CHILLER Arcade depravity
Retro Arcade

There are some things in this world that are just wrong; Big Bird, Dick Van Dyke in Mary Poppins and a fat, spotty, ginger kid called Trevor being the school bully in Grange Hill, but these aren't really questions of morality, these are purely down to public opinion and circumstance.

There are some things, though, that really push the limits of what is considered 'good taste', like Cilla Black being on TV for instance; but I never thought anything lacking the slightest degree of moral fibre had graced the screens of the old arcade. That is until I played 'Chiller'.


A PLACE OF HAPPY LAUGHTER
The arcade has always been a place of amusement and fun. Sure many of the games made throughout recent history have raised moral questions, such as games inducing violent tendencies in the young, causing ADD and I don't know…making you really stupid or something. But war and violence are everyday occurrences; it's programmed into the DNA of virtually every human being and seen every night on the TV news.

But torture, human sacrifice and butchery are different matters altogether; only really witnessed by serial killers and sickos who own snuff movies, and not what you'd generally hear spewing forth from Judy Finnegan's fat, pathetic face on a weekday afternoon.

Now I enjoy my horror movies, and I love 80s gore films, but there was always a clear distinction between wrong and right. Sure the killer enters, chops up a bunch of people and the audience hate him "Boo! Mr. Killer!" Then the last remaining teenager (usually the girl) pops back up, whacks out the killer and evil is punished "Hooray for the girly! And we all thought she was scared and weak!"

Now if that adorable young girl, now covered in blood, sweat, muck and sometimes poo (depends who she was fighting of course) had found a bunch of people who'd been tied up by the killer, and began to chop and hack away, maybe even shooting one of two of them in the legs…we'd all having a little something to say; as would the censors. And with that I introduce you to 'Chiller', possibly the sickest game I have ever played.


THE NIGHTMARE BEGINS
It's not that I can't play it, or it makes me nauseas; I mean the graphics are pretty old so realism is low. It's just that, well, it's wrong - plain and simple, and I can't believe this was ever released. Everyone likes to think that times have moved on, censorship is far more lenient and nowadays people aren't too bothered by things that were once considered taboo, but I really can't see a game like 'Chiller' being released in this day and age.

There were a few games released in the late 80s, similar to 'Chiller', that all used the same hardware and pretty much the same cabinet. It consisted of a large cabinet with a crossbow mounted on it. Now I remember playing one of the games, and this weapon may have been different for the different titles, but I remember using a crossbow, so a crossbow it is. But this was in the days before Operation Wolf, so it was quite an impressive sight.



So this is the title screen. Haunting isn't it; the castle, the moonlight, the clouds and the slime - all go to setting the scene. The tone of the game is set pretty much from the get-go, not only by the Hammer Horror stylings, but also with the zombie-esque groaning accompanying the insertion of the coins. Well it's either a zombie or someone who'd just dropped a sauce-covered chip on their trousers.



At this point we know it's a shooting game, I don't know, maybe it's the enormous gun mounted on the cabinet that gives it away, and you're treated to these little screens just before each of the four 'levels'. Here you can see which key items you have left to shoot to gain access to the secret bonus stage. Well I say secret, but we're told that there is one, so I suppose it's not the most closely guarded secret around, but a secret none-the-less.

Let's scan the list of objects for the first round shall we. Ok, something red, could be a poppy, erm, something kind of pink and red, three shot-up human faces, a skull, a - wait a minute! And that pretty much sums up the game right there. But fear not, the worst is still to come; so fear then.



I really shouldn't have to write anything else for this article. Just look at what's going on here. Now I have no idea about the background story to this game, but it'd better be something pretty damned good. Now if you came across a room like this in any other game out there, you'd expect to have to free these brutally tortured and manacled people, especially that poor bastard in the head vice.

The guy with the leg missing would probably need to be left behind as he would only slow you down though. But no, you can try and avoid shooting these poor bastards if you like, but soon a small finger starts pointing out just where you're expected to shoot, namely at that girls head, or even at the vice handle. Suffice to say eventually, after around a minute or so of Thomas Harris style murder and depravity, the room is a veritable bloodbath.



Sweet Christ would you look at this?! I mean I've been encouraged, by what could be symbolic of The Hand of God to cause this unholy massacre of butchery and carnage. Please notice how the girl in the guillotine's head has not only been lopped off and rolled away, but then shot up too.

The vice guy's head has been completely squashed, and the one legged guy…well let's just say he won't be needing that orange sticker in his car anymore. And after all that I still need to shoot up 17 more things to get past the level! Hmm, vice-guys still got some pink on him.



And after all that mess you're given this rather encouraging message; well, it's good to know you have a talent for some things isn't it. So maybe these people aren't innocent, maybe they're Nazis, or even members of an international child pornography ring…who knows? But why would you secretly infiltrate the castle of someone torturing evil people and then shoot them up? Surely you'd just leave the castle owner to it? Anyway, I don't know about you but I'm thirsty for more. Onto the next level!



I would just really like to know who the hell's castle this is. The guys got his own river of blood for Christ's sake! This must've been some kind of S&M swinger's party that went horribly, horribly wrong. Then you turn up, everyone cheers, and you shoot the shit out of them. Well, that's the way the cookie crumbles, eh? Ok, so what have we got on offer here? Couple of people on racks, some guy dangling over the blood, couple more tied up.



Well this is turning out to be great fun isn't it, not only can you turn the rack wheels round by shooting them and watch as the couple get slowly torn apart, but you can shoot the handle of the pulley system in the background, lowering the suspended guy towards the blood, but…and this is the great part…he never quite reaches the blood. No, Mr. Croc here jumps out a bites his feet off.

Then you lower him a bit more, and his legs go. Eventually he gets eaten completely and Mr. Croc is never seen again. You know those days when things start going bad and you think that they couldn't possibly get any worse? Well check out the guy tied to the floor.



Well look at that, top shooting yet again. I suppose we now know what inspired that Michael Ryan guy.



Level three is pretty tame in comparison to what we've witnessed so far, and to be frank comes as quite a breather. I'm sure even Jeffery Dahmer made time for a mug of coffee and some fruit shortcakes sometimes.


KILL THE GIRL, SAVE THE BADDIES
This level takes us to the traditional Hammer Horror setting we were expecting from the title screen. I have a feeling this could have been the first level they made, but realising that all the traditional monsters had been used up, resorted to the rest of the carnage to try and scrape some more levels out.

Anyway, level three sees you having to shoot the likes of werewolves, a coffin with a mummy in it, ghoulish hands and ghosts. Oh, and the occasional dismembered head that falls from the iron grating in the ceiling. See! They just couldn't leave it alone could they!



Well here we are at the final level and here is where they've really plunged into the lowest depths of their filth ridden, masochistic, depraved little minds all in the name of entertainment.

The graveyard - not a bad setting for a horror game, should be lots of shooting zombies you think. Well the undertaker ought to be getting his P45 after this mess. Let's start off with the heads on spikes, or maybe the burning corpse in the open grave? No, sod all that, let's just hone in on the half upright-buried still alive girl smack bang in the middle here shall we?

I'll say now that you have to shoot her. Well of course you don't HAVE to, I mean there's always a choice isn't there, but she is one of the 8 key objects you need to shoot to get to the bonus round. Well, I say you have to shoot her, but more accurately, you have to shoot a part of her. Look what happens:



First you shoot her jumper off…



Then in a saddening moment of perversion, you shoot her bra off, and I can only imagine some people getting off on this. Ooh, look! Tits!



Then you casually shoot her head off!



Oh it gets better. Then her arms are shot off.



And finally, as if she wasn't desiccated enough already, you shoot her torso in half - absolutely delicious. And then, you need to shoot the stump of the girl that's left because that is the key item. What the hell is wrong with these people? You still get to shoot the hands trying to claw their way out of the ground, and that's OK. I mean, they're zombies! KILL! KILL! KILL! Hmm, they do look oddly pink for zombies though. Oh God! The horror…the horror…They were just signalling for help!



Well look at that again, apparantly that's good shooting…

And that's pretty much the end of the game. If you don't manage to shoot every key item you go back to level one and go through the serial killers wet dream again until you do. Once all key items have been shot you get the secret bonus round, which is really just a very poor clay pigeon shoot with various vampire and zombie heads flying across the initial castle-silhouette backdrop.

It's like, at this stage they thought
"You know, guys? Maybe we've gone a bit too far here"
"Yeah, you're right. Let's just use zombie heads for this one"
"Good idea. End on a high note, no-one will remember the carnage"
"Shall do…"
"Nathan, did you just touch my leg?"
"No"
"Oh… … …would you?"


THE PERFECT END TO A PERFECT DAY
So to summarise, this game is really very sickening indeed. If it was just monsters you were shooting, or if these people weren't tied up and were trying to attack you in some way, then maybe it would be passable, but the way it is it's just wrong.

I've read a lot lately about people having a problem with games like GTA3 and State Of Emergency, because you can beat up and kill innocent people. But it isn't necessary in those games; it isn't a requirement to kill the innocent bystanders. If people want to do that then just taking it out of a game isn't going to stop them, that's just a part of who they are.

But Chiller actually makes it necessary to kill these people, tied up and helpless innocent people I might add. Maybe that's the horror, I don't know. Anyway, I don't want to end this on a down note, so download the ROM now and shoot up some humans today!