Tag: survival horror

“Little dog? *arf, arf* Or big dog? *woof, woof*”

From: LifeLine

Genre: Video Games

Who said it?: Rio

The story behind the quote: This quote actually comes from an Easter Egg from Lifelife for the Playstation 2. This survival horror game from Konami is remembered because it was a good game (most reviews gave it an average score). Rather, what made his PS2 game memorable was its unique control scheme.

It takes place in the future where you are attending a party in a hotel that is orbiting the Earth. The festivities are abruptly put on hold due to invasion of alien monsters. Your character gets trapped in the control center of the space hotel. Your character manages to make contact with another survivor named Rio (voiced by Kristen Miller). However, you can only communicate with her by actually talking to her.

As mentioned, the game was pretty different from other survival horror games because of the way you control Rio. The player cannot use the controller to issue orders to Rio. Rather, you would have to use a PS2 USB microphone and give the commands by talking to her. The concept was good… but the execution was bad. The game simply couldn’t keep up, especially if you issue commands hurriedly. However, using your voice to control the onscreen character was used in weird ways, especially with the aforementioned quote.

At any time during the game, you can command Rio to bark like a dog for no reason at all. The weird thing is that the developers actually thought of this and Rio has a response for it!

The video below has Adam Sessler reviewing (and blasting) the game. You can skip to 2:03 of the video to here the sequence and the quote. You can clearly see that Adam didn’t really expect a response!

Geek wisdom: Sometimes, taking a weird and irreverent chance can make you stumble on to something good. In the game, there is really no reason to ask Rio to bark like a dog. It’s something generally something someone would do on a whim… and it actually works!

We can get too focused on our own lives and get too serious. Because of this, we forget that being spontaneous and irreverent… just doing something for no reason… can also be fun. Let your hair down once in a while… and bark like a dog for no reason.

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“Jill, here’s a lockpick. It might come in handy if you, the master of unlocking, take it with you.”

From: Resident Evil

Genre: Video Games

Who said it?: Barry Burton

The story behind the quote: The Resident Evil series from Capcom popularized horror games and was the basis for the entire “survival horror” genre. Take note that didn’t actually create survival horror as there were horror games like Alone in the Dark or Clock Tower that came before it. However, it does earn the distinction of taking horror games into the mainstream.

While the first game in the series was a breakthrough and did have some genuine scares (remember the jump you got when the dogs jumped through the windows?), that’s not to say that the story and script was very good. In fact, the voice acting is pretty bad, especially if you compare it to today’s standards. But at the time, having any voice acting in a game was pretty phenomenal. However, there is an advantage to having such poor voice acting and awful dialogue: the quotes in the game become extremely memorable… such as the quote in question.

If you play as Jill Valentine, the female in the game, you and one of your squad members, Barry Burton, get separated from the rest of your team members. So, they decide to split up to cover more ground. Barry then remembers that he found a lockpick. Knowing that Jill is “the master of unlocking,” he generously gives it to Jill since it will be much more useful to her.

Geek wisdom: If you’re not really using something and you know that someone will find that item useful, you might as well let that someone have it. We tend to be greedy with our possessions and actually hoard stuff, citing that we “may need it in the future” or there’s some sentimental value with these items. But there may be people that may need these items much more than you.

Try to remember to help other people. It may be difficult to let go but, if it helps other people, you know that the thing that you loved before is being put into good use.