OR 3D ANIMATION.

It immediately made me think of the 3D computer animated film-liked scenes from horror survival games.

You may not be familiar with the term horror survival, let me give you a brief idea of it first. Horror survivor is one of the video game genres in which the player sets off an adventure for survival or for rescuing someone important. The journey is made under a catastrophic environment and full of undead or supernatural enemies. They are usually 3D nowadays.



There are quite a lot of inter-conversions between videogames and films recently, especially over the 2 past decades; films like Biohazard Series, Silent Hill and Tomb Raider are adapted from videogames. Being a big fan in horror survival games, I noticed that most Hollywood blockbusters are transformed from this particular genre. Exploration videogames become more and more popular, some even praise them as ‘interactive films’. A composer for television and short film, Steven Poole, pointed out that ‘cinema and videogames are on convergent paths’—they will meet each other at last. The relationship between horror games and films seems to be intimate.

It is interesting for me to find out what elements in horror games make them like films and what are their keys to success. Without doubt, the impressive introductory video sequence with high-quality computer graphics unfolding the story is very filmic indeed. Under the advanced development of technology, the depiction of avatars and settings becomes more natural and close to reality. Professional filming techniques like fast cutting and weird camera angles are presented in the game ‘trailer’. A wide range of nasty monsters and strong plots inevitably create an anxious atmosphere, which lengthen their players’ attention span to play the games. All the above are the things which link or associate horror games with films. Some theories and basic information will be used to back up my point of view.

Furthermore, I would like to compare the original videogame and its adapted film. What aspects are done better in games or in film and why they do so will be mentioned, vice versa. Personal preference from the view of players and audiences and comment on the social issues triggered by the above violent games will be included in the last part.

The following are my research questions:

1. What are horror survival games?

2. What elements of horror survival game make it like film?

• Silent Hill and Biohazard 3: Resident Evil are the example of horror survival videogames under discussion.
  



• Their film-liked potentials will be discussed and compared.
  



• Compare the similarities and differences between the survival games and their adapted films.

3. What are social problems created by the above games and movies?

4. My comment

Hope you enjoy my sharing. Thank you.

Key Quotes:

KEY QUOTES:

1. "Videogames are superficially like films in one major respect, which is that they communicate to the player through eyes and eats. Just as film crews include specialised audio technivians for the post-production dubbing of sound effects, the sound desogn of videogames too is a mini-art in itself, and development companies also employ composers to provide musical soundtracks."said Steven Poole.
   
   -Source: Trigger Happy: The Inner Life of Videogames, p.80
   
2. "Any medium has the potential to be really good or really bad; it's just a medium," said Munroe, 34. "I recognize that people generally don't think of . . . (video games) as art, so part of me is just being a cultural agitator.
   
   - Source: The Columbus Dispatch, Ohio - Author: Nick Chordas- ART: Filmmakers rearrange video-game images to create movies.
   
   
   
3. "Movies may tell better stories and boast more artistic credibility than video games, but games easily beat movies in frights. Because interactive entertainment can make you feel as though you are the character onscreen, games are a lot more effective at making you jump out of your seat or sending you to bed with shivers.”said Phil Villarreal.
   
   - Source: The Arizona Daily Star, Tucson By Phil Villarreal- Date: 2007-10-25- Title: Scariest video games
   
   
   
4. As Tanya Krzywinska writes in ‘Hands-On Horror’ the ‘horror genre has made the transition to video games for a number of reasons. Horror offers death as spectacle and actively promises transgression; it has the power to promotes physical sensation, and the genre appeals to the youth market that is central to the games industry.
   
   - Source: Computer games: text, narrative and play, p.150
   
   
5. "By specifying the story in terms of the emotional situations we want the player to find themselves in, we give more freedom to the game to determine the exact nature of the event (who is involved, where it happens, how it happens, etc.). To do this, though, we will need have our characters able to respond to different events in realistic ways and algorithms for writing realistic” dialogue.
   
   [These are challenges we are some way from addressing,” suggested by Diarmid.[This quote explain there is a need of real time cutscenes that re loaded through the game itself; but, don’t like the pre-rendered scenes. I’ll take more about cutscenes in my term paper. This is a very essential technique for the presentation of the game.]
   
   - Source: Computer games: text, narrative and play, p.159
   

The Covers Of My Reference Books

It is Computer games: Text. Narrative and Play published in 2006 by Diane Carr, David Buckingham, Andrew Burn and Garth Schot.

Personal Comment:
-Quite theoretical but understandable
as authors use examples of game to support what they said.





It is Game on: The History and the Culture of Videogames published in 2002 edited by Lucien King.


Personal Comment:
-A Stylish book design with colourful and eye-catching graphics.
-Articles are brief but insightful.
-A light book for leisure.






It is Trigger Happy: The Inner Life of Videogames published in 2000 by Steven Poole.

Personal Commnent:
- A good resource states clear why horror survival games is a particular genre for film adaptation in Chapter 4 Electric Sheep.

- It uses Silent Hill and Biohazard as the examples which is what I want.

The Opening Clip of Fatal Frame II [Video Game]

[Fatal Frame II is another horror survival game that I'd like to introduce to you.
Mystery and terror is all behind.
I think this is the most frightening clip here!
It has a strong and suspenseful storyline.
Maybe film version is possible one day.]

The Opening clip of Silent Hill [Video Game]

Silent Hill is one of the most typical horror survival games.(Action Adventure Game)
Does it give you any creepy feeling? What do you think of it? The element of horror.
An example of game to film with adaption.

The Opening Clip of BioHazard 3 Resident Evil [Video Game]

[Only watching these few scenes can frighten you! The element of horror.
Another example of game to film with adaptation.]

Bibliography

1. Diane Carrr, David Buckingham, Andrew Burn and Gareth Schott, Computer Games: Text, Narrative and Play, 2006
   [A reliable book found in LU Library as it is recently published. Data should be up-to-date. Besides, References are shown. By the way, I’m the first one to borrow it, maybe it’s too new. ]
   
   i. Chapter 1 “ Studying Computer Games”, p.1 – 13
   [It is useful as features of games listed. It helps to distinguish the differences between games and reality.]
   
   ii. Chapter 2 “Games Genres”, p.14 – 29
   [It can be used as reference for RPG games and action adventure games only as it only focus on these two. For Research Question 2]
   
   iii. Chapter 11 “Film, Adaptation and Computer Games”, p.149-161
   [It highlights the point that the element of horror made the same story works in either film to game or game to film. Computer games and films are 2 different genres, adaptation is needed for the presentation when they are interchanging. Furthermore, it suggests that cutscenes are an effective tool to arouse players’ fear.]
   
   
   
   
   4. Manovich, Lev “What Is Digital Cinema?” in Peter Lunenfeld (ed.)
   The Digital Dialectic, Boston: MIT Press, 1999, Lev Manovich, p. 172 – 181
   [ It offers the insight about what is fully digital film and thus I can relate it to the conversion of video games to film. ]
   
   
   
   
   5. Edited by Lucien King, “Violence and the Political Life of Videogames” by Clive Thompson in Game on the history and culture of videogames, London : Laurence King, 2002, p.22-31
   [ It is an informative analysis for relating computer games and violence.]
   [Psychological explanation about long-term indulgence in violent games causes ‘Operation conditioning’ proposed by behaviorist B.F. Skinner]
   
   
   
   6. The Columbus Dispatch, Ohio Daily Newspaper
   "ART: Filmmakers rearrange video-game images to create movies" by By Nick Chordas, 2007-01-11.
   [This is newspaper article about the facts that what companies produced what kind of films based on video games.]
   
   
   
   
   7. The Arizona Daily Star, Tucson“Scariest video games” by Phil Villarreal, 2007-10-25[This is a newspaper article about the most frightening games from a videogame player’s view, which mentions Silent Hill 2and Resident Evil 4.]
   
   
   
   
   8. Steven Poole, Trigger Happy: The Inner Life Of Videogames (2002), Four Estate‧London
   
   i. Chapter 1, “Our Virtual History”, P. 15
   [It tells us how we percept visual impacts and how it affects our psychological activities.]
   
   ii.Chapter 4, “Electric Sheep”, p.78-102
   [This is very useful; it compares and contrasts the horror survival games and their adapted films by using the examples of Silent Hill and Biohazard. It mention what exactly I need for the term paper.]
   
   
   
   
   10. Patrick Fuery, New Developments in film theory(2002), Macmillan Predd LTD
   [this book is rather theoritical and difficult to understand. But can have a look of it in
   order to get some basic idea of the new trend of film.]