Lone Survivor

Jasper Byrne - 2012 - PC/Vita/PS3

This game can be summed up pretty quickly: 2D Silent Hill. Lone Survivor is an indie survival horror game and if you've ever played a Silent Hill game before, this game will feel very familiar. The developer, Jasper Byrne, is a self-proclaimed Silent Hill fan and the influences are very apparent throughout the game. Everything including the gameplay, the narrative themes, and even the audio cues are very Silent Hill-esque. And Byrne, who also composed the game's soundtrack, does a great job channeling Silent Hill's Akira Yamaoka with his musical style. But even if you've never played a Silent Hill game, you may still want to give Lone Survivor a look.

Lone Survivor is short, and I think that's to its credit. It's about 5 hours long, and I think that's a perfect length for a game like this. Turning off all of the lights in your house and subjecting yourself to the twisted imagery and pulse pounding terrors of a good horror game now and again is fun, but it's also kind of nerve wracking and draining. Not something to do every single night. I've played a lot of games that do a good thing effectively, but wear out their welcome by doing it over and over again for too long. I felt Lone Survivor had a very appropriate length, and I'd like to see more shorter experience games like this. I think it can work if the games are appropriately priced, but that's a whole different discussion. 

You play as a nameless survivor of some disease outbreak that has seemingly turned all of the world's population into mindless zombie-like monsters. The main character has holed up in his apartment to survive the disease outbreak, but is now running out of food and is curious if there are any other survivors other than himself. So you'll start to venture outside your apartment and see the horrors of the monster infested world, but you'll still return to the apartment often to rest and save. You can combat the monsters with your handgun if you have enough ammo, or you can lay piles of meat around to attract the monsters to a certain location to try and sneak past. Like any good horror game, ammo management is key. You'll want to sneak past enemies when possible rather than shooting them to conserve your ammo. You'll also want to keep an eye on how many batteries you have left. Without batteries, your flashlight won't operate and you won't be able to see many important clues and objects in your environment.

While Lone Survivor probably isn't quite as complete of a game as some of the games it's influenced by, this game is still my favorite type of horror game. There are very few, if any, jump scares. Less means that the few jump scares that are in the game are more powerful and memorable. Rather than relying on jump scares, games like Silent Hill and Lone Survivor create the feeling of horror by constructing a creepy atmosphere through good music, sound and art design. Games like these understand that the most horrific things your imagination can cook up are more intense than anything the game can actually show you. So they simply focus on creating good atmosphere and let your imagination do the rest. I especially love the strange hallucinations and bizarre scenery present in Lone Survivor. Good stuff. I think the minimalist pixelated art style works to the game's favor here too. When you see a monster, you just kind of get a general impression of what it looks like, and again, your imagination fills in the details. Lone Survivor perfectly follows the prototype for my favorite kind of horror game.

Summary:

I didn't find the story quite as satisfying or the game design as nuanced as Silent Hill 2, but Lone Survivor is still worth a look if you like these kinds of games. Its length is appropriate, and it does a great job creating a dark and creepy atmosphere. I wish it had the narrative depth of SH2, but does do a great job replicating nearly everything else from that game.