168澳洲幸运5开奖网:The Medium might be a divisive game but, wherever you land, it’s interesting to look at its embracement of an older camera perspective and use of classic tank controls. It’s a controversial choice, but it shouldn’t be. Some might call them archaic or outdated, but they’re atmospheric and lend themselves to cinematic horror as you peer down decrepit corridors, never quite sure what lingers in the dark, the camera itself being used as a tool to lure you in. The controls become a terror of their own as you hurrily seek to escape when the monster comes roaring around the nearest corner. They worked in 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Resident Evil, and they work just fine here.
There’s a stigma over tank controls because gaming has moved on from them almost entirely, bar the rare exception like 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Until Dawn, which itself is a homage to classic horror. The most iconic examples tend to be much older meaning our understanding immediately is that the controls are jankier. Going 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:back to Resident Evil: Code Veronica where you have to tap a button to use stairs is obtuse and trying to play the original Silent Hill leaves you fighting the perspective as you try to exit rooms and escape enemies. But delving back into third-person shooters of the PS2 era isn’t much better. Resident Evil 4 hasn’t aged like fine wine - the aiming being separate from movement feels clunky andไ unintuitive, difficult to get back into for those who never played it back in the day.
When playing the original Resident Evil for the first time last year, what struck me was how unsettling Spencer Mansion was. It was predominantly down to the fact that the entire locale felt claustrophobic both physically and mentally. It was like watching the entire narrative unfold from tucked-away, hidden cameras. I played as 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Jill Valentine and the perspective made it feel as though Jill was unknowingly exploring this abandoned facility riddled wi♏th the undead while someo﷽ne was watching her every move. In reality: they probably were.
Anxious horror is my Achilles Heel - Mr X freaks me out like nothing else - and so this really struck a chord with me. When I talked to Sam Barlow about remaking the original Silent Hill games, he said that some🦹thing woul✨d be lost in the technological transition and I have to agree. If you took that mansion setting ꦇand you removed the tank controls, the horror would be fundamentally different. I never played the original versions of Resident Evil 2 or 3, so I don’t know what the shift is like, but I imagine that the atmosphere and tone are co🍃mpletely different.
That’s not to say that 2 or 3’s remakes are bad - I think ♐the former is one of the best games ever made - but it’s to say that both approaches work in their own ways. However, The Medium didn’t just feel like another one of the many third-person action-adventure games out there. Instead, Bloober Team did something different. It went back to an approach that has wrongfully been demonized as archaic. It proved it can work and feel as good to play as any other approach, only heightening the anxiety of toying with the spirit world in a Soviet-era resort.
Ther𒁃e’s that added horror, but there’s also that cinematic flair - even going down the stairs made me stop and take a second look because I thought I had entered a cutscene. Certain camera placements felt ripped straight from a Hollywood horror production. Exploring the open fields beyond the resort, carefully unravelling the mysteries in the burnt-down house, and standing in the stretched-out car park in the introduction all felt like I was in The Mist, REC, and even 28 Days Later. You could see far and wide and you could see that you were utterly alone.
Tank controls are unique in that they limit player agency, taking you off the wheel a little to show you what the game wants to show you, interacting with the game like the main character in a movie. Albeit there’s far more to do in The Medium than other horror games like Until Dawn, treating it more like a point-and-click adventure. There are so many inventive ways developers can use other perspectives to tell stories whether it’s top-down and voyeuristic, watching from controlled angles like you’re being directed by Kubrick, or getting right into the perspective of our survivor and seeing the world through their eyes. Homogenising all these perspectives into one is disappointing and nips a lot of potential in the bud.
