The Aesthetic Horror Of 90s Video Games
Resident Evil for the PlayStation should not be a scary game. The character models are simple, the textures are muddy, and sometimes, it is hard to things apart. It still scares the crap out of me.
I do not like playing scary video games. I have always been a coward, especially when it comes to making my characters press forward into the unknown. This made the 90s a difficult time for me to play games.
90s Games Are Wrong
32-bit era games feel off-putting. The PlayStation and N64 make games feel oppressive and claustrophobic. I have played through the entire Dead Space series and dabbled in the Five Nights At Freddy's series. I do not think these series compare to the seeping dread that games from the 90s give me.
For many 90s games, a horrific aesthetic does not feel like intentional design. Instead, it seems like the minds behind these games were grappling with both the technical limitations of the consoles and the new ways of think about 3D space. For me, the three hallmarks of this style are low-resolution textures, awkward camera angles and extensive use of fog.
Wait, What Is That?
The time before bump mapping
Goldeneye is an amazing game that broke boundaries for console first-person shooters. It is also difficult for my eyes to look at. I found it hard to tell what the background is and what an enemy is. This is also the case with Tomb Raider, Syphon Filter, and countless other games from the era.
With only muddy textures and sharp polygons to rely on, my brain filled in the holes. The giant bugs in Jet Force Gemini became things of terror. The weird blobs in Silent Hill wracked me with fear. Even Solid Snake and Cloud Strife look like terrifying aliens made of blocky pixels.
How Can The Camera Be This Bad?
There are surely no zombie dogs in this hallway.
Game developers that cut their teeth on 2D consoles should not receive blame for having to create a new system of camera control. That being said, unwieldy camera controls are a hallmark of the 32-bit games. Right stick camera control was not the standard and the D-pad or shoulder buttons were a poor replacement.
This lack of standardized controls means that developers had to get creative with their camera implementations. Resident Evil uses a static camera to build dramatic tension and create jump scares. The camera controls in Mario 64 and Donkey Kong 64 are not supposed to be scary. But, I wrestled with them while trying to avoid charging enemies. Every encounter is a potential jump scare when you have no idea where the attackers are coming from.
The Fog Of War
But it’s a good green fog
Heavy fog is the quintessential look of a 90s game. Whether it is a light mist or a black darkness, these consoles have trouble generating large 3D spaces. Not being able to see enemies and having them disappear into inky blackness is freaky. What about the games that are not mean to be scary?
Playing Superman 64 is a scary experience and not empowering. You cannot see anything beyond five feet in front of you and buildings pop in out of nowhere. The Misty Bog level in Spyro the Dragon also has an unsettling look. Rather than the sunny, bright color palette, a sickly green fog covers the world. The weird, flesh-eating trees do not help.
A Bad-Good Look
Some critics have pointed out that the transition from the 16-bit era to 32-bit consoles was a step backward in the graphics department. I can understand how people who loved the sprites of Final Fantasy VI would be let down by character models from Final Fantasy VII. However, art does not need to look pleasing to be memorable.
The aesthetic of the 32-bit era stands out because it does not look quite right. Bubsy 3D has a striking look that was parodied by Bubsy 3D: Bubsy Visits the James Turrell Retrospective. King's Field is an awful and confusing video game that was the precursor to the Dark Souls series. 90s games are a difficult to look at mess, and I love them.
