25.May.2010 Alan Wake and Horror Itself

Horror is, as Alan Wake points out, a kind of darkness. A mental, reality darkness, something that confounds us with its illogicality.

But before we get into all that, let’s get into philosophy a little. In continental (not analytic) philosophy, a term, and series of terms, have been in circulation regarding the nature of reality, or realities, and how we perceive it/them. I’ll rip an explanation/definition straight from wikipedia (why not?):

“The Real is a term used by the psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan in his theory of psychic structures. There is also the Symbolic order and the Imaginary order. This order is not only opposed to the imaginary but is also located beyond the symbolic. Unlike the symbolic, which is constituted in terms of oppositions such as “presence” and “absence”, there is no absence in the real. The symbolic opposition between “presence” and “absence” implies the possibility that something may be missing from the symbolic, the real is “always in its place: it carries it glued to its heel, ignorant of what might exile it from there.” If the symbolic is a set of differentiated signifiers, the real is in itself undifferentiated: “it is without fissure.” The symbolic introduces “a cut in the real,” in the process of signification: “it is the world of words that creates the world of things.” Thus the real emerges as that which is outside language: “it is that which resists symbolization absolutely.” The real is impossible because it is impossible to imagine, impossible to integrate into the symbolic order. This character of impossibility and resistance to symbolization lends the real its traumatic quality.”

To translate to terms that most people use, the Real is a superstructure of all of reality, which is broken down into three different categories of reality: the Real Real (sorry, in philosophy we sometimes make very silly terms), the Symbolic Real, and the Imaginary Real. The Real Real is, as the description says, the universe without fissure. This is the most difficult to explain of the three. It means the infinite, the everything and the nothing that are the same. It means, in Discordianism’s terms, the underlying Chaos of the universe. A formless, empty (or completely, utterly full) void, devoid of any meaning or “thing”. In Crowley’s Thelema, it is the Abyss under Chronozon. In Buddhism, one could say it is Nirvana (though that is arguable depending on the variant of Buddhism in question). Regardless, it is the universe without fissure, without symbol, without “thing” at all. When Lovecraft speaks of his monsterous horrors from other dimensions and the Other Side coming to do whatever they do, he is attempting the impossible: to describe something from the Real Real. Which makes no sense because nothing can be “of” the Real Real, but it is that very problem, that something can come from some Other Side, that makes Lovecraft’s horrors both indescribable and terrible. The Real Real, then, is also a limit on human intelligence and possible context of thought, for the Real is unimaginable, we are not capable of imagining something without fissure, simply the act of imagining anything makes it a “thing”, immediately cutting-into and compartmentalizing the idea of the Real Real, which removes the idea’s point entirely. But lets continue to seeing how this idea very clearly applies to Alan Wake.

Fortunately, there are no actual examples of the Real Real, we cannot interact with it, it is simply the negative space of our reality, imperceptible and untouchable by us, the reality we live in without symbol or Baudillard’s Simulacra. But what we can do is just slightly lick it, we can de-symbolize our reality enough that we can at least taste the very tip of what humans can know of the Real Real. A common example I have come across is the “mirror spook”. One simply stares into their own eyes, in silence, in a mirror, trying to convince themselves that the person in the mirror is not them. Try it out! It’s totally terrifying for some people. It momentarily removes your physical sense of Self, there is now some mysterious, formless impostor in front of you, and you lack all coordinates for understanding it. Another one is to get a group of friends, sit in a room, and start a conversation, then ruthlessly analyze what is going on, but vocalize every word of that analysis. The entire situation will come apart, as the social structures and symbols that compose it are deconstructed. For some people, this either does not work or does not scare them.

Another example, given by people like Slavoj Zizek, is that we can touch the basic idea of the Real Real in a horror film (Zizek is more into Film than Games). What is it exactly that makes Michael from Halloween so scary? It is because he is nearly a Lovecraftian horror.

Now the chain of thought continues: What is a Lovecraftian horror? Lovecraft’s horrors are things. They are things that we cannot fully integrate into our symbolic order, things which defy our perception of reality so utterly and completely that Lovecraft could barely describe any of them, he had to describe the space around them, he had to describe how amorphous and without solidity they appeared to be. Michael, from Halloween, is like this, but visually represented, rather than written. Visuals are still a language, however, and that is the root of horror: being an aberration, or refusing to be integrated within our language, where our language is the limits of our world. Michael is scary because there is a nothingness to him. He enters without motive, kills without motive, cannot be stopped by any means known to mankind. He is a force. He enters the babysitter’s reality, kills, and the viewer cannot discern why he would do this. No reason at all. There is no dark past, no abusive mother (ignore the terrible remake), no school bully origin story, nothing. He is so without motive and purpose that he wears a totally featureless, blank, emotionless white mask for the duration of the entire movie. No information can be gained from him, other than he is a “thing” (perhaps not even human), and kills. We see no pleasure in the killing, no hate either, simply nothing. Then, he leaves, a wake of death and meaninglessness behind him. We cannot symbolize him, we cannot talk to each other of Michael, we can simply describe what happened around him. This is precisely what horror is, in its most basic, primordial form. Horror then is something only symbolical enough that we can observe and be affected by it, but cannot make any sense of it, we cannot put words to it (the very act that makes us humans), and thus logic as well cannot apply (logic is simply language in itself) It is that which is the most inhuman of all things, something that cannot possibly be known to us, talked of by us. Yet, it can touch us, talk of us. So then, the Symbolic Real, simply put, is where we as humans live, the world of words, the world of things, and the Real Real is the fissure-less Other Side, consisting of the infinite formlessness.

It is this topic, this theme, that Alan Wake explores. Alan Wake is a horror game, there are horrors in it, but it is more about horror itself than composed of horror (and it does pay homage to its writers consistently, and without irony). Alan Wake is a writer who has been having writer’s block for some time, which has caused him to become an alcoholic. He lives with his wife, Alice, who has a crippling phobia of the dark. Alan decides to take a trip, with his wife, to a mountain town in Washington, to have a vacation, relax, and drink himself into comfort.

I won’t spoil the game’s plot, because it is really fantastic, bearing little of the bad writing so common to both horror games and videogames in general. I will simply say it is a game, artistically speaking, about the Symbolic Real we live in, represented by the Light, and words themselves, conflicting with the Real Real, represented by darkness and illogicality (IE the things the Taken say as attacking you). This much is clear to anyone who plays. Further from that, it is a game that shows that writing itself is tied to this reality-bending conflict embedded in humanity till the end of our time, and that writers and artists have a special eye into it, into words and their nature, stories and their purpose. I doubt the artists behind this game thought in these specific philosophical terms, but the concept is identical, as it is in many beliefs.

Alan Wake has great flow. Stupendous, even. There are a total of maybe 8 kinds of enemy in this game, and yet there is a decent amount of combat. Never did it feel like a horror game based on combat, though I can recall doing it a lot. Alan Wake reuses those 8 or so enemies in so many ways, with so many environmental situations, that there is not a single point in the entire game that I felt the combat was getting repetitive, or the feeling of “I’ve done this before”. Certainly I’d killed these Taken many times in many ways, but all in different scenarios. One time, they tried to jump me. Another time, they cut logs that rolled down, threatening to crush me. Another fight was on a long bridge. Another, a Taken (or the Darkness itself) took control of a construction vehicle and tried to run me over. They don’t have complex AI by any means, though they do surround you, but the varied situations make each fight different, and in no way impede on the flow of the game.

The levels, no, environments are incredible. Everywhere feels perfectly like the place it is in the game. We don’t really realize, as gamers, people used to the logic and visual symbolism of videogames themselves, that usually we are playing in levels not environments. Such is not the case in Alan Wake. Every place you go is a set piece, every place and thing you do in this game is important. There is no padding, no wasted player time, nothing of the sort. Every environment is accurate, perfectly, immaculately lit, and unique. Unique is a big deal. Most games have very modular level assets, and simply mix and match, with a set piece here and there. Alan Wake? Every area is a set piece, every detail present. In your home, there is a room for you and your wife, a living room, a walk-in room and hallway, bathroom, two offices, etc. Everything is there. There is absolutely NO corner cutting. There are shoes by the door. The bathroom is beautiful! Perfect lighting, amazing models, nice texture work, reflections, etc. And most of these rooms are there simply to drive the idea in that this is your home, you live here, they have absolutely no function to the game’s mechanics. This is not simply a level, says Alan Wake, it is a place people live in. Why is it this game didn’t need gimmicky full-time actions for NPCs, like say Oblivion, to make me feel that way? It is, again, the attention to detail. A forest feels like a forest, not some easily-mentally-mapped thing that symbolically represents a forest, it is a god damn forest. If you find a little house in the middle of running around, a little shed, whose sole game purpose is to walk inside, look around for but a few seconds, take some ammo or a flare, and walk out, I can promise you it won’t be like the other sheds you run into. It will look different, be placed differently, and have a different interior. If it’s a shed at a lumber camp, it’ll have lumber worker stuff in it, and not in an over-done manner that says “hey player, I don’t think you understand implications, lets fill this shed with tons of lumberjack shit”. Alan Wake understands that appearances themselves are balanced. Too much lumberjack equipment in this shed, and it looks unnatural, it looks like a game would present it, as an idealized lumberjack shed. Returning to the uniqueness, other sheds will reflect the area they are in. And honestly, this game’s sheds are not an element of the game, you simply find them here and there! And yet, even such a small, forgettable thing as a shed where I find some ammo or resources to keep trucking are given so much detail. Lets also not forget the scenic distance in every environment of the mountains and forest, as they are absolutely beautiful in themselves. And even then, they look like mountains, atmospheric perspective and all. This is a videogame that shows how important it is, to immersion and the game itself, that there is attention to detail. It feels like a game Stanley Kubrick would have made, if it were a bit less wordy.

I watch people play this game, and I see them zip through the game ignoring the detail, the items everywhere, the perfectly placed environmental objects, the TV sets that play a live-action spinoff of The Twilight Zone called Night Springs, the little radio sets that do nothing but play the local radio station. Nothing Doom 3-esque, no one dies in the middle of radio transmission as expected, there’s just some country-bumpkin talk to pull you more into the game. Take a load off, listen to these dudes chat on the radio. People rush because we are used to games that are not like this, games where there is so much corner-cutting and idealization of what the environment looks and feels like, that we run through the environment, it is simply a little box for us to be led from point A to point B. This cycle continues itself in game design, as game designers now believe that levels should be overall interesting, but that the detail is not as important, since a player will only be looking at any single thing for at most a second or two. Not in Alan Wake, where things are done intelligently and correctly. Note: Don’t look for examples of this online, at least on Google Images, I could not find anything remotely similar to how most of the game looks, or any of the nice interiors.

I cannot think of much more to write. Amazing visuals, terrible cutscenes (I suspect outsourcing from Remedy), great writing, interesting and memorable characters, great voices, everything the player does is important, and possibly the best horror game ever made, if such a title can correctly exist.

P.S. My game is almost done. A friend of mine, Lord Tetrarch, of the black ambient Forgotten Land, is making me some custom tunes. Otherwise, there’s polishing and some stuff to finish, and it will be released.