This has become a Skyrim household.  My son and I play side by side, me on the PC, him on the Xbox360, both trying not to watch each other’s game too much in case we get spoilers.   I’m a spell-casting Breton, he’s a shield-bashing Nord.  For more than half the time, we seem to be doing different quests, which makes it interesting.  He has explored the south-west of the map.  I’ve explored the north-east.  Both of us have been trying to avoid spoilers during this first playthrough.   There has been the odd slipup, particularly when he said “I wish  you hadn’t told me that the Companions are (spoiler!)”, and I said “I didn’t know that the Companions were (spoiler!)!”

Anyway, zombies and giant spiders.  Is it just me?  I don’t have anything against the idea of them as a one-off enemy.   At some point, a giant spider must have seemed a really cool and original idea.   That must have been some time ago.   Tolkien’s time perhaps.

Zombies also have a history that goes back before video games.  According to wikipedia, they have appeared in fiction since 1929 and in films since 1932 (and long before that in folklore).   It’s natural that they would make an appearance in a video game at some point.

But why are giant spiders and zombies in so many games?  It doesn’t matter if the theme is fantasy or sci-fi, those old spiders and zombies seem to find their way in one way or another.

The trouble with giant spiders, is that they are just very, very big spiders.  I can understand that if somebody finds small spiders scary, big ones would be terrifying.   But I happily share my house with the small variety, and am lucky enough to live in a part of the world where they’re unlikely to harm me.  I don’t feel that I get the intended sense of threat from a giant spider.   Maybe if it was the very first time I’d heard of a giant spider, and I suddenly came across one in a game, now that might give me a shock.   But giant spiders in games have become so common place as to become accepted.   I’d actually be more surprised to see a normal sized spider in a game.

Zombies and undead – every time I walk into a tomb in a game and see a body, I wonder if it’s going to get up and fight me.  Again, if I could go back to that very first time, never having played a game where dead isn’t really dead, and see a skeleton start to get up from the ground for the very first time, now that would be something.   But again, it’s now expected.  I felt like prodding the unmoving occupants of some of the burial places in Skryim.  What’s wrong with you?  Why can’t you fight like your “friends”?

I did have a zombie moment several years ago.  I think I had played games with undead characters in the past (Grim Fandango in particular), but it hadn’t been scary.   Then I played Thief: The Dark Project. Oh my.

Zombie from Thief: The Dark Project.   Not so scary in 2011, are you?

Back then, my son was little, and I used to play after he’d gone to bed, in dim light, with the sound turned up so that I could sneak around and listen for enemies.   The first time I heard a zombie groan behind me I was terrified.  It took me forever to play through the game, because of the zombies, with saves about every 5 seconds.  It was the most scared I’ve ever been in a game.

But it was a first.   And since then, I’ve seen zombies and walking undead by the coachload.  There’s no shock value.  It’s still a little scary, and disturbing in that these were once people.  I think I could become more involved in a full zombie story where you get to know people before they become zombies, or perhaps are investigating one solitary zombie and maybe their evil zombie-master.  But in Skyrim, at the moment, they just feel like another annoying mob, like bandits or wolves.  The shock value has gone.

(Still love Skyrim though!).