MAMEmania: Chiller

In this series retro game expert Zac Bentz picks his top ten MAME games. If you’re a casual gaming fanboy MAME stands for Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator and is a software emulator that allows you to play ancient arcade games on modern hardware.

Chiller – 1986 – Exidy Inc.

Brought to us by the team that did similar light-gun shooters like “Crossbow” and “Crackshot”, “Chiller” takes a major right-turn down the path to hell. Set in the bowels of some sort of castle/mansion/yermom’sbasement environment, “Chiller” runs through four stages featuring various degrees of torture and man’s inhumanity to man…and woman.

The basic idea of the game is, well, to shoot the hell out ofeverything, but to also shoot a series of special items. You’ll have to figure out what the actual targets are for yourself, but don’t worry, it’s really easy. There’s even a helpful disembodied hand that floats around pointing to the special areas. When you hit the correct target you are rewarded with a special sound (and by “special” I mean some “sort-of distorted static,” just like most of the other sounds.) When all eight are collected you’ll once again be rewarded with a blast of noise, and then you’ll just have to make sure to empty the “monster meter” before the time runs out. You do this by shooting absolutely everything, “everything” mostly being the flesh of various helpless people who have somehow found themselves strapped down and tied up. This makes hitting them much easier. Like, eyes-closed or while-doing-you-taxes easy.

Once you’ve racked up (or racked off actually) enough points on the “Monster Meter” your remaining time will be added up in the “Ectoplasmic Tabulator.” It would seem that the creators of “Chiller” were oddly hesitant to call these something more apt like “blood points” or “gore gauge” or “number of times you can make that guy scream by shooting him in the thigh-o-meter.” The use of “monster” and “ectoplasmic” makes it seem more like you’re fighting a traditional zombie shooter than a human torture sim.

There are several different stages to blast through, from a tourture chamber, to some other tourture chamber to, well, you get the idea. This all culminates in a graveyear scene where you can actually shoot al the clothes off a woman’s torso, exposing here pixelated boobs just before you shoot them too. Nice.

That’s it. That’s “Chiller”. Not exactly chilling, but certainly messed up. It’s a crappy game, but the originality of the subject matter makes it a must play if just to be able to say you’ve played it. The sound is horrible but the control is excellent, almost Wii-like. The images are alright but very pixelated, which is probably for the best. No one really wants to play a photo-realistic game like this. If you do, then there’s seriously something wrong with you.

Zac Bentz is a regular contributor to the Japanese culture blog Japanator, runs his own Japanese music review blog ZB’s A-Z of J-Music and plays crazy electro-rock in The Surfactants. He lives in Duluth, MN with his wife, pets and a closet full of adventure.