Spookterberfest Day 4

by StickHead on 28/10/2010

Having already established that a good horror game achieves its scariness with tension and atmosphere, here is a game that has oodles of the latter. It’s Delphine’s Another World.

Another World wowed us in 1991 thanks to Eric Chahi’s revolutionary animation technique that used polygons rendered in real-time, overcoming memory constraints that usually hamper sprite-based games. This allowed for exponentially more frames of animation, resulting in incredibly smooth character movements and superb cinematic cut-scenes.

The animation, cut-scenes, uncluttered screen, sparse soundtrack, attention to detail, intuitive controls and lack of dialogue all collude to provide the perfect frame for Chahi to weave an immersive, involving plot with the closest thing to pathos I’d ever seen in a videogame.

Sometimes the only way to progress is through repetition and trial and error, but in a journey so wonderful, you can forgive a game that stumbles occasionally.

Another World features in The Joy of Sticks Spooktoberfest because the game is just so damn hostile. After the intro deftly sets the scene our protagonist, Lester Chaykin, is left ten foot under water where a second’s inactivity by the player will see him devoured by a shadowy tentacled abomination. If he manages to escape the monster’s clutches, Lester is then faced with giant leeches (with poison fangs) and a ravenous beast (animated in such a terrifying fashion it needs to be seen to be believed).

The game, its characters and environment are so hostile that when you finally encounter a friendly face you almost feel it is too good to be true. These feelings of hostility and reliance on a new friend play off against each other, building to a crescendo and climax that rates amongst the most exciting and emotional available for Atari’s 16-bit wonder. Play it to completion – you will not regret it.

Gameplay Video

There are 7 comments in this article:

28/10/2010Matty says:

‘Another World’ is actually kind-of a precursor to ‘Half Life’ and similar cinematic/storytelling action games. It’s hugely atmospheric, episodic and uses its charms to hide the fact that it’s basically completely linear. And, like the aforementioned ‘Half Life’ I love it even though I think it’s partly responsible for the trend that’s moving games towards set-pieces and storytelling over fun and challenging gameplay. I suppose it’s rather like having a soft-spot for the original ‘King Kong’ even though it directly lead to bloated Michael Bay blockbusters.
28/10/2010JD says:

Brilliant game, very atmospheric. I played it on the Megadrive and it was so different from everything else it was incredible it got released.
28/10/2010StickHead says:

@Matty Interesting point Matty, but I don’t think we can hold games responsible for the tosh that they’ve inspired. Would you hate the Beatles for spawning the Gallagher brothers? There does seem to be a split in the industry, either the gameplay is there as a bridge between story elements (Final Fantasy XIII, Enslaved: Odyssey to the West etc.) or game’s story is just window dressing used to augment the gameplay experience (Mario Galaxy, MW2). I find it hard to think of a game that nails both. Braid maybe.
28/10/2010StickHead says:

@JD Yes it really was unique at the time. It still is really, excepting its sequel and Flashback. European games companies (especially the French) were often still willing to go out on a limb in the 16-bit era when everyone else was beginning to play it safe with movie and sports licenses, sequels etc.
5/11/2010matt says:

What a game.

I love the french aesthetic present in this and a number of other games: Future Wars, Disc, Vroom, to name but a few. All very subtly French and all the better for it. Vive la différence!
6/11/2010StickHead says:

Now you mention it, all of those games (though I’ve never played Disc) do have a certain je ne sais quoi, don’t they? Cruise For A Corpse is another, a lot of Gallic flair in that one.
3/03/2011Keeper Garrett says:

What a classic. I found this game so hard when I was younger, to see it played in 30 minutes without losing a life on youtube was something of a shock. I think the Mega Drive version had more levels too.