Few things are creepier than the scratching sound of a needle running on vinyl while an enchanting melody echoes through dark, haunting halls and corridors. The very essence of a gramophone is embedded in the most charming and, at the same time, terrifying way in several horror games, where this specific object may be just a passive part of the environment, or it could play a crucial role in the plot, in its own distorted, usually twisted way.

The gramophone as an item is a beautiful thing to look at. Almost always decorated with a large, flower-like pavillion, a carefully crafted manivelle and a solid-looking, impressive base, it is not only an object to admire, but also one that is automatically connected to the old times with a good deal of nostalgia. The fact that it comes from years ago yet it is still a functional item that can be operated and work properly, adds a lot to its vintage charm, as does the several imperfections that its reproductions have in the sound. Once frowned upon, the scratchings and crackings that can be heard on the vinyl as the needle runs on the record, are now considered elements of great sentimental and aesthetic value. Any kind of music can emit a completely different feel when accompanied by those.

Many times gramophones are just part of a room's setting, possibly an object of heritage or maybe expressing the house owner's love for vintage items, like the one that appears in Dr Ramusskin's living room in Gray Matter. Such gramophones are peaceful, with no creepy aura about them, and they simply add a touch of retro charm to the environments where they are found.

In Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness, Lara Croft spots a gramophone with a golden pavillion at the back of Renne's Pawnshop, while looking for information that will lead her to the mysterious Frenchman Bouchard. The pawnshop hosts several items that come from different eras and styles, like two old armchairs, a bicycle, or a washing machine. It is unclear whether the gramophone belongs to the owner of the store or is one of the many pawned items in there - although most likely it is the second case.

Similarly peaceful on first look, the gramophone which stands on the desk in the claustrophobic office of the Antarctica Facility in Resident Evil: Code Veronica plays no music but the overall setting of the room, which is tiny yet full of bizarre, scary details, like the bear trophy head or the framed vintage sword, makes it look rather ominous. The gramophone stands out in its bright colours, yet one more vintage object in a room where modern technology is also present in the form of a fax machine or a computer.

The setting is reproduced in "Game of Oblivion", the episode of The Darkside Chronicles which retells the Code Veronica story. The gramophone is again there, this time in the corner of the room, one more time positioned below the framed sword.

Gramophones seem to be an essential part of the environment in old villas and manors, so it is no surprise when we stumble upon one in the trap-filled yet enchanting Spencer mansion in the first Resident Evil game. Found in a small office, officially called "reading room" with several other vintage objects, said gramophone contributes to the already spooky, haunting atmosphere of the house. The record that sits on its turntable is "Jupiter", a symphony by Mozart, but we do not get a chance to listen to it.

In Thief Reboot, Garret comes across several steampunk-styled gramophones in the gloomy buildings rooms that he infiltrates. They are all identical, with a thin horn, pretty much like the one in the Spencer mansion.

In Resident Evil: Outbreak, one can be seen in the vintage-looking office which is on the upper floor of Jack's Bar. As the zombies swarm the bar and the other rooms below, the survivors start exploring the upper areas, looking for a way to escape. The gramophone is on a wooden stand, in front of a bookcase, and plays no music - it could very well be dysfunctional, used only for decoration purposes.

 

In the half-real - half-ghostly world of Murdered: Soul Suspect, gramophones look quite spooky, as they are reminders of older times by default and sometimes they are revealed as elements of past visions or parts of the real world that belong to their ghostly counterpart. They don't play any music, but this doesn't make them any less compelling.

Gramophones that play music on their own or that can be interacted with to do so are naturally much more interesting. In Tomb Raider: Reborn, the gramophone becomes an important element of the environment and its creepy atmosphere in what looks like a slaughter room filled with butchered meat and tons of garbage. The room is underground, and passing through it is unavoidable, as there seems to be no other way forward. There is a record playing on the gramophone, and the music that is heard is an eery chant that sounds like ritualistic vocals.

A much cozier and friendly gramophone can be found in Lara's library, in Rise of the Tomb Raider. Not only it is a more than fitting addition to Lara's mansion, it also plays the iconic "Venice Violins" tune from Tomb Raider 2.

One of the first scenes of The Evil Within includes a gramophone which plays Bach's "Air on a G String". Said gramophone sits on the bench of a horrifying butcher who wanders around his nightmarish "workshop", ready to slaughter and cut in pieces his potential victims. As Sebastian, the protagonist, attempts to grab the man's keys in order to escape, the melody becomes louder, and accompanies him as he stealthily makes his way to the exit door, only to stop abruptly as soon as he crosses a laser trap which alerts the butcher who immediately stops whatever he had been doing and runs after him. 

Similar gramophones can be found throughout the whole game, although the melody that can be heard from most of them is Debussy's "Claire de Lune". Strongly associated to the traumatized childhood of Ruvik, the game's antagonist, this beautiful yet haunting melody dominates most places that have somehow to do with Ruvik, both directly and indirectly. Portals leading to the safe haven, rooms in visions that reveal portions of his past, include gramophones in their space from which either of the two melodies is heard, usually distorted and broken. A few times they are just part of the decoration, sitting silently on a desk or a side-table.

Gramophones also appear in Juli Kidman's episodes, where they also convey their messages via distorted tunes.

Bach's emblematic melody through a gramophone is also present in a crucial moment in BioShock Infinite, as the hero, Booker DeWitt, begins to get deeper into his adventure in Emporia, as he enters the building of the Order of the Raven. Crow cries can be heard in the distance, as Booker approaches the exit door leading to an isolated terrace, while "Air on a G String" plays from an unidentifiable source. When Booker arrives at the terrace, ha can see a golden gramophone on the left side, from which Bach's melody plays. Moments later, a fierce type of enemy, the Crow, makes his first appearance.

 

 

Gramophones can be seen in several other places in the game, and they play various melodies as soon as you turn them on. Sometimes this music is contemporary, but recorded and heard in such a way as to sound like a vintage tune.

Set in a total-white, cold-looking environment, the white gramophone that Adam Jensen comes across in Megan Reed's private room in Omega Ranch in Deus Ex: Human Revolution, is in an unexpected way comforting. The whole room and its furniture look like reliefs, and the gramophone is no exception. Its solid, white pavillion is decorated with flower-like designs that seem like they are carved on it. When you interact with it, it plays a tune that resembles a familiar piece from the first games of the series.

Like almost all vintage objects in video games, the gramophones echo the past in their special way, evoking a great variety of feelings, depending on their setting and their use. It is notable that, although technology constantly evolves, and environments in video games become more and more modern and futuristic, retro items like gramophones still appear in various rooms, serving their own purpose, both for nostalgia and greatly contributing to the overall feel and atmosphere of the stories that they are part of.

 

 

Vintage Elements in Video Games: The Banker's Lamp

If you have played enough video games of all genres, you must have noticed in many of them the presence of a special kind of lamp that can be seen standing on desks, tables or benches. It is that characteristic old-style lamp with the green shade, that usually has a metallic body and a chain on the side with which it can be turned on and off, and it is called the banker's lamp.

The banker's lamp is an actual item that was first designed in 1909 by Harrison McFaddin and subsequently produced in large numbers to fill the needs of offices, companies but also civilian homes. As its green light was both bright and soothing, it became particularly popular in financial institutions, such as banks - which is where its name came from eventually. Its initial name, however, was a direct reference to its color and its function. It was called Emeralite - a blend of "emerald" and "light". Most banker's lamps are made with the same green shade that the original ones used to feature, but there are also blue, orange, even white ones.

Like most vintage objects that appear in video games, the banker's lamp is usually just a part of the decoration, adding to the overall atmosphere with its bright green light, if it is lit, or simply its stylish design, if it is turned off. The list of games that feature banker's lamps could go forever, as they can be seen in all kinds or genres. I have compiled just a few notable examples from action games that I have played, and afterdarkmysweet contributed with four samples from adventure games.

In Bioshock: Infinite, we can see several banker's lamps in their "natural" environment: in the Bank of the Prophet:

But we can also spot some others in various places, like in Elizabeth's tower, where the banker's lamp has a more elaborate shade design:

Random ones can be spotted on desks in other places:

In Murdered: Soul Suspect, there are banker's lamps in the back rooms of the church:

In Rise of the Tomb Raider, there is one sitting on Lord Croft's desk in the Manor:

There is one more on his study desk in the Library:

As well as on a side table in the same room, where he used to keep several items, papers and books:

In Resident Evil 6, there is one banker's lamp on the dean's desk in the Campus building:

There is one more in the same room, on a small table next to the entrance:

In the remake of Resident Evil 2, many banker's lamps can be seen in the RPD Library:

There is also a lone one on the desk of Chief Irons' private office:

In Devil May Cry 5, there are several ones in the Red Grave Library:

In Inmates, there is a banker's lamp on a bench in the Prison:

And one more on another bench in the same place:

In True Fear: Forsaken Souls 2, there is one in the doctor's office in the Asylum:

In What Never Was there is one in the grandfather's house:

As contemporary culture digs more and more into the past for inspiration and ideas, it is only natural that the game developing teams do the same. Digital art can recreate literally everything and breathe new life into elements that come from the past, more so since items like the banker's lamps are still perfectly usable today, although it's been over a century since their original creation.

Interior Spaces In Video Games As Settings And Myth Components

From the moment when the video game technology found the means to create three-dimensional settings for  its environments, the concept of space and its use in gaming moved to a wholly different level. Still, third-person shooters from the early '90ties, like Wolfenstein 3D or Blake Stone and even more evolved games like the very first Tomb Raider, took place almost exclusively in interior areas because back then creating an open-world exterior space was a very difficult and complicated task. Under that light, we could say that the setting played a major role in shaping the essence of the plot. When, in the first Tomb Raider, Lara Croft had to go to Peru, the game's action was limited to a series of caves. Exterior areas, whenever they were present in the game, were in fact interior spaces with a black ceiling indicating the sky. In the gameplay sequences of Gabriel Knight: The Beast Within, the most iconic point-and-click game from that time, we see real environments that were photographed and used as some sort of backdrop, in front of which the action could take place. The evolution of gaming technology however was so fast and so impressive that it soon was able to offer all the means for the creation of video games that were almost like movies. Now game developers can create a vast open world and expand it as much as they want as a huge, seemingly limitless exterior that covers several different areas.

A video game is, simply put, a moving picture that develops on a computer or TV screen. The whole surrounding, exterior environment of a game is built from scratch and, in its turn, happens to be a specified space made of pixels and defined by a programming language which gives it the attributes of a virtual exterior world. Within that virtual exterior world, individual interior spaces are formed, again from combinations of pixels, taking their own place and gaining their special major or minor importance in the world that includes them. As soon as the surrounding space becomes the exterior of an interior setting, the interior space gets a specific level of autonomy. This means that, on the technical level, it still depends on the programming of its exterior space but on the levels of fiction, story and plot, it has its own identity and role in the game. So in terms of programming, it is made of a set total of pixels and commands, but in terms of storyline and gameplay, it is what us, as players see: a mansion, a store, a hut, a museum, an asylum, a lighthouse, a castle - whatever the almost endless list of interior settings in video games can feature.

While there is a multitude of interior areas in games that exist in the environments simply for the sake of realism (houses in a village or a town, apartment buildings in a city, abandoned huts in a countryside) or for aesthetic purposes, or both, they often have a prominent role, being places that the lead characters have to explore so as to make important discoveries. Although now we see games that depend much of their action on the exploration of vast exterior environments, like Miasmata, Kholat or the recent zombie-themed Days Gone, interior spaces never ceased to play a major role in the development of the stories. Ramon Salazar's castle in Resident Evil 4 is a good example of how an interior setting shapes the core of the game's adventure. While outside in the Spanish countryside, Leon Kennedy has a moderate liberty considering which way to choose and what strategy to apply so as to escape from the enemies. Once inside the castle, things become tighter, as the place has traps everywhere and vicious monsters guarding its halls. Salazar didn't deliberately lure Leon in his castle, but the way the story unfolded, such a development was inevitable.

The castle is centuries old, but this is not limited to its architecture and history. Everything inside it seems to be lost in time. The owner himself is dressed like a baroque nobleman, the latter being a tragic irony completely, as he is neither a noble nor a man. What makes his castle even more chilling, is that there are whole rooms that are completely deserted, while there are still signs of life around. You go through a garden maze where zombie dogs roam, only to find yourself moments later in a beautifully decorated bedroom where there is only calm and silence. Next up you move to an empty dining room, and just after this, there is a small trap room where several enemies attack unexpectedly. This is a pattern that repeats itself throughout the whole sequence of the castle's exploration, although from a point and on, you rarely have the chance to enter a room that is safe and empty - with the exception of the safe rooms with the typewriter. Although a big part of the game takes place in exterior areas, the action that happens indoors is the most memorable. 

Having a story unfold in an interior space is many times a necessary option to create a haunting, immersive atmosphere. The Asylum in Outlast, the Brookhaven Hospital in the Silent Hill series, the Church in The Lost Crown, are examples of iconic environments that perfectly set up the mood for a chilling horror adventure. Claire Redfield in Resident Evil: Code Veronica finds herself in the creepy mansion of Alfred Ashford, an old-fashioned villa that is full of zombies, traps, hidden passages and secret rooms, after escaping from her prison cell following a zombie outbreak. While a house is normally a safe and protected zone, in survival horror games there is more danger creeping inside than outside. You can never know what lies behind a closed door or what will jump out of a dark corner. Claire is involuntarily an intruder, and as such is treated with extreme hostility, more so since the owner of the mansion is a deranged man who lives in his own little world. Alfred threatens to shoot her on sight whenever they cross paths, taking advantage of his knowledge of the grounds so as to outsmart her and subsequently defeat her.

Such interior settings rely a lot on the element of the unexpected; they are unknown grounds and the lead characters have to explore them in detail, most of the times coming across all kinds of nasty surprises. In the original Resident Evil, Chris Redfield, Jill Valentine and their teammates are trapped in the Spencer mansion, a rather unfriendly estate where the inhabitants are zombies and monsters. The biggest part of the game takes place inside the mansion and follows the heroes in their quest of keys and other important items with which they are able to open one by one all the doors of the vintage house. An impressive library, art gallery rooms, a tea room with a grand piano, could, in other conditions make any visitor feel at home. Not in this case, though. The interior space here offers a very brief and temporary relief from danger, but it's not long before we realize that there is much less safety inside that it was outside.

The Raccoon Police Department in Resident Evil 2 Remake acts in a similar way. The huge building offers a shelter to Leon Kennedy and Claire Redfield as soon as they get inside while the city is crawling with zombies, but soon they find out that the situation is pretty much the same, if not worse, in the station. Surrounded by an imposing aura, mostly due to the fact that it used to be a museum, with several vintage key items lying around and works of art decorating its halls, the RPD is an archetypical environment, given its importance in the progression of the plot. Once inside, Leon and Claire have to reveal a secret passage that leads to the basement and, subsequently, to an alternative setting. Said passage is just a few steps away from the entrance, hidden below a huge statue in the main hall. Opening it, however, is neither easy nor straightforward. There are certain items in specific rooms that need to be found before the secret door is revealed. But even when this is done, there is still work to do before the exit becomes available. In that sense, the story in the first half of the game is centered around the RPD; all the attention and the focus of the characters shifts to it, as their main task is to explore every nook and cranny in the building to find the items in question.

Ethan Winters in Resident Evil 7 finds himself in a similar situation when he gets trapped inside the Baker house, and his quest is the agonizing search for a series of key items that will allow him to leave. Unlike with the pathetic, brainless zombies, Ethan has to face a human enemy, a morbid and bloodthirsty stalker who is far more dangerous because he still retains a level of intelligence. Just like Alfred Ashford, Jack Baker, the patriarch of the house, knows the layout of his grounds, which gives him a great advantage over the unwilling intruder. Regardless the environment becomes an unexpected ally for Ethan, as he can use it to hide from Jack who is frantically turning the place over while looking for him. The Baker house is a fortress of lethal traps where everything that would have a normal, everyday use, has been turned into a weapon against anyone attempting to escape. Once you get inside, you cannot leave. Doors lock behind you and other doors lead to more dangers. You have to go through painful puzzles so as to find a way out. Maybe the most frightening aspect of Ethan's unexpected impisonment in the Baker home is the fact that the farm stands in the middle of a broad, swampy countryside with no other houses in any close distance while Ethan has no way to communicate with the outside world, and his only means of escaping, his car, lies in pieces in the garage.

The eery, dream-like depiction of Salem in Murdered: Soul Suspect offers the ideal exterior environment for its gloomy horror story. There are several interior settings in the game,  however the most memorable and crucial one is the Judgement House where lies the key to the final revelation of the mystery story. From the moment that the gameplay allows Ronan O' Connor to wander around Salem, he can see the exit to the region where the Judgement House is; however he cannot go there until certain things have been done first. This alone intensifies the significance of that house and creates a feeling of uneasiness concerning it. The Judgement House is an old, crumbling, mazey mansion haunted with ghosts of the past, with demons hiding in the walls, and a particularly chilling room that the antagonist of the story, a mysterious serial killer, has transformed into a lair. Ronan can get in the house freely and explore it, but once he discovers that room, the demons are unleashed and roam the corridors and halls and a shocking revelation becomes accessible in the basement.

Set in a vast exterior environment, Resident Evil: Revelations 2 is noted for its intense claustrophobic feel which is evident right from the start but becomes even stronger as soon as we find out, through Claire Redfield's eyes, that we are in fact on an isolated island in the middle of nowhere. Claire Redfield and Moira Burton explore several interior areas in their struggle to survive and eventually escape, but it is not until they reach the Monument Tower that they start to acknowledge the nature of the evil force that brought them there. The Monument Tower is a very tall, steep, intimidating construction that can be seen from a distance long before we are able to reach it. Essentially the lair of the game's arch-villain, Alex Wesker, who affectionately calls it "the scaffold of the Gods", it is a disturbing fusion of high-tech devices and flimsy architecture, and looks like a server lost in a spaceship. Just like in Resident Evil 4, here too the hostile countryside is nothing compared to the nightmarish interior that is the tower. Anxiety and fear build up progressively as Claire and Moira ascend the twisted construction up to the point when they meet with Alex who, not surprisingly, is hiding behind a wall of glass. Just then, Alex commits suicide after revealing her plans, albeit her words are full of riddles. As soon as this happens, a self-destruct sequence begins and the two girls have to run to the emergency exit, a narrow path over a chasm that leads back inside the tower where, in one version of the story, Moira is crushed to death.

Mark Jefferson's Dark Room in Life Is Strange is yet one more unforgettable interior environment which also happens to represent the root of the evil in the story. Located in a well-hidden underground area of an isolated barn, Mr Jefferson's private space is a seemingly clean and all-shiny place with top-notch technological equipment where the professor is supposed to take and work on his artistic and inspired photographs. In reality, it is the lair of a psychopath who is obsessed with capturing the loss of innocence with his camera. Max Caulfield finds herself trapped in Mr Jefferson's Dark Room, in a sequence where the whole essence of the game is being summarized. Max has the ability to rewind time, just like photographs take us back to the past. In her attempt to change the present, she has to use her own photographs, as well as the stuff and equipment in the room around her. Max being trapped in the Dark Room symbolizes the way she is actually trapped in time, in a doubtful reality of consecutive rewinds that fix one thing but mess with everything else.

In The Evil Within, the notion of interior space moves to a completely different level. As the whole adventure develops inside a madman's head, through his shattered memories, there is no actual exterior world anywhere to be found. In this specific universe, however, there are still countryside and city streets which eventually contrast with the most important interior setting, the Victoriano manor. Sebastian Castellanos is literally dragged inside the mansion in Ruben Victoriano's vicious attempt to force him into acknowledging how much he had suffered as a child and how unjust life had been to him. The manor here is a tangible element off Ruben's memories but is also a major symbol, tightly connected to him. When Sebastian gets inside the house, he essentially dives into Ruben's innermost thoughts. Ruben's house is not simply an interior space; it is the field of the story's most important revelation which had to occur in a protected place: it was a secret that had to be shared only with a specific someone. The dimly lit rooms of the manor are chilling; their air is filled with sins of the past and from time to time, Ruben himself appears in his ghoulish form, chasing Sebastian and threatening to kill him.

In the same atmosphere, the interior spaces of The Evil Within 2 are all part of a virtual world, where exterior areas only typically belong to the outside. Although technically houses are still houses, stores are still stores, gas stations are still gas stations, there are several interior environments that are directly connected to the protagonist, Sebastian Castellanos and the game's villains. Sebastian's Safe Room is a safe haven that is abruptly formed by his memories once he is sedated and enters the virtual world STEM, in a desperate search for his little daughter who had been abducted so as to participate in a nightmarish experiment. Sebastian's Room is a reminiscent of his office at the police station and it is the place where he can return through teleporting mirrors. There was a space with a similar role in The Evil Within, but that one was much less familiar and friendly to Sebastian. The Room of The Evil Within 2 is a place that no one can invade (except for one instance); in there, he has the chance to contemplate, remember and come to terms with his conscience by watching slides from his past.

Notably, there are certain interior settings that are particularly popular in video games and quite often are closely connected to their respective stories and their progression. Lighthouses (Alan Wake, Bioshock Infinite), churches (Resident Evil 4, Devil May Cry 4, The Evil Within, Resident Evil 6), laboratories (Gray Matter, Resident Evil 2, The Evil Within 2), asylums (Murdered: Soul Suspect, Thief 2014, Sanitarium, The Evil Within), museums (Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness, Gabriel Knight: The Beast Within, The Lost Crown, Murdered: Soul Suspect), universities (Life is Strange, Resident Evil 6) underground train stations (Resident Evil 6, Tomb Raider 3, The Evil Within), are environments that we get to see a lot more than others, not only because they are advantageous by default but also because usually they gain a high symbolic value in the stories where they are featured.

As video game characters become more and more realistic, it is not random that their surrounding world also resembles the real one. Heroes who have jobs, families, backgrounds, who have suffered losses or lived days of happiness, are expected to be active in a world where familiar things exist. Since they are not space soldiers fighting against aliens, but instead are writers, detectives, scientists, professors or artists, their world naturally consists of places where they can live like real people. Even in dream-like realities, like those of The Evil Within series, the virtual world of the stories is comprised of elements borrowed from the real world where the characters live. And this is something that practically has no limits. Since contemporary games are like interactive movies, with their metaphysical, supernatural or fantasy elements going hand-in-hand with their strong realistic aspect, they also place their lead characters in situations where they get to visit and explore real-life settings, the virtual depiction of which is impressive, to say the least.

Heroes Of The Afterlife: Why Do Video Games Kill Their Good Guys?

While not exactly rare, the general tendency of modern video game developers to kill their heroes is still very interesting from many aspects. As video games became more and more elaborate in both their gameplay construction and - most importantly - their stories, the lead characters subsequently became more complex and realistic; and if we take into consideration the inclusion of cutscenes which add a high cinematic value to the projects, a notable number of the contemporary video games are almost like movies which, most of the times, are of the dramatic kind.

Although several times there are secondary characters which play a key role in the plots and are extremely important in general, the lead characters are the ones which carry the stories on their shoulders. Juli Kidman's role may be essential in The Evil Within 2, but it is Sebastian Castellanos who goes through all the trials and pushes the storyline forward with his decisions. Chloe Price is surely a character of critical importance in Life Is Strange, but it is Max Caulfield's actions that have consequences on everyone around her. Steve Burnside may affect certain developments with what he does in Resident Evil: Code Veronica, but it is Claire Redfield who will be forced to take the final decisions.

In that sense, the lead characters are the ones who, somehow, form the story as it goes, shining a light on all the potential possibilities and routes. Their personality defines the outcome of each event and everything is viewed through their eyes - which also happens to be literal as the player's experience of the game is through them. That said, when you play as a specific character, it is as if you are called to get inside his/her mind. As a player, you make your heroes interact with people and objects, you lead them to directions that may prove either good or bad decisions, and although you can't always empathize with them, you end up seeing them as some sort of companions.

Although you can always replay a game and thus 'revive' your hero/heroine as many times as you want, seeing them die at the end of the road is like having to part forever with a dear friend. Going through an epic adventure with a hero whose fate is bleak, is very different from playing with one who triumphs and enjoys his/her happy ending. Equally different may be the reasons why a hero's fate grants him with an unfortunate end. To make this analysis more specific, I will use the examples of Miasmata, Bioshock Infinite, Murdered: Soul Suspect, Resident Evil 6 and Bioshock Infinite: Burial at Sea 2.

In Miasmata, a wonderful independant adventure game by IonFX, you play as Robert Hughes, a guy who wakes up on the shore of a mysterious island overwhelmed with beautiful plants and flowers. His boat is broken so he cannot leave, he seems to have lost part of his memory and his health is in a really bad state. As he starts exploring the place, he discovers several labs where obviously a research was taking place. However all the scientists involved are dead - he finds the corpses as he goes - and all that is left is their notes which reveal many interesting details about the research and all the dark background behind it. As it turns out, said scientists were gifted people working on finding a cure for a lethal plague, and were sent on that island as all its vegetation obviously was hiding vital medical secrets. However, each one of them who was reaching the conclusion of the research, therefore discovering the cure, was eventually killed without being able to transport the medicine to the rest of the world. Robert starts wandering around the island, discovering peculiar plants some of which are particularly useful for boosting up his health, while his main quest is, following the notes left by the scientists, to locate a series of rare flowers which will form the cure for the plague.

Soon he finds out that he is not completely alone on the seemingly abandoned island. There is a strange creature wandering about - something like hybrid between a bull and a cat - which is generally identified as 'the creature' and which will relentlessly chase him in case that it spots him. The creature, although it can be outsmarted, is extremely vicious in its attacks, and moreover it cannot be fought. Robert's alternatives are to run like mad away from it, or carefully hide so as to disappear from it's vision's range. As soon as he forms the cure and drinks it however, the creature magically disappears. Finally cured, Robert has all the strength that he needs to swim to the boat landing that awaits out in the open on a smaller island and leave with an injection containing the cure. But this is when the twist happens. When Robert gets in the boat, he sees a bottle of whiskey and a dagger waiting for him. On the floor of the boat, several other injections containing the cure are lying about. The game ends as Robert drinks the whiskey and we can assume that he used the dagger to commit suicide while watching the beautiful island in the distance.

The boat will probably never leave the island

It is largely hinted - if not clearly pointed out - that the lethal creature is either a figment of Robert's imagination (which is why it disappears when he is cured) or it represents his own dark side. Some of the scientists obviously managed to get to the boat but they never left; others were killed on the island by the creature. So was it Robert who actually killed them? Was the creature a hallucination caused by the illness from which all those people - including Robert - were, apparently, suffering?

The notion of utopia is very prominent in this game, and also the general idea that people are trapped in a vicious circle that prevents them from moving forward. Next to the boat landing, there is a table with a copy of Milton's "Paradise Lost" on it, which serves as some sort of reminder that people are always looking for something more, for their own Paradise, but then all is vain and mundane and there really is no cure - in this sense, metaphorical - for the fate of humanity. All that remains is the beauty of nature, as it is depicted on the island.

If Robert was to depart happily on his boat with the injection, carrying his positive message to the world, the game would have its happy ending but then the whole atmosphere that was being created up to then would have been completely ruined. Moreover, the deep philosophical side of the story would have been extremely limited and superficial. By giving its hero a tragic ending, the game gave boost to its philosophical side, remained faithful to its overall feel and offered several issues for discussion and thought.

The creature's appearance has various interpretations

On a completely different pace, Resident Evil 6 by Capcom is a pure action / adventure game, comprised of four interwined stories, with several interesting heroes in its cast. Its main plot is centered around an evil man, Derek Simmons, an even more evil woman, Carla Radames, and a young mercenary, Jake Muller, who happens to be the host of a rare antibody that could cure or boost the destructive C-virus, depending on the use. Jake Muller, who is the son of the notorious Albert Wesker, teams up with Sherry Birkin, the daughter of the equally infamous scientist, when Sherry, ignorant about her boss's nasty plans, sets on her mission to bring Jake to Simmons. Meanwhile, Leon Kennedy is on a race against time to stop Simmons, aided by agent Helena Harper, whose sister was one of the evil guy's victims. Ada Wong, whose image, name and personality was used by Carla Radames due to a scientific trap set by Simmons, begins her own personal war to finish him. At the same time, Chris Redfield with his second-in-command, Piers Nivans, is determined to stop Carla Radames, who was responsible for the cruel killing of several members of his team some months ago.

All the stories in the game receive a well-deserved happy ending - except for Chris Redfield' story. His desperate mission ends in an incredibly tragical scene where Piers, after being severely injured by Carla's most vicious monster, injects himself with a dose of the C-virus and half his body gets mutated. This is most heart-breaking when you realise that he does this so as to save his captain's life: the monster, having thrown Piers onto a metallic construction, impaling him, grabs Chris and is about to kill him. Just then Piers, knowing that in his current condition he will be unable to help Chris, decides to sacrifice himself for the sake of his captain. In the end, he manages to stay behind, sending Chris off to the escape route alone, obviously dying soon after the story concludes.

Piers's decision to sacrifice his life signifies his devotion to Chris and their cause

The death of Piers in Resident Evil 6 is very much different from Robert's in Miasmata. Here we have the sacrifice of a hero, of a soldier whose priority is his duty and the devotion to his captain. If you play Chris's story as Piers, you have the chance to go through this first-hand, and control Piers as he drags himself towards the injection and subsequently takes the dose. You get to see how he struggles with the mutation rapidly taking control over him, and how his stellar personality gets shattered within minutes. He is unable to talk or even walk properly, while his mutated arm becomes even more powerful and dangerous as the minutes pass.The fact that Piers is so young (27 years of age) makes his demise even more dramatic. Ironically enough, for all these reasons Chris's story - and, in consequence, the whole game - gains its extra touch of realism mixed with cinematic melodrama.

The last glimpse of Piers that we get is as heartbreaking as his tragic end

When it comes to Bioshock Infinite, things become more complex. This amazing steampunk adventure by Irrational Games is set in a world where there are cities floating in the air and others sitting at the bottom of the sea. There is a mix of eras and multiple realites where people exist in various versions of themselves. You play as Booker DeWitt, a war veteran who participated in a series of historical battles in which he committed several atrocities. Later on, overwhelmed by guilt, he sought peace of mind by approaching a man who promised salvation through baptism. In one version of reality, he changed his mind and was never baptised, and lived on with his guilt as Booker DeWitt. In another version, he accepted the baptism and was reborn as a new man, the ruthless Zachary Comstock. As Comstock, he collaborated with an ingenious scientist, Rosalind Lutece, who had invented a technology that could create a floating city. With her help, he founded Columbia, a colourful Paradise in the sky, where he, taking advantage of Rosalind's discovery of the Tears - floating slots that allowed time travel - posed to his people as some sort of prophet. In an attempt to keep this "fairy tale" going, and knowing that he was sterile, Comstock bought a baby girl from a man who owed a huge debt. That man was Booker DeWitt - his original self from another reality.

Rosalind, with the help of Robert, a man who looked like her twin brother but was, in fact, her male version from another reality, having helped Comstock kidnap Booker's baby, wanted to make up for it and ordered Booker to "bring back the girl" in exchange for his debt. The truth was that Rosalind actually brought Booker in Comstock's reality so as to help him get his baby back from his other self. The baby was now the 20-year-old Elizabeth. Initially unaware of their blood connection, Booker and Elizabeth passed through thick and thin until the truth was finally revealed to both of them (although it is hinted at some point that Elizabeth might have understood much earlier that Booker was in fact her father). When Booker came to the realization that he was actually Zachary Comstock, several versions of Elizabeth, including the ones he already met, drowned him in a symbolic act of baptism.

As cruel as Booker's murder may seem, it is the only way to save his daughter's life

Booker's death is not a simple one. Additionally, it is not a definitive death. After the credits roll, we get a bonus scene where Booker comes to his senses in his office and opens the door of the nearby bedroom where the baby's crib is. The scene closes before we are able to see if there is a baby in there or not, but what matters is that, in our version of Bioschock Infinite's reality, as far as its standard story was concerned, our hero died in the end.

People are multi-dimensional, and this is something that the game depicts literally. However Booker, in any of his versions, had strong remorses torturing him from which he was unable to escape. Even when he became a different man he could not find peace, only this time he was in control of the world around him - something that, naturally, led to his destruction. It is characteristic that when Booker confronts Zachary - that is when the two versions of the same man face each other - the former kills the latter and, not randomly, by first smashing his head on the baptism bowl and then drowning him in it. Later, the several versions of his daughter again drown him in the bowl of baptism. This means that no matter how much "cleansing" he goes through, no matter how many times he is reborn, he will always be the same person in the essence and whatever bad things he had done will never be forgiven. In that sense, Booker's dramatic end is a catharsis, and much less a punishment.

In an alternate reality, Booker died as a hero of the revolution

Although Elizabeth seemingly thriumphs at the end of the game by killing Booker, thus making sure that he will not cause her harm, everything changes for her in the extra episode Burial at Sea 2. In this story, you play as a more grown version of Elizabeth who begins her adventure in an idyllic Paris with children playing, young men flirting her, everyone greeting her joyfully and "La vie on rose" playing in the background. Elizabeth's dream has always been to go to Paris, and by the looks of it she managed it in this version of reality. Soon it turns out though that this was just an illusion. In reality, she is found half-dead near Booker's dead body, after both of them had been brutally hit by a Big Daddy in Rapture, the underwater city known from the previous Bioshock games, at the end of Burial at Sea 1. The Big Daddy killed them both, but Elizabeth managed to revive an alternate version of herself, again with the help of the Luteces, so as to end the cycle of violence in Rapture.

Subsequently, she gets captured by Atlas, a cruel man who is planning an attack in Rapture and who forces her to carry out specific quests in exchange for her liberation. During said quests, she is accompanied by an imaginary version of Booker who talks to her and advices her over the radio. Her main concern is to save Sally, a little girl who had been used by Dr Suchong, a dangerous man in charge of brutal experiments in which little girls are genetically altered so as to be able to collect a special substance from corpses and store it in their own body. Although she is quite efficient in giving Atlas what he wants, he ends up killing her after he has all that he needs in his hands.

Elizabeth's end is one of the saddest scenes in video game history

Elizabeth's death in Burial at Sea 2 has a far more symbolic character than Booker's. Being a victim right from the beginning of her life, she always lived in a fake world. When Booker first located her in the main game, she was locked inside the Monument Tower, a huge golden construction shaped like an angel, where she was reading books all day, dreaming about going to Paris and having the Songbird, a huge mechanical bird, as her sole companion. Then at the beginning of Burial at Sea 2, again she is seen living in an imaginary world, in an idealized version of Paris which soon becomes a nightmare.

Elizabeth is, in fact, living in the margins of reality in all of its versions. Even in the reality where she is a vital part, in Columbia, she is far too smart, far too gifted, far too complex for the world around her. People want to take advantage of her powers, but they essentially view her as some kind of freak. In her more mature and femme-fatale version of the extra episodes, she initially seems to be in control but as it turns out, she is much more a victim now, especially in her part of the story, where she is, moreover, derpived of her special powers and she cannot open Tears anymore. In Burial at Sea 2, she is as lost as Booker was in the original game. She is brave but helpless, exactly like him. Close to the end of her story, Booker himself appears and takes her by the hand, leading her to an important revelation, in a scene that is like a reversed version of one of the last scenes of the main game, where Elizabeth took Booker by the hand and guided him towards the truth about his identity. Elizabeth's alternate self in Burial at Sea 2 somehow identifies with Booker's in the main game. We could even go as far as to think that maybe it is not really Elizabeth in Burial at Sea 2, but it is actually Booker who was brought back to life in the form of Elizabeth. Just like Rosalind Lutece was reborn in another reality as Robert. There is a dominant metaphysical element in Elizabeth's death, which also makes her character even more legendary.

Booker is taking Elizabeth by the hand - or is she just one more version of himself?

There is nothing more distinctly metaphysical, however, than a ghost who is wandering among the living. In Murdered: Soul Suspect by Airtight Games and Square Enix, you play as Ronan O'Connor, a young man who gets killed right at the beginning of the story while chasing a serial killer. The story of the game takes place in Salem, a town connected with the Witch Trials centuries ago. This alone is an element that puts you in the right chilling mood from the start. Ronan was a rogue as a young boy, but things changed when he got married and was aided by his brother-in-law, who was the police chief, to become a detective. After his wife's death, Ronan devoted all his time to his work and started investigating the case of a serial killer who was murdering teenage girls. Although Ronan managed to track the killer in the apartment of a potentional victim, the guy attacked him and subsequently killed him.

On his way to the Afterlife, Ronan is greeted by his wife who informs him that he has to go back to the world of the living as he has issues to solve. Back at his murder scene, Ronan is able to watch his body lying in the street and the police team, including his brother-in-law, examining the elements. He begins his own investigation, which leads him to several unexpected revelations. The mastermind behind the murders is proved to be the evil spirit of Abigail Williams, a real-life puritan who was responsible for the executions of several women in Salem, having accused them as witches. After the dramatic period of the Witch Trials was over, Abigail was imprisoned and executed for her actions. Now her spirit floats around Salem, thirsty for blood. She possesses unaware people, preferably men, and makes them track down and brutally murder young girls who happen to be mediums - therefore, in her eyes, witches. What is most riveting however is that, as the story concludes, Abigail reveals to Ronan that she also used him to kill one of those girls.

Ronan watches his own dead body lying in the street

Ronan's death itself is on a clearly realistic basis, but everything connected to it is largely metaphysical. Ronan became a murderer without realizing it and he obviously had no memory of this action even before his death. When he first encounters the ghost of Sophia, his own victim, the girl runs away screaming in pain. There is absolutely no clue about their true connection however, and when Ronan finally manages to approach her and asks her who killed her and Sophia points at him, we are tricked to think - because her finger points to his police badge - that she means her killer was a cop like Ronan, which makes both the player and Ronan suspect a sly colleague of his. I have to say that the revelation about Ronan being the killer of Sophia was one of the most shocking gaming moments I ever had.

Every time Ronan meets Sophia, the scene is extremely tense and compelling

However we cannot view Ronan's death as a punishment for the murder that he committed, as it was something that he did without being really him. Furthermore, it turns out that Abigail had possessed Ronan's brother-in-law as well. It was him who killed Ronan while being possessed, and, just like Ronan, neither he had any memory of this action. All these powerful elements and interconnections intensify Ronan's tragic fate and although we can play as him from start to finish in his faded ghostly form and in the end watch the happy reunion with his deceased wife in the Afterlife, the fact that he is yet one more dead hero remains and it is something that, combined with the general dramatic and spooky tune of the game, adds an extra undertone of melancholy that inevitably follows the protagonist through the whole course of his adventure.