247: A New Horror

[Jofe]

Horror should be more related to screwing with someone's mind than to make them jump from their chair. Which is pretty much what is standard now in video games and movies today. We are only waiting for that moment of surprise that will make us jump and then continue with the regular plot.

 

[DazZ.]

I've had Dear Esther installed for a very long time, I might actually get around to playing it now it's come up again.

 

[SextusMaximus]

Ha, good timing on the article, just when I was listening to the Korsakovia soundtrack

I love the mods of these guys, always great.

I had started the download for Dear Esther 5 minutes before coming across the article (35% - I'm excited!) creepy, huh?

 

[RobCoxxy]

I was actually that surprised by how awesome Dear Esther was, I emailed Dan Pinchbeck to congratulate him. Brief conversation ensued.

He's a nice guy and loves what he does, for that he deserves a pat on the back.

 

[Skops]

I'll give hem more of a try later after work, but as such far, Korsakovia is annoying "Christopher, Christopher! Christopher can you hear me?" <-- that right there, i swear i heard that 7x times in the matter of 5 minutes. Not to mention some pretty bland level design. I understand it's all about the "story" but in the 30 minutes I've played. As far as I'm concerned there isn't one.

Dear Esther is sopposed to be better, adn i look forward to it. But i was looking forward to Korsakovia too, so far its let me down a little.

 

[Asehujiko]

Well, korsakovia has certainly achieved it's goal of making me feel uneasy before I finished the first level...

Spoiler

...By way of migraine inducing stroboscopic lights all over the fucking place

They also make an enemy that i'd rather avoid then fight...

Spoiler

...Because it has a tiny hitbox, clips though pretty much everything, is lightning fast, has a model that isn't in the same place as the hitbox and every time it does something it releases a speaker busting scream that usually gets played over the narrative

 

[chickenlord]

...how do i play it?

 

[Asehujiko]

...how do i play it?

Download, unzip into your steam/steamapps/sourcemods folder, restart steam and run it from steam's "my games" page.

 

[McShizzle]

I highly recommend giving "Dear Esther" a look. Mind you I think it's meant for and will appeal more to a mature audience. There is an updated version coming but I think it is a ways away yet.

 

[Nalgas D. Lemur]

I was almost done with Korsakovia and about to start Dear Esther last year when the hard drive they were on died, and I keep not getting around to reinstalling them. Maybe this will finally get me to do it.

The introduction of Korsakovia is amazing and probably the best thing (to me, at least) I've seen in any horror game ever. The combat (when there is some) kind of sucks, but it turns out to be relatively easy once you figure out how to hit things. It was pretty frustrating before I got the hang of that, though, but nothing compared to the goddamn jumping puzzles, which nearly got me to stop playing. Those are the main problem with it. They're not fun, and they're not scary, and they're only hard because trying to pretend you're Mario when you're actually Gordon Freeman (not in a story sense; in a same engine, same point of view, same controls sense) just doesn't work, and this is coming from someone who actually thought Xen in HL1 was fun.

If you can get past that, though, the atmosphere is amazing, and the bizarre level design will screw with your head. It's also neat that it's (somewhat) based on a real neurological disorder [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korsakoff%27s_syndrome], and as someone familiar with it and how things like that work, it was pretty cool seeing it handled surprisingly well (if bent a bit for storytelling's sake) in the game, better than most similar things in TV/movies. It's worth checking out just for that and the way it's presented and develops over time. If you have to noclip your way through a couple jumping puzzles (as a last resort, preferably, since sometimes you can't do it just because that's not where you're supposed to go), so be it.

 

[StriderShinryu]

".. generally speaking, we've moved right away from horror to action in pretty much all our major horror franchises, and they are poorer as a result. Resident Evil 5? Alone in the Dark? They're just lame compared to their predecessors."

Haven't played either of the titles mentioned in the article, but this comment alone is enough to win me over. Resident Evil 5 (and I would argue 4 as well, though for slightly different reasons) is definitely lame compared to it's predecessors. It wasn't even a failed attempt at a horror game, it was a failed attempt at an action game that capitalized on the history of it's name alone.

 

[Z(ombie)fan]

Someone gets it! Survival horror might not be dead yet after all.

Its been while since I have played a game I could call that....

first: you should probably LOOK for games that are scary. like really theres at least one, often 3 or 4, truly scary games per year. look and you shall find.

now really.....


let me get this through the head of the universal gamer: IF ITS HORRORISH BUT NOT SCARY ITS SURVIVAL HORROR. otherwise its standard horror.


truly, if the first five games of a certain genre don't define the genre on ANY standard there is something wrong with that genre.

(i really dont alone in the dark OR resident evil are remotely scary.)

 

[Z(ombie)fan]

actually i change my mind. survival horror is a non-existant genre. if its a scary game, its a horror game. if its not, its should be categorized by whatever it is, even if it TRIES to be scary, but isn't.


so my message is: MERGE SURVIVAL HORROR WITH ACTION GENRE,FOR ONLY SLIENT HILL PULLS IT OFF.

 

[Z(ombie)fan]

fuck

its taking three posts to fully get my message right.

ok here goes: people say modern survival horror sucks and is too actiony, but look at the originals: in resident evil i was BLOWING AWAY THE CReatures! that isn't horror!
there are however games that know how to do horror: penumbra, the horror-based yahtzee games(that charismatic stallion has SKILL), and even my alltime best game EVAR: survival crisis z(though, it only gets scary in the end, where your switching in and out of earth, metalhell, and paddedcell/meat/whateverhell which is going be scary no matter HOW actiony or bland it it is).

 

[The Heik]

A New Horror

In their rush to fill the screen with high-definition gore and arm players with arsenals that would make Duke Nukem feel inadequate, horror games have become a lot less horrifying. But one U.K. developer is doing his best to change that trend. Lewis Denby speaks with Dan Pinchbeck, creator of Dear Esther and Korsakovia, about how horror games could truly live up to their name.

My ideal horror game would be one where you get no weapons at all, and must out-think, and out-stealth (which should be a challenge for players to accomplish) the baddies. Imagine, that, the terror of having a monster chasing after you, able to kill you in a single hit, and then the whole-hearted relief of luring it into the carefully laid and hidden trap (because the monster is smart enough to avoid the standard string-holding-a-two-ton-weight version). Now that would be a true horror game.

 

[MercenaryCanary]

I just downloaded Korsakovia upon reading this article.
It truly is terrifying in all the right ways.
I sent an e-mail to the developer of it.
I'll post his response here if he responds.

 

[LewisResolution]

My ideal horror game would be one where you get no weapons at all, and must out-think, and out-stealth (which should be a challenge for players to accomplish) the baddies. Imagine, that, the terror of having a monster chasing after you, able to kill you in a single hit, and then the whole-hearted relief of luring it into the carefully laid and hidden trap (because the monster is smart enough to avoid the standard string-holding-a-two-ton-weight version). Now that would be a true horror game.

Penumbra: Black Plague, then. Which you basically just exactly described, seemingly without realising.

 

[The Heik]

My ideal horror game would be one where you get no weapons at all, and must out-think, and out-stealth (which should be a challenge for players to accomplish) the baddies. Imagine, that, the terror of having a monster chasing after you, able to kill you in a single hit, and then the whole-hearted relief of luring it into the carefully laid and hidden trap (because the monster is smart enough to avoid the standard string-holding-a-two-ton-weight version). Now that would be a true horror game.

Penumbra: Black Plague, then. Which you basically just exactly described, seemingly without realising.

Really? I've never heard of the game, but if it's exactly what I idealized, then I shall definitely give it a serious look.

 

[beema]

Wow, I am pleasantly astonished to find Dear Esther mentioned prominently in a gaming article (I hadn't realized it was so well-known). It was an absolutely beautiful "game," and did an excellent job at showing just how wonderfully a story can be woven by using a video game as a base, and such a simple backdrop as well.
Pinchbeck's description of it is perfect, and I guess in a deeper sense, the feeling of despair and loss is a truer "horror" that we can relate to in real life. This however is a grand departure from what most "horror" games and film attempt to convey, so when I first saw Dear Esther being mentioned in the context of horror games, it kind of threw me for a loop.
I suppose the point of this article was to examine other ways of looking at what "horror" truly is, and other ways to approach it besides what we most commonly think of.
Good stuff
I have not played Korsakovia yet, but knowing it is from the same people who made Dear Esther I am excited to check it out.

 

[Delusibeta]

I appears that the Law of Horror Films (i.e. the less money you throw at it, the higher the odds that it winds up being really scary) applies to video games as well. Although a few games (thinking mainly of Eternal Darkness here) may buck that trend...