Poll: Was Dead Space scary?

[asteroth21nox]

I completed the game a couple times, but I have been playing horror games a looong time. If you want REALLY scary...play the fatal frame games.

 

[dududf]

Yeah I shat bricks.

I blame that on me being a total pussy with scary stuff.

 

[Jekken6]

It's pretty scary in the first 3 chapters, but the rest is tension, not exactly fear. The tension is mostly because of how fucking good the sound design is.

 

[Georgeman]

Yes you are right. It could turn out annoying indeed, but like I said, it's an idea. Whether an idea succeeds or not depends entirely on the execution. If the execution succeeds, it can become brilliant. If it fails, then it becomes annoying and pretentious.

And the motion tracker is an interesting way to implement this!

Just another random thought here, people complained about how predictible the enemies were and where they'd attack. So how about an enemy that comes in pairs? One hides in a vent that you briefly see and therefore are cautious approaching it. But then, the second one will bang on the inside of the wall next to you, making a huge bulge, distracting you thinking the enemy is coming through the wall. But then the first one comes out the vent and attacks.

A random thought, I don't claim it to be original, though I do say I felt quite smart when I thought of it ;P I recall a similar enemy detailed in the preview on GameInformer of DS2, it signals you with loud noises, but if you turn a wrong corner you get attacked by another one and if you're too close it explodes or something.

Hey, that's actually a very sneaky and evil idea... but it doesn't look like it belongs on horror territory too much. More startling than scary. At least, that's how I see it. But who knows, perhaps they could make it scary if, for example, they decided to fuck around with you more by trying to confuse your hearing.

 

[Caligulove]

Scary in the conventional ways of things coming at you- not seeing them or not expecting it entirely. But there was nothing that really sat with me or kept me up at night.

So definitely is a scary game to play with other people or alone without the lights off... it was a good game but I prefer scary games that kind of fuck with me and leave me not wanting to go to bed for fear of dreaming... LOVE that.

But then i love horror

 

[coldshadow]

it was frightning not scary.

 

[Jumplion]

Yes you are right. It could turn out annoying indeed, but like I said, it's an idea. Whether an idea succeeds or not depends entirely on the execution. If the execution succeeds, it can become brilliant. If it fails, then it becomes annoying and pretentious.

And the motion tracker is an interesting way to implement this!

Just another random thought here, people complained about how predictible the enemies were and where they'd attack. So how about an enemy that comes in pairs? One hides in a vent that you briefly see and therefore are cautious approaching it. But then, the second one will bang on the inside of the wall next to you, making a huge bulge, distracting you thinking the enemy is coming through the wall. But then the first one comes out the vent and attacks.

A random thought, I don't claim it to be original, though I do say I felt quite smart when I thought of it ;P I recall a similar enemy detailed in the preview on GameInformer of DS2, it signals you with loud noises, but if you turn a wrong corner you get attacked by another one and if you're too close it explodes or something.

Hey, that's actually a very sneaky and evil idea... but it doesn't look like it belongs on horror territory too much. More startling than scary. At least, that's how I see it. But who knows, perhaps they could make it scary if, for example, they decided to fuck around with you more by trying to confuse your hearing.

Oy, I could just imagine, dozens of bulges through the wall, smashing noises from all around, not knowing where the enemy will come from until suddenly BAM! is comes from behind and R.Y.N.O (Rips Ya a New One (Go Ratchet and Clank!))

What I did read in the article on DS2 is that they're working on the pacing now. Instead of the player constantly worried about what is going to be around the corner, there are going to be moment (or at least they claim there will be) where you're utterly helpless and a complete badass ripping more new ones off of Necromorphs. While that may sound very unsettling, replaying through Dead Space now makes me understand what exactly they're trying to accomplish with that thinking. Obviously, as a novice in the horror genre, I'm always expecting something to happen even if nothing will. But with proper pacing of DS2, you could get just enough gasp of air here and there to keep you from turning off the game every 30 minutes (which is what I did originally).

I think the reason why the original quotee said that people would only play 30 minutes at a time was because there was always something going on, therefore making the player run out of breath and taking a break after a while. Originally, I played Dead Space about 30 or so minutes at a time, not because I was scared (sometimes...) but mainly because I needed to take a break from the the blunt consistency of the atmosphere and how it was like a jog through a hallway that always repeats. With better pacing in DS2 (or so I hope), you could play in much longer intervals as you will sometimes be walking and sometimes be sprinting for your life, but in a much better pace.

I hope I made sense, I think I may have jumbled over myself here.

EDIT: One thing Dead Space did excelent, though, was the sound design and atmosphere. As I said before, I thought the moments where you played in the vacuum of space with only your labored breath being heard was absolutely brilliant and really made you fear for what will come up behind you.

 

[Ben Legend]

Its not really scary. Now, silent hill is scary. You need the supense, not just the random noises and monsters randomly jumping out.

 

[Spiner909]

I was more scared by ambient sounds and voices than actual "boo" moments.

 

[Georgeman]

Oy, I could just imagine, dozens of bulges through the wall, smashing noises from all around, not knowing where the enemy will come from until suddenly BAM! is comes from behind and R.Y.N.O (Rips Ya a New One (Go Ratchet and Clank!))

What I did read in the article on DS2 is that they're working on the pacing now. Instead of the player constantly worried about what is going to be around the corner, there are going to be moment (or at least they claim there will be) where you're utterly helpless and a complete badass ripping more new ones off of Necromorphs. While that may sound very unsettling, replaying through Dead Space now makes me understand what exactly they're trying to accomplish with that thinking. Obviously, as a novice in the horror genre, I'm always expecting something to happen even if nothing will. But with proper pacing of DS2, you could get just enough gasp of air here and there to keep you from turning off the game every 30 minutes (which is what I did originally).

I think the reason why the original quotee said that people would only play 30 minutes at a time was because there was always something going on, therefore making the player run out of breath and taking a break after a while. Originally, I played Dead Space about 30 or so minutes at a time, not because I was scared (sometimes...) but mainly because I needed to take a break from the the blunt consistency of the atmosphere and how it was like a jog through a hallway that always repeats. With better pacing in DS2 (or so I hope), you could play in much longer intervals as you will sometimes be walking and sometimes be sprinting for your life, but in a much better pace.

I hope I made sense, I think I may have jumbled over myself here.

I think I get what you say. One other complaint I had with the original Dead Space was that it had repetitive environments. I haven't seen so many copy-pasted gray rooms before in a video game other than the first Halo. It was also a bit too easy on Normal difficulty and thus got a bit boring here and there. Perhaps a bit less "Now shoot the monsters" and a bit more "Fuck your mind" moments might enrich the experience.

 

[Ham_authority95]

Only if I played it in the dark alone

 

[haruvister]

The only scary place in the world is your own imagination. A film or game can only be regarded as scary if it can tap into that. Like Yahtzee said at the time, Dead Space is startling, not scary.

 

[Arkhangelsk]

I never played so I'll ask you guys.

Resident Evil 4 was a great thiller/scary game for me. Would Dead Space give me the same experience? If so, then I really should look into buying it.

it follows RE4 formula to the letter but it dose it so well that I say you should go get it.
And if you want a game that will scar your soul go get Silent Hill 4: The Room.
Fuck SH2, SH2 had the best story by far, but SH4 was the scariest.
Its the only game that I could not finish, and I dont scare easily.

I wasn't really scared by SH4. The only reason I stopped playing was that it was so bad in design that I couldn't stand it. The controls were frustrating, the main character seems like he can't even walk and chew gum at the same time, and the game was more set on annoying me than creeping me.

 

[ProfessorLayton]

I thought that at times the atmosphere was done incredibly well, but too often did it go back to jump scares. I mean, why couldn't you just keep going in a creepy environment instead of having to rely on jump scares. The atmosphere was very good and creepy, but almost all of the real scares were just "BOO!" scares. It was more... startling than scary. I hope that they use the environment to their advantage next round, but from what I read is that they were going to make it less scary and make it more like an action game which I think is really lame. We've got a billion or so action games for the 360 and maybe 4 or 5 really good survival horror games, the first Dead Space being one of them. I hope that they make the second one scarier instead of making it more actiony.

 

[Mako144]

You know, I never actually played the game being a total wuss for anything remotely scary. (Seriously, when I was younger I couldn't even beat the Great Deku Tree in OoT because of the Giant Skullatullas in it.) However, an interesting thing after reading this whole thread is all the people who say, "It wasn't scary, it was tense, surprising, thrilling, atmospheric etc." It's just interesting to read all this variation to a single emotion.

 

[Et3rnalLegend64]

I wasn't all that scared. The mutated screaming-guy-stuck-to-wall kinda weirds me out, and there are a few jump moments, but it's not actually that scary. More like "crap, this is gonna suck" when I run into a room filled with more zombies than I can handle.

 

[Vrex360]

Well I had a lot of fun with Dead Space, it's another one of those games that just appealed to me, but it did not leave me terrified. As fun as it was and as cool as the dismemberment and stuff was there was no denying that I wasn't all that scared by it.

I still look forward to the sequel though, here's hoping they take a lesson from the first and axe any concept of making more meteor shooting sections.

 

[Vrex360]

I thought that at times the atmosphere was done incredibly well, but too often did it go back to jump scares. I mean, why couldn't you just keep going in a creepy environment instead of having to rely on jump scares. The atmosphere was very good and creepy, but almost all of the real scares were just "BOO!" scares. It was more... startling than scary. I hope that they use the environment to their advantage next round, but from what I read is that they were going to make it less scary and make it more like an action game which I think is really lame. We've got a billion or so action games for the 360 and maybe 4 or 5 really good survival horror games, the first Dead Space being one of them. I hope that they make the second one scarier instead of making it more actiony.

I have to agree with this, I liked Dead Space as a horror game not an action game even though it did feel kind of action packed at points. I'd rather see Dead Space 2 have more of an emphasis on fear than fierce action. It's kinda the same reason I'm unimpressed by all the promotional work for Bioshock 2, as much as I loved the first Bioshock, I much prefered it as a mystery game not an action game.
That said, I'm a Halo fan so obviously I love action. I'm just saying some games are better without it.
So yeah, I share your hopes good sir.

 

[evilartist]

I jumped at a couple of bits where the aliens poped out of nowhere and shit myself when undead Nicola jumps you at the end but apart from that it wasn't scary as such

Meh, I don't consider "jumping" as scared. That's just getting startled; that can happen to anyone. It's an instinctual reflex of self-defense, not genuine fear. I get startled occasionally, but I don't get scared of monsters, or dark quiet corridors.

I never said jumping was scary :S

Sorry, didn't mean to put words in your mouth. It's just that, with the title of the thread and peoples' common tendency to associate jumping/startling with being scared, I just wanted to make this technicality clear for anyone here who actually compares the two. Dead Space was much like Doom 3 and many of today's horror movies; it's all about cheap scares with sudden jolts of noise and sound.

 

[MiserableOldGit]

The only scary thing about that game was how successful it was- it was a pathetic mish-mash of other peoples work-the bad guys look they were plundered from Geigers cast off bin, which is fine as they'll feel right at home on the Nostromo, which lets face it, is what that ship was. The story line was robbed wholesale from Event Horizon, with a few other elements pilfered from here and there, and the characters were two dimensional plot devices I couldn't give a shit about. I got as far as the asteroid shooty bit, at which point I'd promised myself if the game told me to go to area B to press button C, killing bad guys D through to G en route, I'd turn it off. It did, so I did.
The problem is it doesnt know what it wants to be- it tries to give the impression that its a survival horror, but at the same time it can't bear not to be loaded to the gills with powerful guns and equipment, which means the bad guys are reduced to wandering round looking all disturbing until the power-armoured nutter rolls in and toasts them- I'd rather be playing Doom3 any day of the week; that was a game that knew its own strengths and weaknesses - shock value and visceral violence-if theres a bad guy, it won't be staggering round trying to scare me, it'll be chucking a fireball or leaping at my throat while I get right in its hostile little face with my shotgun