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Upcoming survival horror game ought to make zombies scary again
Zombies are still a hot commodity in the gaming world as developers continue to come up with new channels through which players can shoot, slice, and smash the undead. I guess turning all the villains into brainless, disgusting humanoids is one way to make gratuitous violence in video games extra fun without making us feel at all bad about it. I am beginning to feel as though the zombie shoot-em-up genre is getting a little over-saturated, what with the Left 4 Dead and Dead Island and Dead Rising series all filling that niche rather competently. Maybe what we need is something with a little less gore and a little more heart. Maybe we need something like Amy.
The upcoming survival horror game from VectorCell takes the post-apocalyptic zombie-ridden environment we know and love so well and makes it starkly intimate. No more grindhouse violence or undead massacres, just you, the protagonist, and the little girl you've got to protect as you both escape your plague-ridden hometown in the near doomsday future.
This time, you don't get to play a character who's miraculously immune to the zombification that's affected everyone else. Lana, the woman you control, is just as susceptible to the virus as any other human, and it's up to you to ensure she stays as human as possible throughout the course of the game. Neglect her too long and she'll start physically changing into one of the monsters you're trying to avoid. Her perception of reality starts to warp; things go dark as she begins hallucinating in a gameplay mechanic similar to Amnesia's sanity meter.
It's the eponymous character that keeps you from getting killed by the infection. Somehow, Amy heals you. You're not just guiding her away from the city because you're a saint; you need her as much as she needs you. That's where the game's central drama takes root. It's not just an escort mission where you're steering along a helpless sidekick just because; Amy actually figures into the gameplay in a meaningful way.
It looks as though tonally, Amy will be spot-on. Many a survival horror game misses the mark and doesn't build up the requisite tension for real scares, but the trailers so far for this one look promising. The game's dark, murky world seems to be the perfect backdrop for the relationship between its two primary characters. Check out the teaser trailer below and see what you think.
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