Mortis

Review # 133: Mortis. 
You’re not going to play Mortis. It’s
not anywhere, and I’m certainly not going to provide a download link. If by
some freak occurrence you manage to get your hands on a copy, I urge you to
stay away. It’s something personal, and I think it’s better that way. 
-----------------------------------------
I used to frequent a website called
"horrorgamesarchive.com." Don't bother looking for it now; I’ve made
sure to get rid of it. It was a website centered around highlighting horror
games, mainly obscure ones, and writing a paragraph-form summary and review of
each game. The website was updated every week and never broke formula so far as
my memory serves me. I discovered many of my now favourite horror games on this
website: Silent Hill, Hell Night, Clock Tower, Sweet Home, etc. Because of my
affinity for horror games and my respect for this website, I got in contact
with Dex, the website's creator and main writer over Skype. 
At the time, Dex and I had spoken
for a few months and had developed what I suppose you could call an internet
friendship. He would give me an update every time he made a new review, and I
became a co-writer, editing and adding sections to some of his reviews. 
I even completely wrote his review
of White Chamber. He had also told me that he was developing his own game,
though I'm sad to say I don't think he ever finished it. 
It was no surprise to me that after
about eleven months of our frequent conversations, he asked me of all people to
write a review while he was away for Spring Break. He sent me the link over
Skype of that week's game: Mortis. He told me it was a PC game that came out in
2001 and that the copy he had sent me was completely legitimate. I had never
heard of this game in all of my years on the vast internet, but he was quick to
assure me it was worth the effort.
I downloaded game which took about
five minutes because Dex thought it right to send me the game over Skype (he
was never the tech-savvy type). 
I looked inside the Zip file Dex had
placed the game into and only saw an executable file and a readme file, as well
as your run of the mill data folders. I took the file's request and read it to
find what is typical for a game's readme file: original game credits, other
credits, and installation instructions. None of this interested me, but what
did interest me were the controls. Using my master investigative skills, I inferred
that Mortis was a Resident Evil-type game, what with the "up to move
forward," "left and right to turn" and "press space while
in action mode to attack." I got myself ready for clunky controls,
hilariously bad voice acting and cheap scares. I should've been ready for more
than that. 
Before even playing, I researched
the game and found nothing about it. No mention on any forums, nothing. I even
Googled Nemesis Games: the company responsible for this game and found nothing
on the subject. 
Clicking the executable file launched
the game, no problem. This was actually quite the surprise; to see a game meant
to run on Windows '98 or the ilk instantly boot up on my Windows 10 computer of
last year was kind of stunning. Nevertheless, after the game launched, I saw
the familiar names of Nemesis games show up at the bottom of the screen along
with the traditional copyright notifications below them. The Nemesis Games logo
was fairly slapdash, as if it had been thrown together by a high-schooler in
Photoshop. However, I suppose an obscure game nobody's ever even talked about
before shouldn't really inspire such confidence. Once the formalities had
finished, I was presented with what can best be described as a title screen. 
All it consists of is a crudely rendered
image of what I know to be the main protagonist with a gun to his head with the
text under it in a scratched up text reading "Appuyer sur [esc]."
Following the only instruction I could understand, I pressed the escape key. Upon
my input, the gun fired into the character's head. Blood spurted from the
character’s head in a very choppy fashion. This was a gruesome scene,
certainly, and it is a surprise that this game never got any negative
attention, especially in a time when violence in video games was such a big
issue. 
The opening cutscene then loaded,
and I was presented with an interesting sight. It appeared live-action at first,
but turned out to be a mixture of collage-esque visuals mixed with some
rotoscoped animation, almost as if it had been created from previously existing
assets. The first shot showed the main protagonist, a young adult male in an
orange hoodie and a black, sleeveless coat over-top of it. His head was in his
hands, which were shaking furiously. The camera then panned down to a gun on
the table he was sitting in front of. The next shot was that of the
protagonist's left eye peeking through his fingers, as dark silhouetted hands
reached from behind his head, grasping at his face.  After a few seconds, his arm jolted down, grabbing
the gun, and shooting himself in the head. He fell back out of his chair as his
arms and legs twitched disturbingly. I didn't know what to think. While by no
means realistic, this cinematic was extremely visceral and gruesome. 
While I was fairly well-travelled in
the world of horror games, and I’m fairly hard to impress in this regard, the
cinematic created a pit in my stomach. As crude as it appeared, the direction
and contents of it were what I could only describe as deeply personal – a level
of gratuity and raw pain to which no trite jumpscare or blood spatter on a wall
could hope to compare.
The scene faded to a loading screen,
featuring the main protagonist's twitching hand reaching in from out of frame.
While it was loading, the voice of the main character sounded in my headphones,
though it sounded as if he was speaking under water. He spoke in French, and
with my limited knowledge of the language, I am fairly certain he said "Je
m'appelle Patrique," meaning, "My name is Patrick." There was,
however, no sense of urgency in his words. He spoke them slowly and calmly in a
serene tone. It sounded very deep – unnaturally so – as if it had been pitch
shifted.
When the game loaded after what felt
like an eternity, the main character, Patrick, awoke in his hoodie, ripped
over-coat and jeans from the opening cutscene. He stood up from his bed, and
this is when I gained full control. My suspicions were confirmed in that it did
control like Resident Evil, but it controlled a lot better. It's hard to
explain, but Patrick had more weight to him, and I was able to get through
doorways without having to run against the wall all the time. The second major
difference was that the camera angles were not fixed, but instead swung around
freely in the same style as Silent Hill. 
After getting myself situated with the
controls, I searched his room for items that may be useful in later puzzles,
something Silent Hill and Resident Evil have taught me well. I found nothing
but a generic handgun in the dresser and a bottle of prescription medication,
the description of which read, "Do not use under any circumstances."
Though tempted, I felt it best to explore the area first before taking any
action. 
After a few minutes of wandering
about the apartment room, I heard a scratching coming from every direction. It
was in both ears, and although it was subtle, it was the only sound I had yet
heard which did not come from the player character. Though the noise was quiet,
it was so frequent that my head started to throb. Though I turned down the
volume several times, it always seemed to crawl back up, as if the sound was
gradually growing nearer. I pressed on, but was only met with another
roadblock: the door out of the room was unable to be opened. My character did
not even attempt to open it; he merely stated in a now shaky, stuttering voice,
"je ne peux pas échapper."
The subtitles did not state an
English translation, but I wrote it down in my notes. As I walked around the
room searching for a point of escape, Patrick would start to say things like,
"je dois," or "Allez, venez." Patrick was growing frantic,
and started to walk more slowly or quickly at seemingly random intervals. After
a while, he started to simply shamble of his own volition to random areas of
his bedroom. There was a window in his bathroom adjacent to his bedroom. It gave
a button prompt, "Regarder -- [SPACE]." Upon pushing down the
spacebar key, the game changed to a first person perspective. Patrick was on
the second floor. 
I tried opening the window but to no
avail. "Je ne peux pas échapper," Patrick stated again. There were no
doors. No way out. With no other options, I found only one alternative. 
I opened my inventory, highlighted
the medication and selected its "use" option. Sure enough, Patrick
shakily opened the bottle and popped the medication into his mouth. For a
moment, all remained normal until, after a few seconds, he began to slow to a
crawl as a gradually slowing heartbeat sounded in the background. After not too
long, Patrick collapsed on the ground, and the game faded to black.
"je suis en vie." 
Patrick spoke those words in the
subsequent loading screen, but instead of calmly, he spoke in a dull, monotone
whisper that was broken up into multiple utterances separated by harsh voice
cracks. The loading screen was that of Patrick's foot, twitching as if Patrick
had still just died.
Patrick ended up in an alleyway. He
was lying on the ground and the camera was swinging around frantically. It was
hard to gain my focus and this effect did not cease even when I gained control.
The same prompt existed as when I was in his bathroom, "Regarder -- [SPACE]."
When I chose to obey this command once again, the game shifted to first person
as before, though it was looking up at the second floor window. As I pressed
the arrow keys to move, Patrick did not walk, but rather shambled like a drunkard,
or a zombie. Every other step or so, he would wince with pain, but with a
different, increasing sound of agony as I went on. I began to feel a sort of
sympathy towards Patrick. As I proceeded, the moans of torment started to echo
in my headphones. While I wanted to just unplug the headphones, I didn’t want
to miss any part of the game. 
As I was focusing on the sound, I
lost track of where I was going. I tried to get my bearings, but I came to the
conclusion that I wasn't going anywhere. Every corner I turned just lead me to
another adjacent alley. 
As I turned each corner, Patrick
gained new behavior. He started looking behind him, trying to search for
someone who may be following him. I took to his attempt to find someone and
turned him around myself, to find nobody there. Turning around lead Patrick to
shake and peek behind him less, almost seeming reassured. Though I can’t recall
exactly, I seem to remember hearing “thank you,” whispered overtop the
cacophony of grunts and atmospheric noises. 
After some time of wandering
aimlessly, the scratching noise had begun once more. At first, it was quiet and
I barely noticed it, but it began to get incredibly grating despite my volume
being set almost to mute. Patrick began picking up his walking speed even with
his condition. He began yelling out in agony and there was a harsh cracking
sound with each step he took. Along with the horrifying sound of broken bones
grinding against each-other was the quickly loudening scratching sound. The
scratching then turned gradually to a scraping, to a grinding, to a screeching.
The camera then swung around to face Patrick and it was then when I saw the
thing. 
Even after years of reflection, I
find it difficult to accurately describe the beast. 
It was a being, humanoid in shape,
but bone in structure. Its jagged edges jutted out in every conceivable
direction, scratching the stone floor and the brick walls that only seemed more
constricting as it grew nearer. Its body undulated with insane speed and
unnatural patterns. It did not run and certainly did not walk. It simply moved.
I cannot explain the manner in which it achieved motion or why, but it merely
proceeded in its direction. It was at this point where the turns stopped and I
was running down an endless, isolating hallway.
Patrick pleaded for help. It was not
in French and there were no subtitles, but it was in English, and it had a
sense of fear which made the perpetual pit in my stomach sink even further. The
words echoed, "Help me, please! You can't let me die! I don't want to
disappear! Please!" It wasn’t the deep, bassy voice I had known to be
Patrick’s. It was familiar to me, though at the time, I failed to see why.
The thing continued to approach me,
growing nearer by the second as the voice was only growing more desperate,
speaking shakily as if crying. "Please! Don't let him get me! I don't want
to fade away! Please!" 
Despite my efforts, the thing finally caught up and grabbed me with
a stray bone. 
Bone shards began protruding out of
what could barely be called its body as it hunched over my character, who was
now squirming on the ground. His scream pierced my ears, and I felt like
screaming too. His arms and legs twitched frantically and I could not tell
anymore whether he was alive or dead. It was only at this moment when I saw the
beast closely. Its face was vaguely human in nature. Its eyes caved in through
cracked bone, with scratch-marks lining the face. For a moment, I think it
looked at me.
The screen cut to black as I heard
the sounds of scraping and gnawing on top of a barely audible, "I am so,
very sorry..." But it was not Patrick. The game closed and cut back to my
desktop with nothing but the .zip file open. Something was different, however.
The executable was gone, nowhere to be seen. I checked many folders until I
rediscovered it in my recycling bin. I tried opening again, but all that
happened was a black screen with deafeningly loud scraping noises playing until
I forcibly closed the game via the task manager. I was going to delete the now inoperable
executable before once more checking the files. The readme had been altered.
All had been removed, except for one, solitary line. 
"I am so, very sorry to leave
you all like this. 
-Dex" 
In the coming years, I’d not heard from Dex. The website’s forums were flooded
with people wondering what was going on. I decided to take it down – better
than to meddle in personal business, I suppose. I still hear his voice, the
last thing he ever said to me, "I am so, very sorry…” My only regret is
that he felt there was something to be sorry for.
Category:Video Games