Texas Chainsaw Massacre video game

 Based on a true fantasy

So there's a certain breed of video game out there that exists just outside the all-encompassing confines of the 'mainstream'. A game type that wiggles it's wily way into every single viable horror property of all time and slowly delineates all video game horror into exact clones of itself so that it's hive-mind infection can gestate and spread. I am talking about the Dead By Daylight disease which has become all and every multiplayer horror game now. Of course, the type of game I'm talking about technically reaches further back than Dead by Daylight, and is actually more appropriately known as 'asynchronous multiplayer games', but DBD is arguably the most successful game in the context I'm talking about. Whilst no horror fans actively ignore this game like the plague it is, these types of games have enjoyed acceptance and reverence, to the point where even other independent properties are bowing down to the DBD formula supremacy. Hence, bizarrely, the Texas Chainsaw Massacre game that was recently officially announced at the Game Awards.

Texas Chainsaw Massacre is an old classic cult horror movie that pushed a style of presentation which took advantage of rough techniques and grungy film making in order to simulate a sense of authenticity and, ideally, conjure some genuine peril from the audience. (Or at the very least, make them feel uncomfortable and/or unclean from having watched this.) Helped along this goal was the assertion made by the film that it's events were based on a true story, which it now seems was such a close-cut line-riding exercise in technicality that it would be lambasted if that same director tried to say that today. No actual murders involved a man wearing a human skin mask hunting down people and feeding them to pigs our whatever, that's a total fantasy. But there are various cases here and there, some related to murders other to just various injustices of the day, which the director drew creative fuel from. So in an abstract sense, yes the movie was based on true events, in any real sense: No, stop lying.

So it's a little disingenuous off the bat for the game to be declaring the same bold claim in their trailer, just as it's questionable how they think any originality can be claimed when you're making another bloody asynchronous multiplayer horror game! Because how else can you feasibly think of making a game off a movie franchise like this? The equation works like this: you have one player in the match who is granted the all-powerful ability of the killer and the other members of the match are merely their fodder who's job it is to come together and work out how to escape or overpower their assailant. This has been done in Dead by Daylight, Friday the 13th, Evolve, the popular Gmod game Prop hunt (and the recent new release 'Prop Night'), Predator: Hunting Grounds, Left 4 Dead and Back 4 Blood's optional multiplayer mode, and a crapton of indie multiplayer horror games that I can't pull from the top of my head right now. This isn't exactly the 'swansong' of creative horror concepts.

And what's more, it's really hard to try and imagine what any newcomer to this type of game can do which Dead by Daylight hasn't already done. As it exists, Dead by Daylight is sort of a framework for horror franchises to be thrust upon it, constructed as a small arena of miscellaneous escape tasks thrust upon one team of players and interrupted by a singular enemy monster controller by one lucky killer player. And this groundwork for the game has proven to be incredibly versatile for the sorts of franchises this game wants to work with. It's seen crossover characters from Nightmare on Elms Street, HALLOWEEN, Scream, Silent Hill, Resident Evil, Stranger Things, Hellraiser and, oh look at that, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. That's right, Leatherface is already in Dead by Daylight, so why did he need his own game again? (Asking for a confused friend.)

What we've seen so far regarding the game is lean as far as trailers go. Even going so far as to call it a 'teaser' seems generous, as it's mere existence makes up the bulk of the trailer's weight and we'd have come away just as satisfied from a tweet of the logo. Or heck, just a screenshot of the legal document confirming the trademark filing. They gave us nothing to work with. So aside from the multiplayer angle we've heard confirmed, this game could be an asymmetric monster versus LA Noire detective style game. Which would be... actually that sounds relatively cool. Can we have a game that does something unique like that, rather than one that's going to have us running through endless cornfields whilst chased by a chainsaw wielding man with a weird run cycle? And why is the automatic answer to that going to be no? 

This game is being fronted by the same developers who made Friday the 13th, which in their defence was a slightly more complex version of the Dead by Daylight formula, but one by a hair's breadth. As in, there was bit more exploration, the maps weren't so formulaic, (or at least: Not formulaic to DBD's standards but their own) the survivors had multiple options for their overarching goals, and balancing was a chief concern throughout the game's entire life cycle. Well, that and connectivity. I just can't help but wonder if the team isn't perhaps going backwards with the properties they've acquired, because surely Friday the 13th has more legs to it than The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. I mean, discounting the fact that I'm fairly sure Jason has more differing appearances for skins, Friday the 13th had movies set all over the place and the team never even got around to covering his brief jaunt into space! (They were planning to but a lawsuit ruined that chance before the big day.)

What new idea could Chainsaw bring to the table to prove itself a worthy successor and not just a replacement brand for the whole Friday the 13th debacle? Right now I'm genuinely asking because all I can pull from the top of my head is that they could make the killer less scary by stripping the supernatural elements that Jason players enjoyed. Admittedly, I've not see the wider Chainsaw Massacre franchise, so Bubba could later transform into a voodoo super deity for all I know, (I have been informed that the game is creating it's own killers for the universe, so there's your diversity) but the grit and warped believability of his presentation is what made this character scary to begin with, and I just do not see how that will translate into a video game at all. Usually, when a game wants to try and mess with it's audience on that level it's required to break the confines of the magic box and start actually being a pest with meta files, as is the case for games like 'Doki Doki Literature Club'; but something tells me the team aren't going to be going that path with this. Maybe the idea of wider maps and daytime action will be a breath of fresh air on this exclusively night-themed genre game type- or maybe this was a bad idea from conception.

I know it seems like I'm actively hostile towards this game's existence, and that's because I kind of am. The horror genre in entertainment is one that has been besieged ceaselessly over the years by endless barrages of low-effort copy-paste trash for it's many sequels and spin-offs. It's practically the calling card of horror franchises. I don't want gaming used as a new vehicle to continue this destruction of the horror genre! I want better for our horror franchises than this! But then, who am I against the overwhelming numbers of multiplayer horror fans who don't care they're buying the same game with different skins over the face because it's this particular skin that they want to see. Heh, from that perspective maybe this game is more in tune with the legacy of Leatherface than I'm giving it credit for...

Sackboy: A Big Adventure

Now that's a name I haven't heard in a long time

Every now and then there comes those games or franchises that strike your psyche at the oddest moments and leave you wondering; just what in the heck happened to that game? Perhaps it was an old favourite of yours, or just some niche title that you used to play, or some strange game that you used to binge around your cousin's house but never knew the name of and only discovered years later that it's the least loved of a critically adored series. (That was DMC 2, for anyone interested.) For pretty much this entire console generation that game for me was 'LittleBigPlanet' and it's mythical next entry which never seemed to materialise. I remember how much of a huge deal the original LBP was, with it's Stephen Fry narration and gameplay which championed creativity and personality. Whatever happened to that series?

I remember the first game very fondly, as the one game that I never got the chance to play myself because I was a pauper and all I ever owned was a PSP. Although that console's LBP game (which was also called 'LittleBigPlanet' for some reason) proved a suitable enough replacement. It was an enjoyable puzzle-based adventure that deployed a purposeful 'blank-slate' aesthetic in order to provide a suitable canvas for the light world manipulation/painting tools available to the player. Nowhere is this more perfectly realised than in the protagonist; Sackboy. He was quite literally just a cloth sack fashioned into the shape of a little doll, nothing particularly exotic or frilly about that. (Unless you count the sentient sack-doll as being 'exotic'; but come on, we see those everyday.) That plainness made him perfect fodder to play dress-up with various outfits and cosplay as some of the many memorable characters that Sony has a license for. (Although, the cosplays usually came at an additional premium. Mini DLC was getting pretty out-of-hand back then.)

Every newer entry of the game expanded on the core concepts of creativity and individualism and it was refreshing to have such a malleable creation-centric game get backing from a major games studio. Which was why it was such a shame that the last title, LBP 2, was so long ago and they never made a version for Playstat- what do you means there's a LittleBigPlanet 3? And it was cross platform with the PS3 and PS4? How didn't I know about this? And, more importantly, why didn't Sony market this at all? Now I think back to it, I vaguely remember a tie-in promotion between a LBP title (it may have been 3) and the 'Final Fantasy 7 Remake', which was likely before one of it's many delays. But that still pales in comparison to the frontlining treatment that the franchise used to enjoy at the height of it's popularity. It as though Sony grew bored of the 'creative darling' and wanted to move in more linear paths. (i.e. Ghost of Tsushima, LOU II, Days Gone and all those sorts of games.) The only such game to get any sort of press from Sony since was last year's 'Dreams', but you don't even really hear much about that anymore unless you're directly in it's community. (Oh, and 'Dreams' was made by the same team as LBP. Surprise, Surprise.) When, oh when, would our classically nondescript hero be making his way back to consoles?

Very soon, it would seem, as 'Sackboy: A Big Adventure' was announced for Playstation 5 and it looks to be taking the franchise firmly out of the 2.5D thing they had going on and into the glorious, over-saturated, 3D world. (Still with platforming. Okay, maybe it's a lot more platformer than adventurer) That's right, after all this time 'Sumo Digital' has taken a break from their busy schedule of... assisting IOI in making Hitman 2 by working on the Columbia and Isle of Sgail levels? Nani? (Guess I like these guys' work and I didn't even know it.) But is this truly a return to custom creation greatness? Especially when 'Dreams' is still relatively fresh off the presses and it would probably be poor form to directly compete with a game constructed my members of your old team? Well, it's actually hard to tell at this point but if the trailer is anything to go by then this might be the largest departure from what LittleBigPlanet was then we've seen from the franchise to date. (Which may explain the drastic name change.)

Now usually I like to approach these blogs with a healthy amount of breaking things down and picking out things I see, but here there's really no need for something so structured as the trailer is mostly just a hodgepodge of gameplay. (Something I do not, actually, bemoan.) If you want to get a decent idea of what this game is then you have the single most informative trailer possible right there at the tip of your fingers. In terms of marketing the highs and lows of the game in question, this is exactly what fans of these events have been asking for; a unbridled gameplay trailer with no pacing, story or anything substantial to justify it's existence beyond being an advert. So there you people go, your freakin' welcome. (Yeah, I'm a little bit salty. I like Story trailers, but apparently that makes me 'part of the problem' now...) But let us get back on track and, while we're at it, let me possibly save you some time by giving you the downlow; it basically just looks like your run-of-the-mill action/adventure platformer.

Now don't get wrong, that hurts just as much for me to say as it likely does for fans to accept. I am, afterall, someone who bought the promise of LittleBigPlanet and it's feeding of imagination at complete face value. I lauded it's unique approach to gameplay, puzzle solving and enemy encounters. And yet here I am watching this trailer for 'Sackboy: A Big Adventure' being entertained, but not impressed. But before I start moaning I will reiterate; I do like some of the things I'm seeing from this trailer. As far as action/adventure platformers go, LBP has a pleasing vibrant and vertical world that nicely fits into that genre without seeming anything like a departure from the norm. In fact, this probably looks like the game that everybody imagined when they were first told the bare minimum about LBP. It's such a natural progression for the games to take it seems almost right. But then, perhaps it's too natural of a progression, if you get what I mean.

LittleBigPlanet, as an institution, prided itself on being just that little bit oddball and off-the-wall in a manner that attempted to subvert your expectations. Instead of some cool, quippy main character you got a dead-eyed sackdoll as your protagonist for this world; anytime some encounter would be built up to make you expect a traditional one-on-one it would materialise as some crazy contraption that required active puzzling to defeat. These were the building blocks of LittleBigPlanet, and I don't see any of that in 'Sackboy: A Big Adventure'. I see an adventure with Sackboy beating up enemies in a traditional manner and hopping through very traditional hoops to reach his goal. None of it looks shoddy or badly done, not in the slightest, but it all just seems very safe and 'like a platformer should be', rather than what LittleBigPlanet wanted to be. So in a way I'm critiscing the game for looking too clean. (Does that make me the weirdo? It does, doesn't it.)

At the end of the day I suppose it comes down to a matter of taste and preference, and whilst I'm a man who likes a good platformer now and then, my palette was more attuned to the old LittleBigPlanet games over what I'm seeing here. Although if you're more open minded than me then I totally understand why this might be a title that's totally up your street! It looks great, with it's vibrancy, energy and pure thematic consistency. (the textile fabric world aesthetic always won me over) I wonder, yet again, how much this title desperately needs the power of the Playstation 5 to achieve it's wonders, but I won't deny that the game looks great. Unfortunately, it's just not what I'm looking for and thus it seems my wait for a true new LittleBigPlanet shall continue for a few years more.