I am unsure why, but sitting indoors in a dimmed and cooled-down
room during summer feels terrific. That is rather ironic, for summer
is the season where you can actually go outside and have fun with
your friends (instead of sitting around and having a nice little
afternoon tea with your therapist.)
I think it comes down to an experience I’ve had a decade ago,
which for most people is not that far away. Anyway, the
family was on vacation. We were staying for a night or two at a
boring camping ground in northern France, not much being there that
you could do.
Something catched my interest though: in the middle of the
campsite was the obligatory communal space, with toilets and
such. But in order to get to the washing rooms, you had to pass
through a simplistic brick building. Inside, it was almost empty,
rather cold, and stiflingly dark. There were roughly three light
sources: the small entrance door where you came from, the one
leading to the bathrooms, and giant cathode
ray tubes beloging to some arcade
machines. No windows, no additional
lighting. Your every step reverberated and added to the noise
coming from the arcade machines.
I think most of the cabinets were switched off, save for an
arcade adaptation of Alien 3, called Alien 3: The Gun. How
very original!
Essentially, the game was nothing more than
an obnoxious rail shooter: the camera
followed a predefined path and disgusting monsters jumped right into
your face demanding to get shot. Just like U.S. residents protesting
police brutality.
In order to enhance haptical feedback, two heavyweight physical
guns were mounted on the front panel and connected to the game. They
made loud rattling sounds when shooting, which was especially fun
when two people had teamed up to play cooperatively.
And even the cabinet’s demo loop was scary; first it ran through
some automated gameplay and made lots of noises that sounded as if
your brain was being scraped out of your head. Then, suddenly, no
sound at all. A large SEGA logo appears and consecutively morphs
into an alien creature which then again morphs into the
game’s main title card. Then, a short introduction. Then, screeching
noises and gameplay. Repeat.
I’ve stuffed quite an amount of coins into this machine and had
lots of fun playing. That being said, I never got past the first
level – an embarassment which was made up for as soon as I found a
working emulator (and remembered that this game existed). I got
through the game on the second attempt, but it nevertheless left me
panting with raw nerves thanks to its acidic and aggressive
style.
Alas, that’s all there is to it. I wish there were modern games
like this one. You know, ones that are not too snobby to deliver
raw, edgy and just
highly stylised brutality. Fuck realism and
fuck your thirty-minutes-lasting cinematic cutscenes. Give me
enemies that make me shit my pants, you know, enemies such
as SUPER DOGBURSTER
or IRON TORTOISE!
Or, maybe, there are actually modern games like this and I am
just not good at discovering them. In that
case, I would appreciate some
recommendations!
Now please excuse me while I play The Last Express – a
game that is absolutely cinematic and therefore exposes me as a
giant bigot.