Actually, It's Darkness

The Long Dark, Hinterland Studios, 2014

It's too bad she won't live, but then again who does?

There goes another week off. Five Marches later I still have the same problem. When I'm not working I quickly slip into a nightshift pattern. It starts innocuously enough with Sunday evening extending to 2am. From there it cascades later and later and by Friday the only thing I can do to rectify it is to stay awake until Saturday afternoon and take a nap to see me through the evening. It's not so bad in March when Spring is breaking through, as it did today, and there's some daylight to play with; but when I went through this in January I probably suffered a shortfall of Vitamin-D. Ironic, then, I should spend the middle of the night playing The Long Dark. I am without a doubt late to this party. You know I'd judge you for it in an instant, so why not be the better man? Fact is, I've not had much time to play games - aside from GTA Online, but then I got bored of (and pissed off by) that last August. What I've done to compensate is subscribe to a couple of YouTube channels thereby gaming vicariously.




As of late the gaming gaze has been on Cities: Skylines, a city-builder game praised for doing everything the woeful SimCity (2013) didn't. I'd been watching so many hours of preview Let's Plays, all I knew is I wanted it. My physical copy turned up on Thursday, just enough time to have a crack at it before my holiday was over. I had a look at the system requirements and felt assured my PC was within the minimum specs. Preoccupied with other media, I didn't install it until Friday. Somewhat annoyingly I had to register a Steam account to activate the game. Alright, it'll be another ignored account on yet another platform, so long as I can play the game. Things were going well until I went into the map-creation mode. I had the foresight to enable the FPS counter and thus was able to witness the fall from 60FPS to single frame missing-texture mess. My graphics card was making my room sound like an active aircraft carrier. As I feared, the substandard amount of RAM shipped with my computer was screwing me. Sliding all graphics to minimum still didn't help. At least I definitely know upgrades will be sorely needed if GTAV on PC ever turns up. That totally kyboshed my plans for a sexy Friday evening. I realised, though, that now I'd been forced onto Steam I could actually play many of the games I'd spent the past few months watching.

Several times I've seen the same Steam early access game appear simultaneously on multiple YouTube channels: The Forest was the first I noticed last summer, then last September The Long Dark was the hot property, and recently Stranded Deep has been the new favourite. I'm as immensely tired of the zombie craze as I am of super-heroes, hence The Forest didn't appeal to me much beyond watching other people play (I am aware the foe in that are technically 'mutants'). The Long Dark (herein TLD), however, grabbed my attention. This was survival horror stripped right down. In the Silent Hill series you combat manifestations of the titular town, the faceless character. Here the environment truly was the enemy - even on a calm day, you won't last forever in the elements. TLD also seemed to draw a lot of inspiration from a particular film. I had spent last year catching up on releases I'd missed 2012 and 2013. One such DVD I purchased was The Grey - rather superficially described as Liam Neeson punching wolves. I was impressed with that film, although I saw there was some hate for it largely regarding its mis-characterisation with the above description. Fair enough, except one look at the comments on IMDB will make you want to embrace eugenics. I immediately understood it and the fact that the wolves are a metaphor, not the result of poor behavioural research. That anyone could not grasp this stuns me, but then The Sun is the best-selling newspaper on these isles so go figure.

Without delay I went to the Steam page for TLD and threw down £14.99. While it downloaded I watched some more of The Pacific, engaged as I was this week in my third viewing sparked off by unwrapping Letters from Iwo Jima after four years (I'd committed to buying it in 2011 having previously downloaded it - piracy works!). I was surprised TLD wasn't running smoother given the artistic graphics result in plenty of large, solidly coloured textures. I tuned the graphical settings and jumped right into the sandbox. I spawned outside the Carter Dam. Nice try, I thought. I've seen the Let's Plays - there's a wolf that spawns in the dark corridor that gives you the fright of your life. If this were in any way real I would have taken refuge and stocked up on supplies. As I already had a sense of the map from watching gameplay I followed the train tracks to the derailment. With the cold chipping away at my health I spotted a wolf and it spotted me. I dove into the train car where the AI wolves can't follow. There was a dead guy and a backpack. I scavenged an item of food and a flare. As the wolf paced around outside I tried to plan my escape. I walked to the other end of the car and had to laugh. I found the rifle! Brilliant, a gun and no ammunition. Since I'd found that less than five minutes into the game I decided I had to make a break for it or I was going to freeze in the open. I threw a flare at the wolf and it ran off. I got a headstart before it locked onto me. I just couldn't outrun it, I turned around as it shredded me. I fought it off, yet all I bought was another minute of life. This early into the game I had no medicine, or food, or decent clothing. I stumbled down the tracks with my condition bar dropping. Two percent, one percent...

You faded into the long dark.

So unfair. I started a new game, spawning in the same spot. Still I didn't dare enter the dam - I once abandoned playing a survival horror halfway through the game because I didn't want to tumble down the rabbit hole any more. I walked the same way down the tracks and managed to avoid the wolves this time. I swung right into the forest clearing and picked up a few supplies in the portable cabins. I had to keep moving to find supplies and came across the road leading up to the forestry lookout. I knew there was a stove up there and I needed to get out of the cold. Unfortunately there were next to no items spawning up there. I ventured back down to explore for more buildings but the weather drove me back. The weather didn't let up and my hunger and thirst bars were growing larger. The earliest builds of the game were likely to kill you if those got maxed out so I had no option. I didn't think I'd survive the night if I slept. If I stayed there I'd starve. There was no choice but to go out while it was still light. By the time I descended the path it was completely dark, though the weather let up. I struck a flare for warmth and what little light it offered. Run! Run! I ran blindly with a sprained ankle for ten minutes all the way through several areas just knowing I was going to see those eyes glowing and hear that excited yelp. I was genuinely squirming. The game code is god and I was praying. It was like traversing a minefield blindfolded. I knew every step was certain to be the last. If it was going to happen then let it come quickly.

I need it now. Not later. Now! Show me and I'll believe in you until the day I die. I swear. I'm calling on you. I'm calling on you!

So long as they don't figure out how to open doors.

I ran like the kids in Jurassic Park past the raptors in the kitchen. And I survived, finding myself on the Coastal highway. I was starving, dehydrated, and frostbitten. I needed supplies and the fishing huts were a lifeline. I ventured out onto the ice where I could spot wolves long before I got too near. This was a far safer environment. My stock of flares were exhausted fending off multiple wolf attacks. There was one strange incident when the flare didn't scare one off and it stood there within a leap growling at me. I ran right past it clicking madly to enter the building. I raided a couple of huts then Jackrabbit Island and made my way onto the Misanthrope's House on the other island. By this point I had so much stuff I had to leave it behind because I was encumbered. Large meats (trout, venison) were left in the freezer and all other items (particularly the weighty last-stand dog food) in the drawers under the tv sets. Come the fifth in-game day I had looted all the houses around the gas station and started consolidating my resources in the three lockers there. With all the wolves around it would often be a mad dash between buildings, and more than once I became stranded in a car. The annoying thing is the camera's range of movement is restricted when you jump in the cars. All I wanted to do was look out the back window so I could see if the wolf had moved on. After five minutes of not hearing it I just had to risk it.

Life was being a bitch, though. I had thirteen rounds for the rifle but no rifle. I had to search for it or I was never going to survive the pervasive presence of the wolves. I made my way back out to the islands to grab the supplies left there. I was stuck on Jackrabbit for half the day waiting for conditions to improve. When they finally did I ventured over to the pier to clear out the fishing encampment. Things were going well even though I'd been pinned in a fishing hut and had to fight my way out. I patched myself up and was stable at 50% - enough I thought to endure another attack. Returning up the coastal road I came across a building I hadn't inspected. I looked around so as not to be ambushed. Halfway to the door I heard the wolf. Shit! I got to the door only to find it was fucking boarded-up! There was nowhere to run. If I'd had another 5% of life I would have survived. I faded into the long dark after seven and a half days.

Fine, I thought. I'll load up the game from my last save. Oh no, not in this game. We are not the aliens of Edge of Tomorrow. You may not reset when things don't go your way. The isn't betting all your money in Las Venturas and reloading when you lose. I recall an interview with Hideo Kojima about a decade ago detailing his ideal version of the next Metal Gear Solid in which death would be permanent and you'd never get to play the game again. The games industry isn't that much of a rip-off yet. You've got to love his trolling, though. Won't people just let him walk away from the MGS series? I want to see what he does with Silent Hills and prove he's not a one-trick pony. Anyway...

The next ten minutes were the stages of grief in fast-forward. Finally, I embraced it. In the next life it'll be flawless.

[1991;3]