Zero Brightness - A Podcast About Horror Video Games

Justin joins for a discussion that returns to the issue of ethical consumption and what responsibility the consumer bears in the late-capitalist hellscape wherein we currently reside. We talk about boycotts and consumer choices in the face of scandals like the Activision-Blizzard lawsuit and the Cyberpunk fiasco, as well as what consumers can do to support diversity in the industry without blandly congratulating corporations for acknowledging that minorities exist. As if that wasn't enough, there's even some bonus Souls talk in the beginning. Buckle up, it's a longy!

Animator Michelle Brost joins for a conversation about Bloodborne that spans as many topics as humanly possible - including how your artistic temperament effects your gaming habits, the aesthetic of Catholic guilt, losing limbs in heavy machinery, why it's impossible to talk about Neon Genesis Evangelion with other people and much more. You can check out Michelle's work and find links to her new film via the @michellecbrost and @animal_film_ instagram accounts

A little essay on why I found Bloodborne to be so engaging despite my checkered history with the Souls series. Includes some comparisons between the various entries in this long running series as well as an analysis of the ways that Fromsoft incorporate ideas and concepts from some of my most- and least-loved 16-bit action games. Also includes a lot of Shinobi III and cello talk, so you have been warned. Includes additional music from https://diie.bandcamp.com/album/diie-entertainment-system and https://yumenikki.bandcamp.com

Comics artist Hannah Vardit joins for a discussion of Junji Ito and adaptations inspired by the game World of Horror. We also discuss Horror Manga, 90s toys, J-Horror movies, waiting for a new Silent Hill game and Adam West getting kicked out of an orgy - among other things. You can check out Hannah's work at https://hannahvardit.com/

We conclude our discussion about Resident Evil 8 by discussing the finer details of the plot and the many unexpected detours that the game takes in its second half. We also speculate on where the series will go after this and the lasting legacy that this massive entry in the series will have based on the many improvements it makes to its predecessors. Is RE8 the new RE2? Will the earth run out of codeine soon? Listen on to find out.

You knew it was coming, but did you know it would be 4 hours long? Our epic-length and extremely in-depth discussion of Resident Evil 8 starts with a spoiler-free overview of our thoughts and feelings on the game before diving into a spoiler-light, beat-by-beat analysis of the game. Topics discussed include the massive changes to combat, aesthetics and storytelling that the game introduces; the economics of crystal skulls; horny gamers and much, much more. To be continued!

Justin joins for a discussion of Outlast 2, a problematic game that has lurked in the margins of the show since the very beginning. We finally break down why this game was such a disappointment as it overstuffs it gameplay with wonky mechanics and its story with try-hard edginess - a choice that ultimately reveals why writers need to carefully consider the themes and topics they want to explore in a game. Also discussed: just generally dunking on edgelords, that's most of the ep.

Vincent joins for a discussion of Silent Hill 3, the anachronistic and often underrated gem of the series - and maybe survival horror overall. We also discuss the concept of "peak survival horror," how humor can enhance horror and why Heather is an extremely relatable protagonist that stands out amongst the sea of sad-man survival horror protags. Also featuring my cat Clovis because she wouldn't leave me alone for two seconds.

I talk a little bit about what's going on in Minneapolis right now before trying to rank every Resident Evil game, tier-list style, and giving some thoughts on the RE8 demo.

Justin - our resident 7th gen expert - and I unpack the shade constantly thrown at the seventh video game generation by this show in an attempt to figure out if the 360/PS3 era was actually bad or if there is something there worth returning to. We also discuss some of the biggest 7th gen horror games like Alan Wake, Fear, Bioshock and Dead Space. It gets complicated!

I'm joined by Cole for a discussion of Dying Light - the parkour zombie action adventure game - that mostly ends up being a lengthy and weird conversation about problematic media, overly horny reddit comments, toxic fandoms, spy movies, abusive workplaces, badly done accents, trying for a better future and loving something in spite of itself.

Episode 95 is all about perception; a discussion of Resident Evil 6 that tries to understand the weird reputation that this game has earned through years of trash talking and dismissal. I'm joined by Justin for a discussion that also touches on the weird way that the RE games are ranked, the time-vs.-money dilemma in gaming, breaking your body while playing Mario Party, skipping cutscenes and what makes a game Survival Horror in the first place

Cole Benson joins me for a conversation about Killer7, experimental music, Boris, scammers, bad movies, etc. Musical interludes by Otomo Yoshihide, Masafumi Takada and Family Computer

Episode 93 is a love letter to Hyper Light Drifter, a game that unexpectedly perfects the "super hard post-apocalyptic ambient hack and slash" genre that has rose to prominence on the strength of games like Dark Souls, Breath of the Wild and Nier. Joined by returning guest Justin, we break down how HLD delivers on the promise of those games in a way that is more fun and emotionally resonant while also delivering an amazing aesthetic experience. Also discussed: buying a GPU at a Burger King, the fear of death, difficulty in games and soundtrack recommendations

Zero Brightness heads to the theater in this episode, where we take a look at more film adaptations of horror games; specifically, the two Silent Hill movies and the new Detention TV series. I'm joined first by Whitney Chavis for a discussion of the many ways that the Silent Hill adaptations pay respect to the original games while also totally fumbling any attempt at presenting deeper themes or a consistent story. Later, Monica Coleslaw breaks down the bizarre way that Detention 2020 re-contextualizes the original game's heavily political narrative into a skin-crawling "love" story. We take the good, we take the bad and there you have: Episode 92 of Zero Brightness

Zero Brightness returns with the start of a new season and format for the show! Episode 91 finds Ali joined by returning guests Monica and Vincent (as well as new friend Justin) for an examination of co-op horror games including Resident Evil 5, Obscure, and Phasmophobia. We also take a look at the pre-history of multiplayer RE games, examine the weirdly racist and misogynistic tone of 00s-era survival horror and discuss the current state (and future of) the podcast. Better get started, it’s a pretty long ep.

Instead of a normal "best of 2020" list, we run down the games we played the most this year in order to distract ourselves from life - the real survival horror.

A few updates on the show and what to expect from Zero Brightness next year.

We talk about what we find to be scary in Horror games and dissect the different tactics that devs use to scare players and create tension, anxiety and fear.

We experience Silent Hill Origins - the world's okayest Silent Hill game - and end up having a discussion of the many questionable habits that all western-developed SH games seem to share. We also talk beating up monsters with toasters. confusing lore and one Tragic Travis.

We get very, very scared by the new PT-influenced horror game Visage. We talk about why the game's first-person walking-sim style gameplay is so horrifying and dissect it's many obtuse puzzles and odd design choices. Spoilers are very clearly marked within the episode so you shouldn't be surprised by anything - a nice change from this game, which definitely took a couple years off my life.

We check out Amnesia Rebirth, the new entry in the Amnesia series that finds the original devs (Frictional) returning to the franchise that established them as a fixture in the horror genre. We talk about how the ten years of experience they've accrued has led to a much more sophisticated game - albeit one still very grounded in 2010-style game design. We also discuss torture-based economies, racist horror writers, classic vines and simulated birth in video games. It's a time, that's for sure. (first 45 minutes are spoiler free, spoiler section is clearly tagged)

It's time for more Hitman talk! We discuss the second batch of stages, the various and wacky ways you can kill people and why easy mode is clutch if you want to play every stage like an episode of Mr. Bean.

A little update on some changes to our patreon. Head to patreon.com/zerobrightness to check it out!

We check out Echo Night 2, a game never officially released in the west and only recently patched with a fan translation. We discuss the many ways in which it tries to build out the basic Ghost Friendship Simulator gameplay of the first one - with results that vary widely in quality - as well as its super-90s goth aesthetic and incomprehensible plot. It's Echo Night, alright!

We try to answer the title question for ourselves. In the process, we discuss racism and bigotry in media, fair labor practices and what responsibility the consumer has in fighting for or against their own values when consuming media.

We discuss the asymmetrical online slasher movie simulator Dead By Daylight with our friend Vincent from our Discord. We try to talk about the finer points of the game but mostly end up debating whether it's best experienced as a competitive pursuit or an S-tier spooky hangout game.

We discuss two of the big Meta Horror games that keep coming up in conversations about all of the other weird/indie/meta games we've covered on the show. We discuss Eversion's simple yet effective mind tricks and Pony Island's utterly bizarre take on a Horror game. We also talk about working in a guitar store for a surprisingly long amount of time, but that's cool too.

We finally get around to talking about how The Evil Within 2 is an amazing, unsung gem of the eighth generation. We discuss its many quirks, from amazing open-world gameplay to a villain that can only be described as "Cutie Hannibal." You couldn't make this stuff up, even if you were injecting CBD straight into your neck like our guy Sebastian does!

Retro Month winds down as we check out Carrion, a unique twist on the Metroidvania formula that has you playing as the monster - an amorphous predatory blob hell-bent on turning a perfectly good space station into a blood-splattered mess of exposed wires and gore. What a jerk!

Retro Month takes a modern detour as we check out Faith, the Atari-style horror game developed by Airdorf Games and released in 2017. James thinks it's a masterpiece and Ali thinks it has more in common with the flawed-but-fascinating game we covered in the NES Horror episode.

We take a look at a few licensed horror games on the Nintendo Entertainment System and find a surprisingly ambitious cross-section of ideas that predict where the Survival Horror genre would eventually go. In this pre-history of horror, we're checking out Nightmare on Elm Street, Friday the 13th and Monster Party. Turns out some of the crappy platformers on the NES have more going on under the hood!

Retro Month Begins! Episode 73 finds us discussing a handful of Horror games that were available on the Sega Genesis, the 16-bit console favored by the cool kids who smoked cigs and watched R-rated movies. We are mostly talking Devilish, Decap Attack and Haunting Starring Polterguy but - as per usual - it goes all over the place.

We run through The Dread X Collection, a new virtual game jam inspired by PT and sharing some similarities with the Haunted PS1 Demo Disc. We talk about the highs and lows of the collection as well as why we love bite-sized indie games - especially after a summer of epic-length disappointments.

We're talking The Count Lucanor, the predecessor to Yuppie Psycho that established a lot of that game's style and mechanics. We break down the game's classically structured puzzles, heavy atmosphere and dark fantasy aesthetics. The Vibes Are Real.

We discuss D and D2, the bizarre works of auteur Kenji Eno. We breakdown his contentious relationship to the games industry and some of the influences that make this series interesting to read about but not very fun to play.

We take a look at two exceptional video-game-to-movie adaptations that stand out from the pack of generally terrible, bone-headed "re-imaginings" - Mari Asato's "Fatal Frame" and John Hsu's "Detention." We talk a lot about East Asian Horror and what makes a good adaptation while dissecting the finer points of these surprisingly great films. Be warned - this is basically "Uncle Ali's J-Horror Corner Pt. II" so the tangents are real.

As a supplement to our discussion of race and gender in Deadly Premonition 2, we're making our Zero Brightness Plus episode on Representation (from January 2020) available to the public. If you like what you hear, we do an episode like this every week for our Patreon subscribers. You can sign up at patreon.com/zerobrightness to hear all 40-something episodes and get more every week.

We attempt to review the launch-day version of Deadly Premonition 2 - a feat that is mostly impossible due to a combination of broken gameplay, extremely buggy code and an offensive plot that has already been retconned (but not yet patched!). Was all of this a terrible mistake? Are our hazy memories of Greenvale just beautiful lies? Listen on to find out. This episode is spoiler-free until the last 30 minutes, which are marked with a very prominent audio tag.

We talk about two Horror SHMUPs, a rare sub-sub-genre of games that mix the gameplay of classic arcade shoot-em-ups with the aesthetics of horror. We discuss the visceral delights (and Bullet Hell-induced headaches) of dodging and shooting as well as the bits of story and Edward Gorey-inspired aesthetics sprinkled throughout these games.

We're talking about... Hitman? Listen, I don't have some amazing reason why we're talking about Hitman besides that it's really good and you should play it. We also talk about where we're at with the show, the joys of open-ended gameplay and the adventures of Agent Forty-leven, the world's shittiest super-spy.

We're talking Dreadout, a modern take on the classic PS2-style survival horror genre. Does it transcend its scrappy, low-budget development or is it just a mess? We don't agree, so we spend an hour trying to sort it out.

We attempt to cover The Last of Us Part II; the sprawling, controversial and eagerly awaited follow-up to Naughty Dog's modern classic. Fittingly, we have an epic-length conversation that covers everything from internet trolls to people being confused by bodybuilders. Somewhere in there, James assigns a numerical score to a video game and Ali pauses the show to freestyle about how much he hates the police. Just another episode, nothing to see here!

To tide y'all over until we have our Last of Us 2 episode read later this week, we've made on of our patreon-exclusive episodes free to the public. It's a highly relevant discussion of AAA action adventure games and if you like what you hear, you can sign up at patreon.com/zerobrightness

We finally tackle The Last of Us, Sony's megaton Horror exclusive that has been equally era-defining and controversial. Monica Coleslaw joins for a discussion of video game violence, TV adaptations, bad dads and the suspicious way in which all AAA video games are sorta the same. Press R1 to come back next week for a discussion of the sequel!

Our discussion of Amnesia: the Dark Descent turns into an "opposite day" version of our Alone in the Dark episode, wherein we debate the merits of historical significance versus the all-important "Fun Factor." It's a GamePro reader's dream!

We have a discussion about police violence (largely centered around the George Floyd protests in Minneapolis) and what role art has in spurring on social change - relating it back to the topics we repeatedly bring up like media representation and messaging.

We’re discussing Alone in the Dark, the 1992 PC Game that is widely considered to be the starting point of Survival Horror. We go back and forth while trying to figure out if its a charming antique or a frustrating relic

We're talking about Nightcry, the irredeemably awful "spiritual successor" to Clock Tower that fails on every level. James mounts a small yet sturdy defense of the game as we both dissect its merits as a MST3K-style experience. Questions abound. like "is it so bad it's funny?" and - more importantly - "Why did we subject ourselves to this?"

We're talkin' Disaster Report 4, the brand new PS2-style survival game that time-traveled to use from 2011 with all of its weirdness fully intact. We discuss what makes this game good-bad, its budget-game lineage and how its out-of-place lasciviousness gives it "Big Boomer Energy." It's Disaster Report, dawg, we had to get weird on this one.