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killer7 is the future of videogames. I say this not because it is an especially great game or because I imagine five years from now all games will look and play exactly like it. In fact, I imagine no games will look or play like it ever again, for the same reason no rock and roll singers try to sound like Brian Johnson -- they'd just be accused of foolish imitation. No, I say it is the future of videogames because it represents a certain kind of game-making spirit that the world has yet seen only so few times as to count on three fingers. This game-making spirit was hinted at most recently in Tetsuya Mizuguchi's Rez, which suggested the idea of a "synaesthesia" that would effectively blend gameplay, sound, and graphics into one experience. (The game also tried to blend the sense of touch into the experience, for mostly camp value and the sake of people who would go on to articles like the above-linked.) Rez, however, was not perfectly successful in what it did; one could argue that it took the easy way out by making its story bare-bones (hacker in a computer system, metaphorically represented by an evolving being of light, shooting things) and its sound and gameplay connected to one another via a simple "shooting something produces techno beats" mechanic. Sure, when the first game programmers drafted the first Famicom games, there's no doubt in my mind that they had no idea something like Rez would come along at some point down the line. The genre of an on-rails shooter, itself, was most likely unimaginable to people who made or even played Rad Racer, Xevious, or even Batman: The Videogame. Rez was a product both of the time and of a man who really likes trance music. The critics were baffled into loving it.
killer7 is the new Rez. No doubt many critics will jump around in praise of it. It is, in fact, more Rez than Rez could ever be. I say this because the game is stupefyingly baffling. It plays smoothly enough; it's just -- there's little sense to any of it. It's creepy and crawly -- probably the creepiest videogame ever made, in fact -- and it is dark and mysterious. There are storyline threads and even pieces of the game's logical progression that just sit there staring at you while you stumble around. The entire experience is psychologically draining to a point where, eventually, the walls have closed in and you kind of don't want to play it anymore. It's a giant ball of dry dough -- when you're holding it, it feels like it's getting all over your hands. Then you put it down, and realize none of it is sticking. It's like a job you never have to think about when you're at home. killer7 is pure experience.
I might as well tell you about that experience in some detail.
killer7 is a videogame about pushing buttons. Right at the beginning, it's training you to press buttons even though it's not letting you press buttons at all. A black screen comes up, with the CAPCOM logo. There's a gunshot sound; the black screen turns red as a maniac laughs. Another black screen comes up. It too turns red with a gunshot and a maniacal laugh. The title screen comes up. Move the D-pad, and the letters spelling out the names of the options -- New Game, Continue, Options -- quiver and pulsate demonically. Press the start button and there's a gunshot, and the maniac laughs again. Should you choose "New Game," you'll see a title card: "Target 00: Angel." Then you'll see a breathing black silhouette against a stark white background. There's a red laser pointing right at his heart. You might stare at this for a moment -- this is all part of the training. It takes a moment to realize that you can move that laser sight with the analog stick. You might fool around, aiming at the target's crotch, or his shoulder, or his face. Eventually, curiosity gets the better of you, and you press a button. The first button you press -- you should play this game with headphones, really -- sets off the sound of a horrifying, reverberating gunshot. Not a split-second after you press the button, the black target explodes into a hundred million tiny red spheres, and then reforms in the shape of the two kanji "TENSHI," meaning "Angel." Cut viciously to the sight of a full blue moon, and the sound of what might be crickets. Hold on that for ten seconds; then the moon jumps toward the screen with a throb of bass. It snaps back into place. Seconds later, not quite on an even rhythm, it throbs back again. Then it's back to the cricket sound. Then, we cut to movement in the streets. Some weasly white gangster gives a tall black man in a spiffy white suit an envelope. This is apparently information on the first target. He approaches a nondescript building, talking on his cellular phone, using words and a crisp tone of voice that people use in Hollywood movies. He enters the building, which is full of a sound like a room full of refrigerators left open. This is where the tutorial begins.
The tutorial teaches you, in thirty seconds, everything you'll need to know to play the game. If you think tutorials are a waste and that they intrude, try telling that to this game. It probably won't listen to you. Really, though, until virtually the moment of this game's release (okay, so it was playable at E3), no one had any idea how you'd play this game. The tutorial involves you taking care of your first job -- killing thirteen of "them" -- in a conveniently circular building. Iwazaru, your personal . . . assistant throughout the game, dressed up like The Gimp from "Pulp Fiction," complete with a ball gag in his mouth, speaks English which is obviously little more than the Japanese script dumped into an online translator (a little research reveals it was excite.co.jp's translator that the developers used) and then fed into a text-reader program. The final recorded voice has had reverb and tremolo applied to it sparingly, so you get a sound like Stephen Hawking in a place of strong harmonic resonance, barking unaccented orders at you: "USE THE CIRCLE BUTTON IT IS POSSIBLE TO RUN." The first time you hear this, it's god damned spooky. You use the circle button, seeing how possible it is to run. Our hero, Garcian Smith, runs along the perimeter of the circular room. Then Iwazaru tells you "IT USES THE CROSS BUTTON." You press the X button, and Garcian stops and turns in place. You use the circle button some more, and now you're walking in the other direction. Suddenly, you hear a demonic giggle. Iwazaru orders "USE THE R1 BUTTON." You press the R1 button, and Garcian draws his gun. We are now aiming his gleaming .45, at . . . what, exactly? Nothing. We use the left stick to aim around a little bit, and it feels fluid, like aiming very well should. Before a second can pass, Iwazaru orders, "USE THE L1 BUTTON." Press the L1 button, and we . . . blink. A drab olive-green curtain falls down through the screen, with a sound like a page exiting a dot-matrix printer. Static crackles a little bit. When the screen is normal again, there are two ghostly zombie shades standing out in the distance, quivering and cackling. "USE THE X BUTTON." Press the X button to lock onto one of the monsters. "USE THE DIRECTIONAL BUTTON." Press the D-pad either left or right to change your auto-aim between targets. "USE THE CIRCLE BUTTON." Press the circle button and you fire a shot at your target. Press it again and again; they don't die easy. Eventually you run out of bullets. Flick the right analog stick in any direction to reload. If you're still holding the R1 button, you'll segue right from reloading to being auto-aimed on your current target.
And there you have it -- that's all you need to play this game. Running, changing direction, and shooting. Bear in mind that the auto-aim is definitely not the best way to kill the enemies -- most of the zombies (the instruction manual identifies them unnecessarily as "Heaven's Smile" cult members) have a yellow patch somewhere on their body. It's usually pretty tiny. Use your analog stick to take quivering aim at it, and shoot. If you hit, you score a relatively instant kill. This is a handy technique to master, because once outside of the tutorial, the enemies are going to start moving toward you, sometimes you won't be able to auto-aim at the bastards, sometimes they'll be flying toward you on the ceiling at breakneck speeds, and there's going to be sometimes six of them at a time, and the whole sequence of aim, blink, target, and shoot takes so much time you'd better have that quick analog-stick-manipulating aim down cold, because if not, they'll touch you, and then -- they kind of bite you. It's hard to make out exactly what they're doing. Whatever they do, they end up exploding into a mass of thousands of tiny red spheres and crashing the screen to solid, blinding white with a sound like a lion's roar, a zombie's moan, a maniac's laugh, and television static all rolled into one and set on fire. It's enough to make you jam your fingers in your ears and shiver every time it happens. Even if it only happens to you once, and because of your fear of it ever happening again you become a master player, always taking down those yellow spots, it's still safe to say killer7 the scariest videogame ever made because of it. No game, no movie, no story ever told around a campfire has made me twitch and shiver the way that exploding zombie sound did the first couple of times. It's safe to say I'm a person who typically doesn't "get" the "fear" reaction some people get out of popular media. I mean, if a movie is intended to "scare" me, it normally doesn't. Remember, I'm the kid who never believed in Santa Claus. However, killer7, for reasons entirely gameplay related -- it's because you control the hero that you care what happens; if you weren't, you wouldn't, plain and simple -- manages to creep me out so effectively it's almost frustrating. I've never felt anything like this before; and the most amazing part of it is that once the game's turned off, I have no nightmares or lingering suspicions. The game is that crucial an element to the horror. There's nothing universal about either of them.
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