Games move into the nasty side of life

Video games are increasingly exploring the nasty side of real life but remain hard to regulate, says Daniel Etherington of BBCi Collective in his weekly games column.

Hopefully the scary fun will not be ruined

There has long been a dark streak in gaming, but today it is diversifying.

Recently we have seen the release of titles like In Memoriam (PC), Gregory Horror Show and Manhunt (both PS2).

It is a very mixed bag, certainly, but what they all demonstrate are urges among the development community to take gaming into darker, nastier directions.

Weird and kinky

Capcom, who have long been at the heart of horror gaming, have mustered some sinister weirdness with Gregory Horror Show, based - perhaps worryingly - on a Japanese children's cartoon.

In some ways it is no less bizarre than traditional folk stories, but in others it is about as twisted as gaming can be.

As in Eternal Darkness Sanity's Requiem, your sanity is a key factor. Here you are charged by Death - in a Swedish flag hat for some reason - to collect the souls of the blockheaded weirdos resident at Gregory House hotel.

Gregory Horror Show is twisted and In Memoriam is chillingly claustrophobic, but Manhunt really is impressively nasty Discuss this story on BBCi Collective

If the design and set-up were not weird enough, the game has a kinky streak right from the off, with characters like a lizard nurse with a seductive voice whose sole desire is to stick people with a giant syringe.

What would Dr Freud say?

In Memoriam is considerably more sombre.

This is a postmodern affair, a CD-Rom game that masquerades as a CD-Rom created by the presumed kidnapper of a journalist who has been investigating a series of murders.

Interactive movies have had a bad reputation, but In Memoriam seems to crack it by creating a labyrinthine pseudo-reality.

The game has a vibe comparable to the classic movie The Vanishing (1988), but most of all it succeeds because of its dalliance with reality - e-mails in your personal, real-world inbox discussing the case are disconcerting for starters.

All a bit cerebral though.

Disturbing

What is certainly less cerebral is Manhunt, Rockstar North's follow-up to Vice City. A determinedly 18-certificate release, it is an interesting take on the stealth genre.

Whereas Solid Snake's or Sam Fisher's sneaking and killing is done within the framework of heroic endeavour, that of Manhunt's James Earl Cash most certainly is not.

Cash is a death row convict, who is secretly saved and set up to star in snuff movies.

In Memoriam: a labyrinthine pseudo-reality

You undertake each level, or "Scene", at the behest of the filmmaker, killing goons hired to hunt you.

If you succeed in pulling off a perfect kill, by sneaking up on an unsuspecting Hunter, the game presents the act in grainy, CCTV-style footage.

There is a whiff of the movie My Little Eye which is filmed on surveillance cameras, while the settings share the dereliction of Escape From New York.

Most significantly though, Manhunt is unrepentantly grim. The atmosphere is oppressive and the killing is not dressed up as anything other than slaughter.

Gregory Horror Show is twisted and In Memoriam is chillingly claustrophobic, but Manhunt really is impressively nasty.

Rockstar might be self-consciously pushing the parameters of taste, but it is perfectly valid for gaming to spread its concerns into the edgier realms of culture.

The only problem comes from the fact that games are nearly impossible to regulate.

So for every young gamer who gets into this "18" title, like so many did with the considerably lighter GTA, a tiresome moral guardian will start piping up.

Hopefully that will not spoil the scary fun.