In my opinion, space is probably the best setting for horror. You’re alone on a ship in which the large and vibrant crew have been scattered around various walls and table tops. It ensures a deep and foreboding sense of isolation. It’s a shame that certain recent popular horror games set in space have been about as scary as a pug wearing devil horns. Step up Saturn 9, and show everybody how it’s done.

Saturn 9 is a first-person horror indie game available now on Xbox Live. In terms of context, you take on the role of some guy exploring an abandoned space ship to investigate what happened to the crew. So far, so standard. If I had a space penny for every time I poked around abandoned space ships with missing crews, I’d be space rich. However, despite the generic nature of the setting and context, Saturn 9 still managed to scare the shit out of me.

The majority of the short time spent playing the game is spent wandering through corridors with a tiny flashlight solving puzzles. The puzzles are fairly clever and demand an adequate level of attention. I’d say the best and most harrowing puzzle in Saturn 9 is when you are forced to use a tool to cut off a body part to get past a door. It had me sucking air through my teeth in that ‘I don’t want to look but I kind of have to’ way.

Obviously, being a low-budget indie game, the graphics won’t blow you away, but they aren’t much worse than Aliens: Colonial Marines, and considering the frankly embarrassing amount of money and developers that game had, the developer of Saturn 9 should be proud of his achievement. I’ve said in the past that I don’t care much about graphics anyway. It’s nice to have top-notch graphics, but they certainly don’t make a bad game good, and bad graphics don’t make a good game bad. So, in keeping with this way of thinking, Saturn 9’s graphics don’t get in the way of the horror at all, and you’re still guaranteed at least five minutes of genuine terror at the end of the game.

When I heard that there was an indie horror game knocking around that only lasted thirty minutes, I was dubious. How can a game realistically hope to scare anybody in only half an hour? It manages to effectively terrify the player by focusing on vulnerability and a sense of impending danger. Through-out the game there our computers that have to be investigated for puzzle solutions, and that have System Shock 2 style recordings from the crew that are fully voiced but add nothing to the game. The voices coming from the computers talk casually about things like samples and other crew members, but even though I paid attention, I never felt moved or compelled by what was being said, probably because what was being said was so generic. I got five minutes into the game, solving puzzles and listening to the aforementioned audio logs thinking ‘well this isn’t very scary’ when all of a sudden my oxygen was low and I was stumbling through corridors, bouncing of walls because the screen was spinning nauseatingly around as I desperately searched for an oxygen tank. Considering the lack of a decent back story and with the audio logs adding nothing, the amount of tension these sections brew up is impressive.

Saturn 9 only gets better as it progresses, and the climax of the game managed to scare me senseless. Without meaning to spoil, it involves navigating around a maze-like room whilst being pursued by a grotesque and deadly zombie-like creature. There’s no combat, so you’re only option is to keep moving as quickly as you can, but it can and probably will catch you. It might not sound all that horrifying, but it’s executed so well that you’ll find yourself screaming ‘Oh my God, he’s right there! Run!’ at the television every time you catch a glimpse of your pursuer. Hold on to your hats, because I’m about to say that the climax of Saturn 9 scared me more than the entirety of Silent Hill: Homecoming or Shattered Memories. It’s scary because it is horror done simply and effectively: you’re completely vulnerable, you’re fairly slow and there is a hideous creature you’ve barely seen chasing you, probably intent on doing unspeakable things to you.

In terms of being a horror game, Saturn 9 is a success because it effectively scared me, and considering the fact that I see myself as a veteran of horror games, that’s an accolade in itself. I’d love to see it’s developer given the budget and manpower to make a much larger horror game. It’s vastly scarier than the  space-themed action-horror game Dead Space. Take note Visceral Games.

© 2013 – 2014, zero1gaming.com. All rights reserved. On republishing this article your must provide a link to this original post