Moonbase

Picked up the RE Gamecube Remake from the bargain bin at Target a few weeks back. Breakdown:

• Graphics: Excellent. Reminds me of the engine from ICO, taken further. Like ICO, they nail water and generally capture all the relevent environmental details. ICO, however, had the balls to put its engine to the test of bright sunshine—and did it without taking the edge off the mood. (Of course, ICO is a very, very different kind of game. Its horror was wistful and fairy-tale, not unremittingly gory.)

• Sound Design: Very Good. No Dolby, but since I don’t have a fancy setup I don’t care.

• Music: Not bad. Does the job.

• Voice Acting: Tolerable.

• Writing: Well, it has some. Good concept, but the translations (and likely the original writing) are a bit ham-fisted. Of course Barry’s too busy to search the hallway with you; he’s got to continue looking at a blood stain. But mostly you don’t notice because you’re preoccupied with not dying. Occasionally the writers will raise issues for effect, without intending to address them.

• Controls: Dire. Putrid. Use Control Mode C if you want the least worst of the available control schemes.

And now I’ll get all Greydanus and stuff:

• Moral/Spiritual Value: Not exactly gold star-worthy, but not poison. Lots of gratuitous blood and gore, though the only killing required of your character is in self-defense. Sci-fi horror with quasi-occult window dressing. Moderate language used (IMO) appropriately. Moral choices, to the very limited extent you are given them, have ambiguous consequences unless you really read between the lines.

• Artistic/Entertainment Value: It succeeds at what it sets out to do: entertain by way of a good scare. The environments are a dynamically lit and gorgeous artistic treat though.

• Overall Recommendability: If you like gory survival horror (I have a soft spot for it, although it’s not my favorite thing), you will probably enjoy this game a lot (even if you’re cursing the controls the whole time). Otherwise it’s your call. And you will still hate the controls.

Random thought: I obviously think ICO rates as horror, albeit fantasy horror. Could one consider ICO to be survival horror though? Why or why not?

Random thought deux: At this moment it seems to me that the mother/child relationship is fertile thematic ground for horror writers in a way that fatherhood isn’t. Resident Evil… ICO… Hitchcock’s Psycho… I’ve noticed a bias towards it in my own horror writing as well. Is that really generally true though? If so, why? Counterexamples?