Editorials

[Horror Declassified] An Examination Of Tank Controls

Published

11 years ago

March 23, 2013

Welcome to Horror Declassified — here we’ll be examining mechanics, tropes and design philosophies that are common in the horror genre. Have something you’d like covered? Send us an email.

Written by Matthew Ritter, @matthewmritter

Ever had an in-depth conversation about a gameplay mechanic you know nothing about? If only there was a place that bothered to give historical context to the popular ideas, terms, tropes, or gameplay elements (specifically pertaining to horror games, this being a horror site). Things like where they came from, how they evolved and why they were used.

There is! Here! Me! Right now! There may be others, but a self-centered view makes me confident this one is the best. Today’s education shall focus on Tank Controls. What are they? Why did they exist? Are they finally gone for good? If you’ve ever wondered what Tank Controls are, read on!

The earliest game I remember playing with Tank Controls was Vindicators in the late ’80s. In it you played a tank collecting keys. It was early gaming, don’t expect it to make sense. The Tank Controls however, did make sense, as you were a tank.

This is why Tank Controls are called what they are. Older style tanks could not change direction freely. They had to stop completely before turning. To go backwards they either had to back up or turn around completely in a slow, ponderous way. Tank Controls are when the character in the game moves in a similar fashion.

In many games, especially more modern games, when you push a direction the character just goes in that direction without any hesitation. Full 360-degree movement is yours. This is viewed as a natural and intuitive way for movement to work.

The connection Tank Controls has with horror games formed with Alone In the Dark. The game came out in 1992 and used 3D-modeled characters over 2D pre-rendered backgrounds. Because of this, it used fixed camera angels, as the pre-rendered background didn’t allow for a free-moving camera.

Dramatic cinematic angles added stylistic flair but presented a challenge control-wise. If the controls switched every time the camera angle changed, the player would get confused. The solution was Tank Controls. It was an easy-to-program way for the controls to always remain relative to the player’s character. You push forward, your character moves forward. You push backwards, your character backs up. To turn left, you turn left. To turn right, you turn right.

The problem of the persistent camera angles was solved and a form of movement that felt stiff and cumbersome was born! Other games that used the same style of gameplay also used Tank Controls. Capcom was, as far as I know, the greatest repeat offender. For most horror fans their first memorable experience with Tank Controls was with the original Resident Evil, which aside from a greater emphasis on combat, weapons, and ammo, has almost the exact same gameplay as Alone in the Dark.

The Tank Controls might have actually helped the early Resident Evil games. The difficulty of movement could add a claustrophobic feeling, and you had to stop and ‘plant’ in place to shoot, forcing you to hold your ground and let the shambling horror come at you while emptying your gun into it.

Unintuitive movement controls aside, Resident Evil scared a generation of gamers who were all apparently afraid of dogs jumping through windows. The game spawned numerous clones, many of which adopted similar control schemes and the pre-rendered background approach. It was so prevalent that at one point some people felt Tank Controls were best used for horror games even though they came out of a technical limitation and not any design philosophy.

New mechanics were added to games with Tank Controls as time went on, such as buttons that allowed for a quick turn around or a lock-on ability to make it easier to face enemies, dodge features, and a slight ability to turn while moving. Still, gamers complained and the popularity and prevalence of the set up dropped away as the use of free-roaming cameras became standard. The orientation problem Tank Controls were made to help with was no longer an issue when the player controls the camera. Even the series that made them famous (Resident Evil) seems to lack Tank Controls in its most recent iteration.

It still crops up occasionally but it’s mostly an affectation of the past. Also, it’s interesting to note that most first-person shooters use a Tank Control movement scheme. The WASD and mouse style of controls make it impossible to move forward without first facing in the proper direction. The ease of using the mouse for turning keeps people from complaining in a similar way.

There you have it. Now you know what Tank Controls are, why they came about, what their history is with regard to the horror genre, and why they have mostly died out. Now if someone says something like “I can’t play the early Resident Evil games. Those Tank Controls just drive me nuts,” you will not assume there was some secret tank mini-game you missed, as I once did.

Editorials

Finding Faith and Violence in ‘The Book of Eli’ 14 Years Later

Published

20 hours ago

April 22, 2024

Luiz H. C.

Having grown up in a religious family, Christian movie night was something that happened a lot more often than I care to admit. However, back when I was a teenager, my parents showed up one night with an unusually cool-looking DVD of a movie that had been recommended to them by a church leader. Curious to see what new kind of evangelical propaganda my parents had rented this time, I proceeded to watch the film with them expecting a heavy-handed snoozefest.

To my surprise, I was a few minutes in when Denzel Washington proceeded to dismember a band of cannibal raiders when I realized that this was in fact a real movie. My mom was horrified by the flick’s extreme violence and dark subject matter, but I instantly became a fan of the Hughes Brothers’ faith-based 2010 thriller, The Book of Eli. And with the film’s atomic apocalypse having apparently taken place in 2024, I think this is the perfect time to dive into why this grim parable might also be entertaining for horror fans.

Originally penned by gaming journalist and The Walking Dead: The Game co-writer Gary Whitta, the spec script for The Book of Eli was already making waves back in 2007 when it appeared on the coveted Blacklist. It wasn’t long before Columbia and Warner Bros. snatched up the rights to the project, hiring From Hell directors Albert and Allen Hughes while also garnering attention from industry heavyweights like Denzel Washington and Gary Oldman.

After a series of revisions by Anthony Peckham meant to make the story more consumer-friendly, the picture was finally released in January of 2010, with the finished film following Denzel as a mysterious wanderer making his way across a post-apocalyptic America while protecting a sacred book. Along the way, he encounters a run-down settlement controlled by Bill Carnegie (Gary Oldman), a man desperate to get his hands on Eli’s book so he can motivate his underlings to expand his empire. Unwilling to let this power fall into the wrong hands, Eli embarks on a dangerous journey that will test the limits of his faith.

SO WHY IS IT WORTH WATCHING?

Judging by the film’s box-office success, mainstream audiences appear to have enjoyed the Hughes’ bleak vision of a future where everything went wrong, but critics were left divided by the flick’s trope-heavy narrative and unapologetic religious elements. And while I’ll be the first to admit that The Book of Eli isn’t particularly subtle or original, I appreciate the film’s earnest execution of familiar ideas.

For starters, I’d like to address the religious elephant in the room, as I understand the hesitation that some folks (myself included) might have about watching something that sounds like Christian propaganda. Faith does indeed play a huge part in the narrative here, but I’d argue that the film is more about the power of stories than a specific religion. The entire point of Oldman’s character is that he needs a unifying narrative that he can take advantage of in order to manipulate others, while Eli ultimately chooses to deliver his gift to a community of scholars. In fact, the movie even makes a point of placing the Bible in between equally culturally important books like the Torah and Quran, which I think is pretty poignant for a flick inspired by exploitation cinema.

Sure, the film has its fair share of logical inconsistencies (ranging from the extent of Eli’s Daredevil superpowers to his impossibly small Braille Bible), but I think the film more than makes up for these nitpicks with a genuine passion for classic post-apocalyptic cinema. Several critics accused the film of being a knockoff of superior productions, but I’d argue that both Whitta and the Hughes knowingly crafted a loving pastiche of genre influences like Mad Max and A Boy and His Dog.

Lastly, it’s no surprise that the cast here absolutely kicks ass. Denzel plays the title role of a stoic badass perfectly (going so far as to train with Bruce Lee’s protégée in order to perform his own stunts) while Oldman effortlessly assumes a surprisingly subdued yet incredibly intimidating persona. Even Mila Kunis is remarkably charming here, though I wish the script had taken the time to develop these secondary characters a little further. And hey, did I mention that Tom Waits is in this?

AND WHAT MAKES IT HORROR ADJACENT?

Denzel’s very first interaction with another human being in this movie results in a gory fight scene culminating in a face-off against a masked brute wielding a chainsaw (which he presumably uses to butcher travelers before eating them), so I think it’s safe to say that this dog-eat-dog vision of America will likely appeal to horror fans.

From diseased cannibals to hyper-violent motorcycle gangs roaming the wasteland, there’s plenty of disturbing R-rated material here – which is even more impressive when you remember that this story revolves around the bible. And while there are a few too many references to sexual assault for my taste, even if it does make sense in-universe, the flick does a great job of immersing you in this post-nuclear nightmare.

The excessively depressing color palette and obvious green screen effects may take some viewers out of the experience, but the beat-up and lived-in sets and costume design do their best to bring this dead world to life – which might just be the scariest part of the experience.

Ultimately, I believe your enjoyment of The Book of Eli will largely depend on how willing you are to overlook some ham-fisted biblical references in order to enjoy some brutal post-apocalyptic shenanigans. And while I can’t really blame folks who’d rather not deal with that, I think it would be a shame to miss out on a genuinely engaging thrill-ride because of one minor detail.

With that in mind, I’m incredibly curious to see what Whitta and the Hughes Brothers have planned for the upcoming prequel series starring John Boyega…

There’s no understating the importance of a balanced media diet, and since bloody and disgusting entertainment isn’t exclusive to the horror genre, we’ve come up with Horror Adjacent – a recurring column where we recommend non-horror movies that horror fans might enjoy.