Video games join summer of horror

By Wohn Dong-hee 

Standing in misty half-darkness, our hero, Henry Townshend, finds himself trapped in his own cursed apartment. Blood is splattered around the shabby room, and from somewhere the annoying static from a radio can be heard. The only way out of the room is through a black hole in the wall. With no other choice, he crawls into a long tunnel that leads to alternate worlds and horrendous creatures to find out why he is trapped.

 

So begins “Silent Hill 4: The Room.” Released last week in Korea and Japan, the game opened up a season of horror for game players here.
For Koreans, the season for horror comes in the summer. A scary movie that sends chills up the spine and raises goose bumps on the arm is the perfect way for Koreans to cool off in the steamy weather. Marketers are now applying that idea to electronic games, especially since summer is considered the off-season for the game industry.

“We could have released the game a little earlier, but we waited until now because the horror genre goes well with summer,” said Kim Young-gyo, a publicist at Sony Computer Entertainment Korea. The company released “Fatal Frame 2: Crimson Butterfly” on Thursday for PlayStation 2 users.

By using a camera that can take pictures of ghosts, players fight against spirits and solve puzzles to unravel the mystery. The Korean-dubbed version of the game even includes four Korean ghosts.

The game “Guwon” (Salvation) was also released Thursday. Players must toggle between several characters to view different perspectives and wander around a huge labyrinth of a mansion to get rid of ghosts.

There are even mobile horror games that can be downloaded to cellular phones such as “Don’t Look Back” or “Mystery Express.”
“This year, there are markedly more horror games being released in the summer,” said Kang Woo-jung at YBM Sisa, a game distributor. “In the past, only small groups of fans enjoyed these games, but now they have become more popular. Enhanced graphics help make the games more real.”
 

Unlike pure action or war games, most horror games combine action with adventure and follow a storyline. This scenario is usually a suspense thriller or mystery genre that involves typical horror factors such as ghosts, zombies or other undead creatures.
“It’s like watching a movie, but more interactive,” said Park Jung-soo, a self-admitted horror-game maniac. “With other games, I usually play with my friends at PC rooms, but I play horror games at home. You can taste the true flavor of the game only when you’re in a confined space alone.”

 

from “Video games join summer of horror” JoongAng Daily. June 29, 2004

Samsung wins design awards

JoongAng Daily. June 26, 2004
By Wohn Dong-hee

Samsung Electronics took first place at an international design competition after five of its products won awards.
The Korean electronics giant said yesterday that it received the largest number of prizes this year at the IDEA 2004 design competition, which was hosted by the Industrial Designers Society of America, as well as the largest number of prizes over the last five years.
It tied with Apple Computer Inc. for first place with 19 products that received awards in the past five years.
BusinessWeek magazine featured Samsung in its July 5 issue, noting that the company had become the first Asian firm to take top place in the 25-year history of IDEA.

Among the award-winning products, Samsung’s 17-inch liquid crystal display monitor SyncMaster 173P and portable circular printer won the gold medal. Its 50-inch DLP projection television sets SVP-50 and 56L7, and microwave oven won silvers, and ‘Samsung Smart Screen,’ a desktop wallpaper that organizes icons, won a bronze.
In particular, the 17-inch LCD monitor SyncMaster has a unique design: it can be folded flat, while the ports that link the cables are hidden in the back. Samsung said that the monitor won awards at international design competitions ‘iF Design Awards’ and ‘Red Dot Design Awards’ as well.
“Aside from an artistic perspective, the designs cut down a lot of our costs as well. The monitors are very lightweight and, when folded, take up so little space that it is very handy when making large export shipments or [shipping domestically],” a Samsung public relations official said.

Video of murder spreads on Web

JoongAng Daily. June 25, 2004
By Wohn Dong-hee, Ahn Jun-young

As feared by the government, several Web sites have posted video files of the murder of Kim Sun-il in Iraq for download. The government has blocked a U.S. site carrying the video, but was too late to prevent downloaded copies from beginning to circulate here over file-sharing networks and by person-to-person exchanges. The U.S. site posted the video yesterday morning, Korean time; the site had earlier posted an advertisement on its site seeking the footage of the execution. Korean Internet users quickly began to flock to the site to protest and attempt to crash it by overloading it with incoming traffic.

There were two video clips on the site, which reportedly came from an radical Islamist site. One of the clips, four minutes long, showed just the execution; a masked armed man read a statement and then another man pushed Mr. Kim to the floor before murdering him. The final scene showed Mr. Kim’s severed head.

The Ministry of Information and Communication, which had launched a 24-hour emergency monitoring system to block the spread of online video for fear of inflaming public opinion here, ordered domestic Internet service providers to cooperate in blocking the site. Portal sites were asked to disable access to sites found to have the video or links to them. Naver and Yahoo Korea blocked any response in their search engines to the word “beheading.”

But Internet service providers admitted that there was no way to block the spread of the downloaded video files by other means. Many programs, such as the “peer-to-peer” services used commonly to transfer music files, and instant messenger programs, allow users to transfer files to others.

The U.S. site said it was showing the brutal reality of violence in the world. It also posted files showing the beheadings of two Americans, Nick Berg and Paul Johnson.
On May 13, the Munhwa Broadcasting Corporation, a Korean television network, drew protests for showing the video of Mr. Berg’s murder. Its only concession was to blur out the victim’s severed head.

The Arab TV station Al Jazeera, which had aired some video of Mr. Kim in captivity, said it had decided not to broadcast video of the murder. The Ministry of Information and Communication said additional Web sites had begun posting video clips, and was continuing to ask Internet companies here to block access to the sites.

Cyber firewalls planned to dampen public trauma

JoongAng Daily. June 24, 2004
By Wohn Dong-hee

With public emotion running high following the beheading of Kim Sun-il ― an incident that is fueling rallies to demand a halt to Korea’s troop deployments to Iraq ― the government is seeking ways to dampen passions by censoring possible Internet images of Mr. Kim’s murder. The Ministry of Information and Communication announced yesterday that it would close or block access to any Web site showing images of Mr. Kim’s beheading, though it added that no such sites have yet been discovered.
An ethics committee within the ministry is monitoring the Internet around the clock; portals such as Yahoo and Empas have agreed to join the effort. The ministry has also requested that high-speed Internet service providers such as KT and Hanaro Communications prepare firewalls, in the event these kinds of sites appear.“Under current laws, the ethics committee has the right to review sites containing violence or scenes of murder,” said ministry official Moon Ki-hwan. “Fortunately, [Arab broadcaster] Al Jazeera has said it would not broadcast cruel images, but we remain on alert.”

The ministry is especially concerned about an American Web site that posted an advertisement Wednesday requesting photographs or video clips of Mr. Kim’s murder. The site has previously posted images of Nicholas Berg, an American beheaded recently by Islamic militants.
The government’s measures can necessarily only extend as far as local service providers, but the ministry said “[Although] we cannot hold back all content, [our actions] could have a slight effect on easing the public trauma.”