I was today years old when I realised that yes, AM1 did actually model an intestine poking out of Sam’s gut wound in THOTD1

it’s there in the early concept artwork and the Saturn port’s manual does mention it, but I honestly mistook it as like, flayed skin.

It’s actually quite gruesome to look at even with the now quaint graphical quality; it’s easily the mist visceral detail on any of the zombies in the series, barring maybe punchy dude’s in 4 that straight up have a glass shard sticking out their forehead

also I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again; the visual style/“aesthetic” of the in game models and textures in both THOTD1 and 2, but especially 1, is so beyond cool it’s unreal and every single zombie design from both games is, in my view, deserving of being Iconic

despite literally having no actual discernible personalities, given they’re literally mass cloned walking corpses that exist to be blown to bits for points, each design practically oozes character/personality on its own via clever design and inference

I’m sure I’ve rambled about THOTD’s music plenty of times iver the years and have done for the gameplay too, but I need to ramble about the visuals more often cos especially in 1 and 2, the visuals still hold up as Cool and Chic despite their now primitive appearence

like they’re not just “good for the time” or something you can only appreciate through nostalgia; they still look good now, they still play to Joe Public now, and the strength of the actual design work and rendering on the models, their textures,

and honestly even the actual animations (again, primitive as they are) manage to make up for any technical shortcomings tenfold by just being so effortlessly stylish

and man, the actual WORLDS and areas of the first two games too; the fusion of bleak gothic and cutting edge sci fi the first game has going on is *chefs kiss* EXCELLENTÉ. the titular house looks wonderful, with almost every actual scene you stop at being iconic in its way,

and the gradual transition between the two ends of its aesthetic is so cleverly done it almost makes me mad

2’s sort of gritty Victoria Europe meets Sleazy Urban Living is also really cool and likewise basically every moment of the game looks memorable, too; I don’t love it as much as 1’s vibe and feel the enemies are handled better (whereas 1 id say enemies & levels are near equal),

but it’s still good. real good. good enough i think people should still be using both these two games, particularly their enemies, as reference material if they wanna see what good horror visual design looks like

I just really lovd these games ok let me live