Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Games and Atmosphere

So I was playing Killing Floor a while back on the offices map. We had found a spot to fortify into and were waiting for the round to start. We had about twenty seconds to doof around so I wound up staring out the rainy, blown out window. Just in those twenty seconds, staring at the flashing cop car splattered in blood and muddy rain, I got a feeling. The feeling of being with three other dudes, beaten and bruised, fighting off endless waves of experimental monstrosities. Alone, helpless, desperate. I made a little private prayer for safety. Then the trader said something sexual and British, summoning the screams of dismemberable specimens to be slaughtered. (alliteration x5 combo!)

Killing Floor is a cheap knock-off Left 4 Dead desperately trying to be more hardcore and also more British. It's no Silent Hill or Bioshock. Heck, its not even a Minecraft on the level of atmosphere. Yet even a knockoff with "generic bloody zombocolypse" as its world could make me feel a slight stirring of contemplative emotion, even if it was completely unintentional. I mean, its an overwhelming survival horror game that isn't as scary as it thinks it is. Well, unless you're being overwhelmed by the clot/gorefast hordes... so I guess it does accomplish what it set out to do BUT THAT DOES NOT INCLUDE CONTEMPLATIONS BLUH!
Maybe I'm just a sensitive moon-eyed woman type.
Or maybe this is the result of not playing anything outside of Wii and Gamecube games for most of my life.
*shakes fist at Wii*

No comments:

Post a Comment