Jimquisition: Scare Tactics

[malestrithe]

Dead Space is not scary. A game can't be scary if you are prepared to deal with the threat. I get that the weapons are ill suited to the job because they are more tools than weapons, but that does not matter. A Sledgehammer is meant to pulverize larger rocks into tiny ones, but that does not mean it won't pound a person into hamburger. The fact that I have a chance, albeit small, removes the horror aspects of it.

Also, a gun that shoots sawblades into the enemy renders the horror elements useless. How can I be scared when I have something that awesome in my arsenal?

Play the game with melee attacks and kinesis then. But we know you won't, will you? You have to have every bullet you can curb stomp out of a corpse, go out of your way to grab every power node you already know is waiting for you like a good little scavenger.

OT: Thank you for giving Dead Space some cred, Jim. A jump scare doesn't last, but honestly I couldn't care less. The game does an amazing job of establishing its atmosphere and I enjoyed every minute of it.

Sorry to disprove your stereotype of me, but I have already done that. It still was not scary.

Hate to break it to you, but when you know where the scares are, you are prepared for them.

You may find it scary and that's good on you. But I don't. It does not matter how I play it.

 

[Eric the Orange]

Here's the thing, and I think this is pretty critical, your not scared of the MONSTER, you're scared of being STARTLED. With the right build up ANYTHING could be scary.

 

[sethisjimmy]

I was hoping jump scares would be the topic when I saw the title, as I definitely agree with what Jim says on this one. Jump scares can absolutely be effective. They can be a big payoff for creating a creepy tense atmosphere, and they give the tension some climax. I'm not a huge fan of "unjustified" jump scares, for instance cat-scares, where the scare is something not really scary, like a cat jumping out at you, or someone friendly tapping you on the shoulder, but jump scares are I feel a big part of horror. Not to say they're necessary, but they can work very well.
I'm also glad you brought up Dead Space, as I love that game, and it definitely scared me when I played it. I feel like as much as it uses jump scares to the max at times, it just so much uses atmosphere and creepiness to set the tone.

Also, the OST is just pure genius, amazing stuff.


I love the horn blaring effect combined with the strings.

 

[Varis]

I generally hate the horror genre from the bottom of my heart. I just get scared SO easily. For example, one time when playing Morrowind I freaked out when dungeon-crawling in some cave where I had accidentally passed by a vampire that thought he'd give me a nice pat on the back... So, then give me Amnesia or some other actual Horror game and I'm crying in a corner after 5 minutes .

But yeah, those jump scares certainly have their place (except when in games that aren't horror >:E) and I appreciate the actual work that goes into making those things so scary. I nonetheless have played Slender, Amnesia and Penumbra (mostly because I was forced, but still.. ) and they have made me feel genuinely scared or at least anxious. I can certainly see what makes a horror game "good" but I just can't enjoy them. I wish I could though. The stories and the effort that's been put into making the perfectly scary and agonizing atmosphere would be a thing to behold, in a bit greater detail than the occasional drunken dash in to the world of horror.

 

[Weaver]

I don't think Doom 3's monster closets were effective at all. After about 2 hours you can basically call when and where the monsters will end up coming from. I found myself turning around at all the right times to kill the very obvious monster that would come from behind me.

 

[shadowstriker86]

cant stop laughing, you look like oogie boogie from nightmare before xmas in that mask lol

 

[Shanecooper]

I don't think it's jump scares that people have a problem with. It's the over use of jump scares that annoy people. Yes a jump scare can work, but not if you've used a dozen of them in the past minute. Use them too often and it starts to feel like clay bird shooting but with monsters.

 

[Trishbot]

I love horror games. From the cheap jump scares of Resident Evil to the slow-burn psychological tension of Silent Hill.

That's one thing I hate about the new Resident Evil games. RE5 and RE6 are simply NOT scary. They lack any sense of atmosphere, horror pacing, or slow-burn tension.

Jump scares, though, are GREAT if used correctly, and sparingly. Some of the best scares in games came from jump scares used in the right way. Silent Hill 1's room of glass and locker scene, Silent Hill 2's bathroom door, Resident Evil's dogs and windows, Condemned's locker body, Dead Space 2's crypt...

I think Jim's analogy of a kid with a jack-in-the-box sums it up best. You wind and you wind, but you can't quite tell WHEN it's coming to come out. You're bracing for it. You know it's coming. It's not the jump itself that's scary but rather the agonizing wait for what you KNOW is coming. The inevitable. The unstoppable. It's coming and you're helpless to prevent it. It makes you feel vulnerable and weak.

Good horror games still do this; they make you feel vulnerable and weak. Amnesia, Slender, Silent Hill. Hell, I've even seen some people here saying Dead Space isn't scary because they're an unstoppable force of nature, to which I'd say "raise the difficulty, cowards" because anything other than easy and normal strips you of your unlimited resources, health buffers, and makes every single encounter a life or death struggle where running away might just be a better option than facing it head-on.

What's funny is games that are scary to 99% of people, but that one gamer out there is just unfazed. I'm not terrified of Dead Space (I DO find it very scary), but I made my roommate play it and he was screaming and crying and running around the game like a chicken with its head cut off, dying very early on because he could not compose himself to face the enemy with his nerves intact.

Still, I want more games in the horror genre. With so many falling away or abandoning their horror roots, we need it now more than ever.

 

[DrunkOnEstus]

Snip

To be honest I'm completely envious. I wish I could get scared like that the way I used to, but I think I burned myself out on it. It's my favorite genre (though I hate horror movies) so I'm constantly exposing myself to the tricks of the trade.

My scariest games? A tie between Silent Hill 3 and Haunting Ground. Yes, I thought SH3 was scarier than 2, though 2 was the better game overall. That huge deformed troll-man who chases you in Haunting Ground scares the hell out of me when very little does anymore. Hiding under a bed, watching his ankles as he frantically tries to find you? That's how you do that shit right.

As always, great job Jim, as yes you do know just what scares gamers. Ricitello, man of the year? FUUUUUUU

 

[Shiro No Uma]

Great costume man!

I don't know if anyone is in the same camp as me, but I used to not do horror very well because I would take it too seriously. Other forms of violence were easer for me to handle, maybe because of my understanding of social standards that I learned form movies and TV, but I was very sheltered from horror films while I was growing up. Gaming to me was very "Nintendo Clean" (Mario jumping on Mushroom heads) and Disneyesque, so after renting the original Silent HIll I had to take it back after just an hour of playing it because it was way too much for me. That said, I had to try Dead Space because I'm a huge sci-fi fan (Space Rules!). Though I couldn't sleep right for weeks, it was the best gaming experience I've ever had. As I'm not as well read on the subject of jump scares and monster closets as most of the people on this forum, I'm curious as to what people might not like about Dead Space.

 

[Lord Draenor]

Thought this episode was pretty meh but then, the ending. Apple gaming...noooooo

 

[Innegativeion]

The thing with jump scares is, yeah, they can be really fucking awful and REALLY fucking obnoxious. In movies, at least, they tend to be done poorly more often than not in my experience.

I agree though, they can be used to excellent and memorable effect with the right style.

Best jump scare of my gaming career, this ************ right here;

Spoiler: OH GOD WHAT IS IT?! TAKE IT AWAY OH GOD WHY WHY WHY?!?!

If you've been to planet phaaze, you know what I'm talking about.

With all the atmosphere of the metroid prime games, a jump scare like that works tremendously.

 

[Dana22]

Really ? Dead Space 2 ? Doom 3 was scary, for all things you mentioned. But Dead Space 2 is complete opposite, mainly because of the de-limbing (is that a word ?) gimmick mechanic.

 

[Nurb]

Just WATCHING someone play SCP-087 gave me the creeps. One guy made over 300 flights of stairs!

And I'm glad someone acknowledged how well the scares worked in Doom 3. Like when I saw a new weapon sitting on the far end of the room, such as the plasma gun... I knew something was going to happen when I picked it up, but I didn't know what and I looked around for a good minute or two before getting the courage to grab it... then thelights shut down and the zombies came out. Scared the shit out of me.

 

[Do4600]

I must disagree. Games that are a "train" of jump scares simply don't work. Jump scares depreciate too quickly for them to be effective on sober individuals. A three minute train ride works well enough, but when you're playing a game for three or more hours they simply don't work. Doom 3 is a great example of this, it's effective for the first 30 minutes or so, but after that point your mind becomes steeled to the stimuli and you no longer react to monster closets. After that point the only thing that's unnerving is the excellent sound design.

The problem is that jump scares force a person into a hidey hole in their mind until they expect to see a monster in every crevice, behind every door and to appear behind you after every powerup. This isn't paranoia, because a horror game that has nothing but jump scares necessarily needs to overuse the jump scare to make it's fear quota, so the monsters will be behind every door, in every crevice etc. in the same way they that are in Doom 3

Speaking of which, this is why F.E.A.R. effectively used jump scares, because you would only encounter them after a period of FPS action. It played with your expectation. You would be looking around every corner for a squad of soldiers, which is what made it so unnerving when you would look around the corner and see girl covered in blood two feet away staring into your soul. It constantly changed your expectations of your current situation. Sometimes you'd be working on a valve and gate puzzle or something and just after you get through the gate you'd find yourself in the middle of a room with eight soldiers looking directly at you. Other times after you just karate kicked the crap out of a soldier and you turn the corner and find yourself in a warehouse covered with symbols written in blood and a little girl would be pointing at you menacingly. In Doom 3 you can only expect imps and zombies, constantly, same thing with Dead Space.

The most frightening games I've ever played are constantly taking steps to bring you out of your hidey hole, usually by introducing a new mind fuck so you're wide open for the next scare. There are few games that do this, because most horror games oppressively browbeat you into a steely paranoia that makes you so ready for everything to be the worst thing ever that when the next attempt to scare you is an imp stepping out of a storage closet it's defeated without a moments contemplation or feeling.

 

[Baresark]

Good show. And no finer points was ever made about the psychology of jump scares. I used to fight and my coach used to ask me, "when you hurt someone enough times with a tactic, what do you do?" To which I would respond, "keep doing it?". At which point he would say, "no, you go ahead and let them think it's coming and you hurt them in other ways". There was this part in FEAR. You get the radio distortion like Alma was going to jump out at you and I would frantically look around for her. The distortion goes away and I think I missed it. I go to go down a latter and as soon as I turn around, BAM! I jumped out of my seat. It was masterful. Being able to anticipate them lets the game set the pace. And when it doesn't come,you let your guard down, and that is when it happens.

 

[Do4600]

Honorable mention goes to STALKER SoC for the underground levels. No scarier moment than when

Spoiler

the controller first attacks and the camera zooms in on his face

By far one of the most frightening moments I've experienced in gaming.

 

[Verkula]

What jumpscares? Dead Space had 1 jump scare, at the end. Plus whoever said every room had predictably the same scares is just wrong. There were a lot of times in that game were the developers are just fucking with you. Probably my favourite is at one of the workstations, now i did NOT expect that, at all.

Now Dead Space 2...that was indeed predictable. I remember in DS1 i was waiting when they play the "necro jumps into the elevator from the vent above", and it never happened. It did in the second game just as expected.

By the way, Silent Hill 2 wasnt scary either...no, i mean its one of my favourite horror games but just as other games has their own way of predictable scares, SH games has the same with the "usually nothing happens even though the music and sound effects are fucked up" style.

 

[Alssadar]

The episode reminded me of when I was playing STALKER SoC yesterday, and I was doing the part with the Brain Scorcher.
I'm not sure whether it was scripted or not, but it just so happened to be night time, but there was a thunderstorm out. Nonetheless, the Scorcher.
Basically, the screen gets static, sounds are muffled, and you start seeing things. And when I mean seeing things, it's mirages of beasts that attack your mental life--rendering your vision (and sanity) frayed. You gotta shoot them in order to make them disappear, but my silenced weapons were running low on ammo. Therefore, I had to use normal guns, alerting everyone in the complex to my location. And it's not enough that Monolith has a couple crack-shot snipers on your ass...
Nonetheless, Lab x-10 beneath the scorcher also held its fear. Being knowledgeable, I knew there was going to be Bloodsuckers (Invisible mutants that 2-shot you), all I needed to do was lure them to me so I could kill them. Running through the halls, waiting for that blood curling scream was a real horrifying experience.
Also, after getting lost, I read on the Wiki that there were 4 Bloodsuckers in the lab. I only found 3.
Where is the last one Right behind you.

 

[Jimothy Sterling]

Massive thank you to everybody who enjoyed my Scarecrow performance on Jimquisition today. He's my favorite comic book character so it meant a lot to me to do him even a vague sense of justice. One person said it was his second favorite version after Arkham Asylum's, which is a massive honor.

So yeah, quite happy this day!