|
Razorskin
[03/17/04]
Publisher: Midway
Developer: Surreal
When making The Suffering, I'm sure the developers spent many an hour thinking of every fucked up place they could pack into one island to maximize their horror. Haunted prison? Check. Not just check, but DEMON haunted. So, double check. Messed up mansion that's been turned into a sanitarium? Check. Crashed slave ship? Check. Civil War era military base? Witch Trial burning pile? Check and check. It's obvious the team spent many hours watching fear-based reality TV shows and haunted history shows until it completely deranged them before finishing this title up.
The story is about Torque, a man who might have brutally killed his family and is brought to death row in the pen on Carnate Island. I say "might have" because the ending you get in this game is largely dependent on your actions throughout the game. Kill a bunch of fellow prisoners or guards and you get the bad ending. Help them or leave them alive and you get the good ending. Of course, there's no denying that Torque killed a bunch of aryans, but let's be honest, that doesn't really make him a badguy, now does it?
The core gameplay is a third person shooter (see Max Payne, Bloodrayne), where the player controls Torque with a combination of both analog sticks, not unlike a 1st person shooter. Of course, you can also play the game in 1st person, if the mood hits you. You have a button for jump, action, shoot/use equipped weapon and a button to throw things like flares and grenades. There's also a button to turn into a super-fucking-pissed-off monster where you go all "The Maxx" on your enemies. But, then again, you really don't need this as Torque manages to hand out death like he's The Punisher. The action comes in two flavors of mood - slow and nervewracking or fast and all hell's breaking loose.
The visual package does a pretty damn good job at drawing you into the game. Yeah, the game does suffer a little bit of the multiconsole middleground and the NPCs look mediocre, but the overall depth of detail really works well. One of the stronger aspects is the using of lighting to help you see what in the hell is going on. Also, you get a fine level of gratification from battle as blood splatters relative to your gunfire and you can get soaked in blood. Also, there's a ton of crap that can be blown up, whether intentionally or not. The monsters, designed by Stan Winston Studios, not by Stan himself, have a certain Clive Barker bent to them. But then again, just about any fucked up monster nowadays looks like something born from Clive Barker's head. In all honesty, the man should be making shitloads of royalties on just being fucked-up, like Tim Burton should be for making goth cool. Or giving the goth wannabees a cartoon all their own (Nightmare Before Christmas), even though it took them TEN FUCKING YEARS TO DISCOVER IT.
Audiowise, the game features some interesting music, cobbled together from ambient sound effects that feature an almost tribal pattern to it when the action is running full blast. When it isn't, it's reminiscent to something Mick Harris would put together. The sound effects and monster noises provide sufficient terror and if you have a good stereo system, this game will put it to use. Of course, what conversation about the audio would go unfinished without mentioning the voice acting, where every curse word know to man, and even a few new ones invented for this game, are used liberally. And by liberally I mean to excess. Like Midway bought the rights to the words "Fuck" and "Shit".
With all this said, I enjoyed the hell out of The Suffering. But, I think that's partly because it merges 3rd person shooting and horror together nicely and I'm a sucker for both.
|
|
Razorskin
[7/23/02]
Cast: Meg Tilly, Ione Skye, Roddy McDowall, Roy Dotrice
Director: Gabrielle Beaumont
Carmilla is loosely (the kind of loose that makes Pamela
Anderson look like a nun) based on the classic horror short story
of the same name. In this version, a gentleman and his daughter
live on their own on what I would guess is a Civil War era plantation.
One night, while on a walk, they witness a horse-driven carriage
turn over, killing everyone inside except a young woman, who they
take back to their home. While taking care of the young woman,
the daughter and the girl become close friends, but when people
start turning up dead, it becomes clear that the girl, Carmilla,
is a vampire.
First and foremost, the acting in the movie is, well, mediocre.
Maybe it's the script or maybe it's the low-dollar cast, but for
the most part, everyone acts like they're wooden puppets. I get
the feeling that this is a high school production that unfortunately
made it to VHS. The only time someone seems like they're actually
acting is when Roddy McDowall comes in, but even then, it's just
a caricature of every other role he's played. And the supposedly
Louisiana accent he has is insulting to anyone with a hint of
Creole in their blood.
Outside of the so-called story and acting, most everything else
about the film is rather frightening. It's sad when production
values are more frightening than the actual feature. Special effects
consist of Carmilla fading in and out (an effect that was mastered
in the 30s, but seems to be the only thing the producers can do
consistently), rubber bats molesting one victim and Roddy McDowall
getting stabbed through the head with a bedpost length wooden
stake. The set was most likely shot on a Civil War National Park
and the costuming consists of two prom dresses and some clothes
borrowed from Civil War reinactors. The person behind the soundtrack
should have his John Tesh collection taken away from him.
So, what's good about this film? It's around an hour long. Apparently,
that was the crap quota they had to fill. To be honest, it's not
the worst film I've ever seen, but this one could surely sneak
attack unsuspecting viewers if they happen upon it. Not even a
plot twist near the end of the movie is done well enough to be
a shinning point for this travesty.
Fans of the story, or even people who have the short story somewhere
in their county, will be pissed about Carmilla, the movie.
Avoid like the plague.
|
