I agree that jump scares can work; I stopped playing Rescue on Fractalus back in my 'tweens when the game stopped cluing you in that one of those damn aliens was going to jump up in front of your windshield.
The problem I have is that games like Doom 3 and Dead Space (especially the former) have such a short menu of scare tactics that they become annoyances from a game-play standpoint, annoyances that persist long after their ability to actually scare me have faded. Yes, Dead Space, I know I died; can we skip rubbing it in with this long-ass animation sequence for once? Oh look, Doom 3 is offering me a little cache of supplies out in the open. I wonder if this time grabbing it isn't going to trigger an ambush?
Actually, no; no, I don't.
So every time I pick up ammo, I backpedal a few paces and prepare to feed the horror d'jour a face-full of buckshot; every time I see a human corpse that might jump up and say boo, I pre-emptively carve it into nibblets. Not because I'm scared, or scared of being scared, but because the same tactics that are attempting to scare me are making me grind my teeth at another cheap attempt at chewing off a few life points or a few rounds of ammo in desperation fire.
It strikes me that these things could be more effective in many cases if they weren't a) rote and b) punishing. If the games were more willing to reward players for daring behavior that will expose them to scary things rather than make it advantageous to minimize them, we could enjoy the scares and feel a kind of empowerment from testing the limits of our own courage. I know that some people will argue that horror and empowerment don't remotely belong on the same page (and others will argue that this is part of the reason so many horror games, torn between the apparent contradictions of those two words, fail), but I think there's something to be said for recognizing the player's own contribution to the atmosphere the designer is trying to create. I think it can be much more effective to make players complicit in the experience, rather than trying to make them feel helpless.
The problem I have is that games like Doom 3 and Dead Space (especially the former) have such a short menu of scare tactics that they become annoyances from a game-play standpoint, annoyances that persist long after their ability to actually scare me have faded. Yes, Dead Space, I know I died; can we skip rubbing it in with this long-ass animation sequence for once? Oh look, Doom 3 is offering me a little cache of supplies out in the open. I wonder if this time grabbing it isn't going to trigger an ambush?
Actually, no; no, I don't.
So every time I pick up ammo, I backpedal a few paces and prepare to feed the horror d'jour a face-full of buckshot; every time I see a human corpse that might jump up and say boo, I pre-emptively carve it into nibblets. Not because I'm scared, or scared of being scared, but because the same tactics that are attempting to scare me are making me grind my teeth at another cheap attempt at chewing off a few life points or a few rounds of ammo in desperation fire.
It strikes me that these things could be more effective in many cases if they weren't a) rote and b) punishing. If the games were more willing to reward players for daring behavior that will expose them to scary things rather than make it advantageous to minimize them, we could enjoy the scares and feel a kind of empowerment from testing the limits of our own courage. I know that some people will argue that horror and empowerment don't remotely belong on the same page (and others will argue that this is part of the reason so many horror games, torn between the apparent contradictions of those two words, fail), but I think there's something to be said for recognizing the player's own contribution to the atmosphere the designer is trying to create. I think it can be much more effective to make players complicit in the experience, rather than trying to make them feel helpless.