Maybe this is another getting old thing, but my tolerance for stress and tension in horror is not what it used to be. I grew up watching classic horror from the 80s, I relished the dawn of survival horror on consoles, and read an awful lot of Stephen King and James Herbert when I was probably far too young. These days I’ll be lucky to get through an episode of Escape to the Country (UK-based home buying TV show focused on moving to rural locations, for those not well-versed in quality broadcasting) without being jump scared by an unexpected appearance from Alistair as he exits a walk-in wardrobe. I get scared easily, yet I still enjoy the many ways horror is used in modern media. What am I to do?
My solution, which is likely to anger a lot of you, is to remove sound from the equation completely. To be honest, I find wearing headphones quite isolating and stressful even at the best of times, so I avoid using them for horror games, but my trick is to mute my TV speakers when I start to get overly stressed. Yes, this is terrible and I’m removing a key aspect of each game’s presentation – butchering the experience to some degree – but if it’s that or I simply give up, I’m going to do some butchering.
Case in point: I’ve played through the Dead Space remake recently, having got sidetracked and given up on it back on its release. I think it’s a marvellous modern version of a classic horror game, but at points it all became rather too much. To be clear, I’m not playing entire horror games in silence, but I reach for the mute button during especially high moments of terror. I get through these scenes and then carry on enjoying the rest of the game.
For, what I assume are in-built biological reasons, when the soundtrack kicks in and the sound effects hit hard, the combined sensation is enough to make me lose all sense and reason. Turn off all sound and it’s like I’m not really involved any more, almost as if I’m watching myself play from outside my body. It’s a way to find some needed tranquility in the middle of a perfect storm. Cheating, yes. Do I care? No.
I see it as no different to how people approach a lot of things in life. There’s a glass bridge in the London Aquarium that I think is great, but I’ve seen plenty of people close their eyes and run across it. The fridge I go to in the night to get a bottle of milk for my daughter is situated so I can see out across the patio behind the house. It’s silly, but at 2am I refuse to look out the patio door, choosing blissful ignorance over spotting any intruders/aliens/monsters or a spookily moving tree branch.
I’ve used this technique many times, activating it like you would a power-up, allowing me to fight beasties with no fear or keep my head when things have taken a turn for the worse. You might think this is a bit odd (to be kind), but I love horror games and this lets me carry on playing even though my brain has clearly decided I’m too old and fragile. Hopefully I’m not the only one.
