Pros• A Japanese game wherein the characters actually look Japanese!• Genuinely new take on "survival horror" genre • Astounding overall production values • Camera combat/search scheme keeps player in paranoid mindset • Creepy as hell |
Cons• "Sixth Sense" feature may give players a little too much help• Apparent visual "hits" will sometimes not yield points • HUGE memory card requirement for saved games |
Bottom LineFrom concept through to execution, Fatal Frame is a must-see, must-play, and--for spooky-gaming buffs--a must-own PS2 title. Sensitive and superstitious types, enter at your own risk. PICTURES AT AN EXORCISM"The evidence is clear that belief in communication with the dead has led more people to madness than to peace of mind." --Richard Matheson, Hell House An A-grade horror-themed game really has the burden of "execution," so to speak--such a game not only has to play well, it obviously has to disturb or frighten the player, which is no small task. While following in the haunted footsteps of previous "survival horror" games, Fatal Frame is a startlingly original, well-produced and quite creepy game with the most cinematically-grounded mindset thus far seen in a horror game. In fact, the very nature of its game mechanics works a kind of visual and psychological leverage on the player for maximum effect. The design team has been quoted as saying that Fatal Frame conveys better than other horror games the sense of spiritual forces in the room...and all hype aside, I'd have to agree. What the hype doesn't tell you is that Fatal Frame manages to wrestle the oft-blunting effect that the 2-D screen has on creating fear...and turn it against itself. And you. |
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Review
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Fatal Frame
Fatal Frame is a cinematic game that chronicles the efforts of a young Japanese girl named Miku to locate her brother, who has disappeared inside an old and foreboding mansion (while himself investigating the house after the disappearance of a famous novelist and his staff). From the very start, Fatal Frame flexes its production-values muscle and works on the player with every unnerving trick in the book: The initial introductory flashback (which is playable, as the missing brother) has a nightmarish grainy-film look, complete with a continual, subtle and disturbing pulsing-filter effect that tricks the eyes into looking for things that aren't there; when the game proper starts (now in full color), Miku is forced to walk through the same initial rooms the (presumably-doomed) brother just moved through--while every horror-movie neuron in your brain is screaming at you that this is not a good idea; and the camera motion is, for the most part, superbly planned, arcing in menacingly behind Miku as she approaches each doorway or blind turn in a corridor. If you take games at all seriously--especially spooky ones--you owe it to yourself to play Fatal Frame alone, in the dark, with the sound turned up.
Fatal Frame's big "hook" is that Miku is armed only with an antique camera, which has the ability to damage/exorcise/free the spirits of the mansion by taking pictures of them. While the majority of the game is played from a typical removed cinematic viewpoint in the vein of Resident Evil, the actual business of confronting ghosts is done via the camera; when a ghost appears near Miku, a quick press of the circle button brings up a first-person camera lens viewpoint. While in this mode, the left thumbstick moves the camera around while the right thumbstick allows Miku to move while keeping the ectoplasmic interloper in the targeting circle--the longer the supernatural foe is kept in the photographic crosshairs, the more said foe is damaged when the shot is finally taken. It sounds pretty antiseptic in text, but it's not--Fatal Frame's supernatural foes are visually and aurally nasty, warping into existence before you and often teleporting from point to point as you frantically try to keep a bead on them, and all the while they're moaning and howling disturbing, distorted cries like "Let me out!" and "Give back my child!" Should they bypass your photographic attacks and actually get their insubstantial hands on you, the entire screen melts into a monochromatic freak-out as the dearly departed throttle the life out of you. With time and experience, the player can upgrade the camera's innate supernatural abilities with special attacks that temporarily repel, stun or otherwise inhibit the angry dead. The subtle yet powerful angle here is that--through forcing the player to creep through the mansion with his/her eyes glued to the first-person camera lens--Fatal Frame automatically imposes a kind of paranoid, medium-is-the-message Blair Witch Project feel to the combat. There is something about viewing the world through the lens of a camera that automatically multiplies the Creep Factor in any situation or environment...and the designers of Fatal Frame damn well know it. In addition to the purely visual nasties, Fatal Frame conveys Miku's psychic sensitivity by having the controller throb her heartbeat into the player's hands whenever something of an occultically-fishy nature is nearby. The mechanics that compose the rest of the game will be instantly familiar to anyone who's played a "survival horror" game: Film types of various grades for the camera serve as "ammunition," with varying grades of performance, and door/mechanism/item-fetch puzzles are the norm, while the game's backstory is filled in through the notebook scraps, audio tapes and other physical clues to be found throughout the mansion. In addition to its function as a weapon, the camera can also see things in the environment that the naked eye cannot, such as hidden doors (or a puzzle solution in a distant room). Fatal Frame's problems are minor. The first you'll likely encounter is that the game-save file is so darn big--forget about keeping a Fatal Frame save on the same card as ten other game-saves, like you're probably used to. Also, the camera's targeting scheme is adamant about getting foes within the glowing Capture Circle--no matter how up-close-and-personal you get with the attacking entities (as evidenced by the 24 photos per game you can save in a dedicated "album"), you'll occasionally be awarded no points for a frighteningly-close call, even though the developed film clearly shows the otherworldly aggressor filling the frame. These quibbles are just that, however--quibbles. Fatal Frame is a top-notch, high-quality survival horror game with production values that at times surpass even those of Silent Hill 2 in terms of creepiness. While the voice-acting isn't always consistent, just about every other presentational aspect is, and even a hardened gamer willing to play the game alone and in the dark will get some good, solid scares. Through careful scripting, disturbing audio-visual tricks, solid gameplay and a judicious use of cinematics, Fatal Frame manages to convey the disarming sense of feeling one's sanity crumble under the assault of otherworldly influences. At least, that's what the Voices told me to say. ------------------------------------------------- Mike looked around the bedroom with wide, frightened eyes. There was a picture on the wall. He couldn't be absolutely sure--in his present state, he couldn't be absolutely sure of his own name--but he was fairly sure that there had been no picture there when he first came in. It was a still-life: A single plum sat on a tin plate in the middle of an old plank table. The light falling across the plum and the plate was a feverish yellow-orange. Tango light, he thought. The kind of light that makes the dead get up out of their graves, and Tango. The kind-- "I have to get out of here," he whispered. --Stephen King, 1408 |
