Effective Attempts at Horror

[Jennacide]

For the most part I agree. Though I won't qualify Dead Space as really scary as much as rather intense and suspenseful. A few sudden scares, but nothing like Silent Hill 2's notorious paranoia. The point should be made that danger doesn't equal horror. If that's the case, lots of games are horror. True horror is more psychological, trying to truely grasp what the hell is going on. That's the beauty in SH2, Fatal Frame, Alone in the Dark (old school ones, new one, not so much) and handful of other titles.

As much as I'd love to see something like z121231211 wants, with dynamic horror, it's really far off from possible. You'd need to create a super complex system like that in the upcoming Heavy Rain so the story can change depending on what happens, and then use a more interactive interface so you don't feel like you're just running down tracks. I would love to see it, but don't expect it for a long time yet.

 

[Sneaky-Pie]

Condemned did a decent job in creating a creepy environment at some points. Environment should always trump all other aspects in a horror game. The player needs to feel that he's there.


This part still makes me shudder.

 

[z121231211]

As much as I'd love to see something like z121231211 wants, with dynamic horror, it's really far off from possible. You'd need to create a super complex system like that in the upcoming Heavy Rain so the story can change depending on what happens, and then use a more interactive interface so you don't feel like you're just running down tracks. I would love to see it, but don't expect it for a long time yet.

I'm sure you could incoporate it into a linear game. Something as simple as "I don't remember THAT being there." could do wonders with the player's mind.

 

[tehweave]

I never found bioshock scary anyway, but the game was really fun.

I didn't find dead space scary either... Yes, it made me jump constantly, but it just got old after a while. Kind of like those "shock" websites like "The Maze" and that car commercial with a zombie at the end.

 

[Yokai]

The original Thief, waaay back in 1997 or whenever that was, did horror amazingly well. I remember Cragscleft Mine, the second level, was one of the scariest places I'd ever been in in a game. This is due to the fact that it's pitch dark, you can barely see five feet in front of you, and there are zombies walking around in the blackness. Zombies? Big deal, right? Zombies are barely scary anymore. Well, many may recall that with these zombies, you can't fucking kill them unless you have some holy water available. This is extremely hard to find and vials are very expensive, so I had almost none. If a zombie found me, I was screwed. I could hear them moaning horribly, and if the noises got closer, I started freaking out. Of course, I could only see them when they were right in front of my damn face.
This is why I consider Thief a game that does horror really well. You're presented with a very real danger that you have almost no way to stop--if you get in a straight fight with one of these things, it's game over for you. You know the danger is there, but you never know when or exactly where it's going to strike. This creates constant paranoia and fear as you try to figure out how to escape the darkened mine tunnels.
Plus, seeing their hideous rotten faces slowly emerge from the gloom is pure nightmare fuel.

 

[TheBXRabbit]

I really enjoyed Dead Space, but it wasn't scary for me. I just liked the action. Any time things got tense or risky, I remembered that my character is wearing a suit of armor with plenty of health packs and enough ammo to carve a hole through the entire Ishimura. Then I'd wonder why I couldn't actually do any damage to the walls of the ship or cause hull breaches through reckless fire, all while I killed off whatever originally worried me.

Seriously, that would've been an awesome gameplay mechanic.

Another game that actually DID scare me at one point was Half-Life 2. Maybe not fear, per se, but an enormous sense of dread during the Ravenholm level as I ran low on, and eventually out of, ammo for all my weapons except the crowbar and Gravity Gun while the number of killer zombies only seemed to increase.

 

[ButtonedDownParadox]

I got a little creeped out in the library level of Ghostbusters.

Okay so the set-up. There's this one children's reading room, right? Your little scanning device tells you there's an artifact so you're wandering around and...what's this? Smeared hand prints in a neat little line down the wall. You follow it to a room with a barricaded door and hear a scream of, "Help usss!"

Oooookay. So you follow it down to the other end and there's a little corner in which a ball floats up and there's the tunneling laughter of children. You got out of goggle vision expecting some little ghost child to come up and effectively ruin the tension but they maintain the course. The ball goes back down.

Going back to the room mentioned prior you manage to move the chair out of the way and get into the room. It's pretty much empty aside from a doll in a chair in the corner of the room. Door slams shut on you. Again you wait for something to pop out and be dealt with but nope. You just leave the side-room, leave the main room, and hear a child cheerfully say, "Byyyyye!"

Now why is this so effective? I think it's because it was purely an aside. It doesn't have to follow the rules of the game. Up to that point I would have book shelves fly at me, books themselves fly at me, and whatever else you can think of. This fell entirely outside of what I had known and from that there is an unease.

Think Mila's dark secret in Psychonauts. Same thing.

 

[bushwhacker2k]

Bioshock was kinda scary, but after you became nigh invincible, not so much.

 

[CrafterMan]

I agree with everything you said man, thanks for the read!

I still remember Silent Hill 2 scaring the absolute balls out of me though haha.

-Joe

 

[Daedalus1942]

Project Zero, System Shock 2, resident evil 4, silent hill 1 and 2, Resident evil code veronica: X, Dead Space, LittleBIGDeadspace (i love that game), Super Metroid (the last metroid is in captivity...).
I'd also have to say that even though it wasn't as good as the previous one, F.E.A.R. 2 did a decent job at times of creating a frightening atmosphere.
The one game that takes the cake for me though, hands down would have to be Aliens Vs Predator: 2 on pc.
That's a game that had me occasionally shitting bricks and i can't wait for the new one on ps3.
Anyone who hasn't played AvP2 needs to. Playing as a marine and falling down a garbage shoot, only to emerge in a room where there's like 50 unopened xenomorph eggs that are starting to hatch, is truly an experience i'll never forget.

 

[Marv21]

Well I do think that Dead Space had a few good ideas

1. Make Clatter in the soundtrack...even a clatter soundtrack to fuck the player up with thinking they are hearing something...AND DO NOT...DO NOT CHANGE THE MUSIC WHEN A MONSTER IS COMING...unless of course they see it!

2. Make everything look fucked up....I.E. Blood writings on the wall, and insane characters like Mercer etc.

3. The Environment was pretty good, but make the monsters a little bit more rare and recluse...so its something special when you fight them

 

[jaeger138]

I'm sure you could incoporate it into a linear game. Something as simple as "I don't remember THAT being there." could do wonders with the player's mind.

You could technically quote Left 4 Dead with it's AI director here, you'll never get the same thing twice (as long as you don't figure out how the AI director works). But in saying that, if Heavy Rain has managed it, then why can't a horror game do it? The prequel to Heavy Rain, Fahrenheit attempted dynamic play and didn't do a great job, and as far as I'm aware Heavy Rain works on the same system; there are finite paths to take, it's just knowing how to take them. There were multiple paths in Fahrenheit, just not that many, and I'll assume that Heavy is the same thing, just with more paths to take.

Dynamic gaming is an interest of mine, but I do agree that it will be a long time before we see a truly dynamic experience.

 

[ProfessorLayton]

Different people find different things scary. Some people could play Dead Space and BioShock in the middle of the night with the lights off and not have a problem with it, some people can't play them during the day. Also, Dead Space might not be the best game in the world, but at least I found it fun, and once you get down to it, that's what a game is supposed to be about.

 

[The Rockerfly]

-Snip-

Maybe put spoilers in the title? While most people have played it, some still haven't and the story and atmosphere while not scary is a very important part of Bioshock

 

[ProfessorLayton]

You could technically quote Left 4 Dead with it's AI director here, you'll never get the same thing twice (as long as you don't figure out how the AI director works). But in saying that, if Heavy Rain has managed it, then why can't a horror game do it? The prequel to Heavy Rain, Fahrenheit attempted dynamic play and didn't do a great job, and as far as I'm aware Heavy Rain works on the same system; there are finite paths to take, it's just knowing how to take them. There were multiple paths in Fahrenheit, just not that many, and I'll assume that Heavy is the same thing, just with more paths to take.

The AI director, while it's supposed to give you a different experience, is easy to figure out I have learned the patterns of the director and I know what useually spawns where. I can tell you the tank spawn points and where the molys and pipes usually spawn and I can tell the patterns. For example, in the finale of No Mercy when you're going through the hall, either a tank, witch, or horde spawns. Sometimes you get lucky and don't get anything, but I've basically learned all the patterns and such of almost every level. I know it's impossible to make a completely new experience every time, but I'm just saying that the AI director isn't perfect.

Heavy Rain would also make a great horror game and is possibly one of the best ideas in the gaming world. I hope that other developers use this idea to make more games like this.

 

[ProfessorLayton]

Maybe put spoilers in the title? While most people have played it, some still haven't and the story and atmosphere while not scary is a very important part of Bioshock

Like I said, different people find different things scary. I specifically avoided key story aspects to steer clear of spoilers. I only mentioned things that appear in the first level and even if you only beat the demo, you would see what I mentioned. I found the atmosphere very creepy and it had some sort of evil feeling to it all. You may not have found it creepy, but I did. What I wrote was about how they relied on tricking you into thinking you were in danger. Also, the thing in bold says "Why BioShock Isn't Scary".

 

[The Rockerfly]

Maybe put spoilers in the title? While most people have played it, some still haven't and the story and atmosphere while not scary is a very important part of Bioshock

Like I said, different people find different things scary. I specifically avoided key story aspects to steer clear of spoilers. I only mentioned things that appear in the first level and even if you only beat the demo, you would see what I mentioned. I found the atmosphere very creepy and it had some sort of evil feeling to it all. You may not have found it creepy, but I did. What I wrote was about how they relied on tricking you into thinking you were in danger. Also, the thing in bold says "Why BioShock Isn't Scary".

Okay I suppose you're right, just people with lack of spoilers on Bioshock threads have made me twitchy.

 

[Lazarus Long]

Call of Cthulhu: DCotE was great at inducing panic, especially in the hotel sequence. But I'm having a hard time thinking of anything that ever made me feel slow, creeping horror. Like figuring out what Soylent Green is made of.

The closest I can come up with is Manhunt, of all things. Standing in the dark with a plastic bag, watching an armed goon stare right into you was pretty intense. Or perhaps in Dead Rising when

Spoiler: Has anyone not beaten Dead Rising yet?

Brad finds himself gut-shot and unarmed in the Maintenance Tunnels.

 

[jaeger138]

The AI director, while it's supposed to give you a different experience, is easy to figure out I have learned the patterns of the director and I know what useually spawns where. I can tell you the tank spawn points and where the molys and pipes usually spawn and I can tell the patterns. For example, in the finale of No Mercy when you're going through the hall, either a tank, witch, or horde spawns. Sometimes you get lucky and don't get anything, but I've basically learned all the patterns and such of almost every level. I know it's impossible to make a completely new experience every time, but I'm just saying that the AI director isn't perfect.

Heavy Rain would also make a great horror game and is possibly one of the best ideas in the gaming world. I hope that other developers use this idea to make more games like this.

Yes, I haven't played Left 4 Dead due to lack of a 360 but I know many who have and they report the same thing, but for the more casual gamer who will only pick the game up a few times they may never work it out, but as I said in my post, it's different as long as you don't figure out how the AI Director works.

I look forward to gaming over the next decade, as I'm sure there will be many innovations but one genre that really needs an overhaul is horror, we've been writing horror since the beginning of time and it's a little dull these days. But in sayiong that, it's often good to llok to the past, see what people used to be scared of for something that's fresh to our senses. But again, we'll have to see how this develops and hope that more is made of some of the good idead in this thread.

 

[eels05]

I found the tension created in parts of SH2 to be pure genius.
The part where you leave the carpark and walk along that misty path with the rabid creature sounding like its about to rush you,had me nervously pausing and squinting into the mist.

Also the parts where the only way forward was to jump into yet another black hole in the floor,had me dreading the decision till I realised there was no alternate way to progress except down.

I also found parts of 'Call of Cthulhu Dark Corners' to be highly tense and effective.And to top it off your character would react to strange and dangerous situations with faster breathing,nervous muttering and blurred vision.Exposed to enough gore or horror situations he'd go crazy and kill himself.A fantastic idea which all added to the immersion.I'd actually probably rate it right up there with Silent hill 2 as my all-time favourite horror game.