Cerise Magazine

We’ve got a great line-up for you this month at Cerise! Contributors took our spooky October theme - Ghouls and Ghosts and Zombies! Oh My! – and really ran with it, sending in articles, stories and reviews all on the topic of scary games.

We’ve got several in-depth critical pieces examining video games in the survival/horror genre, and even Samara Hayley Steele’s continuation of her Gender & Live-Action Role Play series includes a few vampires, this month. Market to Me focuses on trailers for horror games, Craft Check features a great project for creating a spine-tingling playing atmosphere, and our Blogger Interview is with the bloggers from Girl in the Machine, notable for its in-depth coverage of gender issues in survival/horror games. In her Gaming in the Media column, Latoya Peterson recommends a bunch of other blogs you should probably be reading.

Our Gamer Stories this month celebrate the love of scary games (even those that we’re all too scared to actually play), and Bonnie Moxnes has some reviews of games currently on the market, served up alongside reviews of some less-frightening items. When you’re ready for something to lighten the mood, turn to The Back Page for some great photos of readers in costume as game characters.

And after that, be sure to stop by our submissions page, and help make sure that next month’s issue is even better!

By Andrea Rubenstein

It was with much sadness that I learned that one of my favorite board games of all times, Betrayal at House on the Hill was being discontinued. I don’t own this game myself, but it was an important part of the gaming nights that I used to have with my cousin and our friends. The gameplay was clunky sometimes, and it was really frustrating when you bit the dust, but what kept me coming back again and again was that, after a long night of playing with the lights dimmed, I would go back to my apartment and wonder why I had ever thought living alone was a good idea.

Now, when people think of board games, usually Monopoly or Risk come to mind. But for hardcore board gamers, like my friends and I were, there was so much more to it than that. Settlers of Catan, with its many expansion packs, was a staple. So was Carcassonne, until one of my fights with a friend over sheeped land almost came to blows. Betrayal at House on the Hill didn’t have the staying power of the other two, though, and I was probably the only one in the group who loved it so much. The others just didn’t understand that, for me, it was like playing a simple version of a one-night horror-themed campaign.

You see, while the object of the game was to first explore the house and then get the hell out, the story would change every time depending on the cards that turned up during the first phase. Each time everyone started out as friends and each time a random person would become the betrayer and would fight to kill everyone before they could escape. Zombies, werewolves, carnivorous plants, blobs of goo that absorbed everything in their path… the story possibilities seemed endless. Having multiple players involved, as well as the possibility that you would become the enemy, gave it something that I just can’t get out of survival horror video games.

So, what’s so scary about a board game? Everything, when it’s done right. While I find myself bidding a sad farewell to a game that gave me many nights of frights and fun, I can only hope that more game publishers in the future find the value in horror-themed board games like House.

Article © October 2007 by Andrea Rubenstein.

By Andrea Rubenstein

The rampant sexism and racism in the horror genre has almost become a joke: witness the way people watching horror movies together bet on how long the beautiful woman will stay alive, or whether or not the black comic relief guy will make it through to the end. While it can be argued that survival horror games aren’t nearly as mired down by these tropes, it is still quite clear that they haven’t entirely left them behind. When an advertisement does something to subvert these stereotypes, it stands out. Of course, when a advertisement does something to clearly reinforce them, it stands out as well–though not in a good way. (more…)

Resident Evil 4, Capcom, Nintendo Wii, 2007

This is apparently confession time for me. Resident Evil 4 (Gamecube edition, to be fair!), like Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne before it, was the first game in the long-venerated franchise that I have played. Honestly, I don’t know if I could play the others after playing the fourth Resident Evil game. You get pampered with great controls, a non-broken camera, and incredible (at the time) graphics. Resident Evil 4: Wii Edition (Resident Wii-vil, if you will) is nearly the same game including the Playstation 2 extras, with a much improved control system to boot. Is it worth dropping the budget-conscience $30 to play the same game you played on the ‘Cube and PS2 again? Yes. Yes it is. (more…)

Watching some of the carnage unfold in the blogosphere conflicts surrounding the released trailer of Resident Evil 5, one thought kept echoing in my mind: This conversation is going nowhere. A few members of the gaming community, while pondering a very valid point about the issue of racism in gaming, inadvertently raised the hackles of developers and designers alike when taking on one of gaming’s best loved franchises. (more…)

The premise of the “Final Girl” feminist film theory is that, through a surviving female lead character in a movie, the audience is able to investigate the nuances of the film and deepen the terror experience in a way that would not be possible if a man were to take the lead. Moreover, many argue that the way the final girl is created and fights the villain allows the opportunity to make her more masculine.

The Fatal Frame series of video games challenges this notion through the lead characters and the manner in which they dispatch the ghostly villains that surround them. With this shift, Temco is challenging the notion that the final girl needs to become masculine. This makes the argument that a girl does not need to tap into or mimic some sort of masculine behavior pattern in order to face and defeat a fearsome opponent. (more…)

Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan, iNiS, Nintendo DS, 2005

Note: My Japanese language skills were not sufficient to be able to read or understand the language used in this game. As such, this can best be viewed as an import review.

Released in Japan in the summer of 2005, Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan (translation: Hey! Fight! Cheer Squad) is a rhythm video game developed by iNiS for the Nintendo DS. Critically well received, Ouendan has emerged into its own status as a cult hit, spawning both a sequel and a Western remake. From OLs and salarymen to ramen shops and dodgeball, though, this game is unabashedly Japanese through and through. It’s no wonder that Nintendo and iNiS felt it wouldn’t translate well to English-speaking shores and instead chose to develop a separate game entirely for the non-Japanese audience, known as Elite Beat Agents. Though the Ouendan phenomenon has likely slipped past the radar of many a gamer, this is one game that should not be missed. (more…)

When the other editors and I decided on a horror-themed issue for October, I immediately knew that I wanted to approach the bloggers at Girl in the Machine for our Blogger Interview. The blog is still pretty new – they’ve been posting since June – but their coverage of survival/horror games has been extensive and comprehensive, and I knew they’d have some interesting things to say about the genre. (more…)

I’ve got a confession to make. I really like Resident Evil, but I’ve never played a single game in the series. I can’t. I’m too scared.

It all started when I was in sixth grade. I came home from trick-or-treating on Halloween and someone had popped in a VHS copy of the original Night of the Living Dead. It started out tame enough, but as the zombies began to crowd around the house with people trapped inside, I freaked. I was so frightened that I couldn’t even watch the whole movie; I ran back into my room and hid in the closet. But what I did see was enough to scar me: zombies have been my greatest fear ever since. That slow, shuffling pace–sure you can outrun it, but it’ll never stop. They just keep coming. You can’t reason with zombies. Nothing you say is going to stop them from trying to eat you. And that vacant, bloody gaze….*shivers* Yup, zombies are the worst. (more…)

BurgerTime, Data East Corporation, Intellivision, 1982

“Mom, where did you go? We’re about to eat.”

“I’m down here, Connie. By the radio.”

“You’re not playing video games again, are you?”

“They’re so fun!”

“Who did you get that system for again?”

“…the grandkids.”

My grandmother was always more interested in things of the future than she was in eating dinner with her extended family. She and my grandfather bought the Intellivision in the early 80’s for the grandkids to entertain themselves with, and according to my mother she played it more than my brother at the time. BurgerTime was reportedly her favorite, and I’m fairly sure she was the best at it out of all us who tried to attempt it. Would that she could teach me her secret.
(more…)