A lot of this makes sense. I'd actually say that zombie survial-horror like RE4 and L4D are the exceptions to the rules, where you're going for thrilling scares instead of creepy scares, but other than that, you're spot on.
The Common Mistakes of Horror Games
- Thread starter Yahtzee Croshaw
- Start date
It makes sense, but cutscenes are often used to keep flow. Remember back in your Bad Company 2 review you mentioned the scene in which you got killed by the stream of mortars (also, I only died once on that mission, so I must be awesome or something is up) and how you died a whole bunch on a part that was supposed to be a quick and intense scene? If that were a cutscene I think it would have added more to the experience. No flow breaking deaths where you have to load and try again, no getting tangled up in the scenery and getting lost and making the quick and exciting music play while you try desperately to get back on track. Just you and what the developer wanted the scene to play out like. Admittedly, if they wanted to do something like that they would probably be better off just making a movie but you must remember that most people are idiots and while uber leet gamers might be able to not get lost on a place like that most people would. It has to be easily accessible for everyone and sometimes that means taking control away and showing people what they should be looking at. And back to the F.E.A.R. 2 review where you said that often times there would be sections where the scary music would play and you would be looking at a wall and having played F.E.A.R. 2 I know exactly what you're talking about but in that sense you have to admit that had the scary vision appearing in a cutscene that would have been a lot easier for the developer to get across. Especially in a game like F.E.A.R. 2 where you'll often be looking for ammo and health and that time-slowing stuff in areas and sometimes you'll accidentally set off the ghost of something that's supposed to be scary. That's mostly because the designers were not doing their jobs very well because whenever Fallout 3 wanted you to look at something, it put you in a place where you wouldn't normally be looking down at the ground searching for cigarettes or books and then positions whatever action it wants you to look at in a place where you'll see it. That was an example of good design, while most people aren't good designers. Cutscenes are often needed to show the gamer something important and often have action that would break flow if you die unless it suddenly made you invincible just to keep the pace. And there's stuff like in the opening of Left 4 Dead where Louis presses his back up against the door to keep the Witch inside which is impossible to do in the game.
Everything else I agree with, especially the music stopping when all the guys are dead. That is similar to what you said in Silent Hill: Shattered Memories where there would only be monsters in a certain area so you'll know when to expect it. The least they could have done was in an area you once thought was safe spawned some bad guys to catch you off guard.
Everything else I agree with, especially the music stopping when all the guys are dead. That is similar to what you said in Silent Hill: Shattered Memories where there would only be monsters in a certain area so you'll know when to expect it. The least they could have done was in an area you once thought was safe spawned some bad guys to catch you off guard.
I could not agree more about cut scene action sequences. That is the dumbest shit ever, I remember saying "Wow that looks like fun" at one point during... I think it was "Resident Evil 5". It was frustrating.
Spot on as mostly-usual.
Battle music (or the term I use). Absolutely spot on. I bloody hate that stuff. Some games are actually polite enough to have that music track as a separate music track that you can shut off. I generally just turn off all music and have a much more suspenseful time than with it on. Most times music just drones on and on like I am wearing an in-game iPod. I want to hear all the monsters lurking about...not listen to the latest tunes of the world. Oblivion was this...I turned off the music after about 15 minutes and the atmosphere was SO much nicer. I turn off the radio in all Silent Hill games and the music as they warn me of too much stuff. I actually quite like the music of the Silent Hill games, but music generally doesn't fit properly in the gameworld for me. I want the character to reflect what I am doing...listening to music is not what I want to be doing when I am trying to located a skinless dog in the fog.
As for Dead Space...same thing. I am actually currently playing it for the first time (I know...I am desperately behind). Once again a half hour after starting I turned off all the music. The "battle music" was just terrible at ruining the atmosphere. The game has incredible environmental sounds...why cover them with music (no matter how good or bad) that also ramps up BEFORE I get in a fight.
Turn off all the music in games if you don't currently do. I think many of you will be actually very surprised how much more effective the immersion is.
(Oh...I did leave the music on for Quake...that music rocked. Oh, and Half Life (series) because Valve actually understand how to use music in games. Tomb Raider (the original) was actually kinda like Half Life in that way too).
Oh and I hate when games don't let me turn off music.
Battle music (or the term I use). Absolutely spot on. I bloody hate that stuff. Some games are actually polite enough to have that music track as a separate music track that you can shut off. I generally just turn off all music and have a much more suspenseful time than with it on. Most times music just drones on and on like I am wearing an in-game iPod. I want to hear all the monsters lurking about...not listen to the latest tunes of the world. Oblivion was this...I turned off the music after about 15 minutes and the atmosphere was SO much nicer. I turn off the radio in all Silent Hill games and the music as they warn me of too much stuff. I actually quite like the music of the Silent Hill games, but music generally doesn't fit properly in the gameworld for me. I want the character to reflect what I am doing...listening to music is not what I want to be doing when I am trying to located a skinless dog in the fog.
As for Dead Space...same thing. I am actually currently playing it for the first time (I know...I am desperately behind). Once again a half hour after starting I turned off all the music. The "battle music" was just terrible at ruining the atmosphere. The game has incredible environmental sounds...why cover them with music (no matter how good or bad) that also ramps up BEFORE I get in a fight.
Turn off all the music in games if you don't currently do. I think many of you will be actually very surprised how much more effective the immersion is.
(Oh...I did leave the music on for Quake...that music rocked. Oh, and Half Life (series) because Valve actually understand how to use music in games. Tomb Raider (the original) was actually kinda like Half Life in that way too).
Oh and I hate when games don't let me turn off music.
I noticed an extra word in the description. What's up with that?
And I seriously agree with you, especially with regard to the music.
Great tension music design is this: At certain points throughout the game the music style (instruments, tempo, etc.) changes, typically at the start of a new zone/level. The first few instances of the music creating tension should be timed or programmed at a point of action, to introduce the player to the idea that the music is an indicator of threat.
Pretty standard right? Here's the genius: After the first few instances, the music plays semi-randomly so as to generate stress in new areas when no enemies are present, and if timed correctly (based on assumed play speed) the random music playing can sync up with actual encounters, further enforcing the construct that the music plays a role in predicting what's about to happen.
Hard to do? Definitely, but worth it since that's the whole idea of horror games.
Pretty standard right? Here's the genius: After the first few instances, the music plays semi-randomly so as to generate stress in new areas when no enemies are present, and if timed correctly (based on assumed play speed) the random music playing can sync up with actual encounters, further enforcing the construct that the music plays a role in predicting what's about to happen.
Hard to do? Definitely, but worth it since that's the whole idea of horror games.
Damn did you hit the bullseye with your last comment. Silence is treated as a disease by major Hollywood producers, they feel that since the drama and the plot itself is not captivating enough, to grab (and keep) their audience's attention they have to constantly punctuate the scene with music. To be fair though, sometimes the composition is warranted, as it was in Star Wars and TLotR---but I don't think I would want any musical score distracting me from Faustess' monologue,Falseprophet said:
His comments about Dead Space were absolutely true, and I even found it as I played.
"Hm. A twisting corridor with plenty of entry points for me to be ambushed. Hey, let me try something."
(I close my eyes and walk forward. I hear a violin, open my eyes, blast the monster)
"...Yup. Works like a charm."
FEAR had one or two good moments that went off utter surprise. For instance, they put health and ammo down this small alleyway for you to take. When you grab it and turn back, Alma is there. BOO! (vanish)
"Hm. A twisting corridor with plenty of entry points for me to be ambushed. Hey, let me try something."
(I close my eyes and walk forward. I hear a violin, open my eyes, blast the monster)
"...Yup. Works like a charm."
FEAR had one or two good moments that went off utter surprise. For instance, they put health and ammo down this small alleyway for you to take. When you grab it and turn back, Alma is there. BOO! (vanish)
Loosely, isn't that what the radio static in Silent Hill does? With Silent Hill, you argued that being told there's a monster without knowing where it is heightens the tension. In principle, there doesn't seem to be any reason why scary music couldn't accomplish the same thing. It'd be a bit less novel, admittedly. And of course it's a metagame reason, so it's less immersive, but the criticism appears to be more about how it warns you than anything else.Yahtzee said:
What's kind of funny is that I feel like Dead Space did pretty much exactly this. I remember one time when the build up culminates in some spray machinery coming on to water the plants in hydroponics. I remember another scene where you're walking down a hallway, the fans all loudly overload and blow out, signaling something big.... and then nothing at all happens.man-man said:
Yahtopia? I want to live there. Its the home of the perfect game, where all the characters have engaging, meaningful actions and no scene is wasted on the insipid quick time event of doom!
You'd think there'd be more horror game titles. Horror in videogames is easy. In a film or a book you have to spend time characterizing the hero so the viewers relate when a big hairy monster gives him a purple nurple, but in a game the audience automatically has a stake in the hero's safety. Half the work's been done for you.
I disagree, if anything I'd say you might even have it backwards. When I was reading "Let The Right One In", most of the horror came from when I wasn't turning pages, but when I was thinking about what I'd read. The characterisation in print might require more effort than gaming's "This is Twattycake, he's just like you!" solution, but its in my head, on my mind and is potent.
Whenever I turn on or turn off my console or computer, the experience just flatlines. It is data to return to, whenever, if ever. It can be replayed and despite many games reduced linearity, it all feels predictable.
Few games toy with how we think of the game (The Game) creatively - MGS3 had "The End" and the possiblity of killing him by simply not paying attention (playing attentively?), and Lose/Lose had the (blasphemous!) idea of turning fictious entertainment horror into potentially deleting-a-system-file-and-now-my-hardware-needs-reformating. And the original Tamagotchis had mortality (arguably an all time high point for video game horror, if they weren't so cheap and ultimately a fad).
But I can't think of any else really. What else is there? Getting a WoW account hacked and losing FRIENDS contacts in real life because of it? Otherwise the horror is nicely contained indefinitely, miles from my psyche. I've never had a nightmare from playing a horror game, and thats perhaps the real acid test, and real disappointment.
Without a real sense of consequence or loss, all horror games are just simulations. Who screams in terror instead of frustration when playing a flight sim game and you blow the landing? Horror needs to make the gamers would feel like the sky is actually falling, and there is real reason to panic. Otherwise it will always be limited to Disney horror - like Bambi - instead of real nightmare fuel, like the infamous War of The Worlds radio broadcasts.
I'd love to hear anyone else's thoughts on this.
I disagree, if anything I'd say you might even have it backwards. When I was reading "Let The Right One In", most of the horror came from when I wasn't turning pages, but when I was thinking about what I'd read. The characterisation in print might require more effort than gaming's "This is Twattycake, he's just like you!" solution, but its in my head, on my mind and is potent.
Whenever I turn on or turn off my console or computer, the experience just flatlines. It is data to return to, whenever, if ever. It can be replayed and despite many games reduced linearity, it all feels predictable.
Few games toy with how we think of the game (The Game) creatively - MGS3 had "The End" and the possiblity of killing him by simply not paying attention (playing attentively?), and Lose/Lose had the (blasphemous!) idea of turning fictious entertainment horror into potentially deleting-a-system-file-and-now-my-hardware-needs-reformating. And the original Tamagotchis had mortality (arguably an all time high point for video game horror, if they weren't so cheap and ultimately a fad).
But I can't think of any else really. What else is there? Getting a WoW account hacked and losing FRIENDS contacts in real life because of it? Otherwise the horror is nicely contained indefinitely, miles from my psyche. I've never had a nightmare from playing a horror game, and thats perhaps the real acid test, and real disappointment.
Without a real sense of consequence or loss, all horror games are just simulations. Who screams in terror instead of frustration when playing a flight sim game and you blow the landing? Horror needs to make the gamers would feel like the sky is actually falling, and there is real reason to panic. Otherwise it will always be limited to Disney horror - like Bambi - instead of real nightmare fuel, like the infamous War of The Worlds radio broadcasts.
I'd love to hear anyone else's thoughts on this.
I think "action music" could work in a horror game if they used it more like it's actually used in a horror movie and not like, say, radio static in a Silent Hill game: when something scary happens- like a monster attacking- or when something startling happens, like a cat jumping out or a sillouette of a tree looking like a man with an axe just to the side of your frame of vision. When "scary" music is playing while one of a hundred second-banana monsters tries to figure out how to get around a knee-high fence to maul you, it stops being scary pretty damn quickly. The music stops being mood-setting and starts being an annoyance, like a nagging parent reminding you there's one more thing you have to do...
I kind've liked Dead Space, but I soon realized that any time I saw a more-or-less intact human corpse that I didn't create or see killed, a monster was somehow going to spring out of it. So I started dismembering every body I saw from a distance. And then I'd approach and the pre-scripted "sting" would play anyway- which was highly amusing.
As far as horror games go, it needs to be said that the established framework of electronic games doesn't really make identifying with the protaganist in a way that makes you fear for his/her life easy. The most grotesque abomination the graphics designer can envision can't do much more than cost the player some health kits, or a life, or a few minutes of reloading and retracing. The best horror games threaten the protaganist (of course), but the really effective ones are the ones that don't make the overall menace something that will go down if you just have enough bullets and med-kits. Some of the Silent Hill games get this: no matter how many zombies you kill, the evil that is Silent Hill is still laughing at you; there's some suggestion in SH2 that even in the "happy" endings, you're never really able to leave the ghastly place. Eternal Darkness was infamous for messing with the head of the player at least as much as the protaganists. And then, as I've mentioned, there's the moment in the original Alone In The Dark where you discover what happens if you bump into one of the ghosts...
I would never say that horror in gaming is easy. It's a popular genre in other media; if it were easy to convey horror in games, more people would be doing it.
I kind've liked Dead Space, but I soon realized that any time I saw a more-or-less intact human corpse that I didn't create or see killed, a monster was somehow going to spring out of it. So I started dismembering every body I saw from a distance. And then I'd approach and the pre-scripted "sting" would play anyway- which was highly amusing.
As far as horror games go, it needs to be said that the established framework of electronic games doesn't really make identifying with the protaganist in a way that makes you fear for his/her life easy. The most grotesque abomination the graphics designer can envision can't do much more than cost the player some health kits, or a life, or a few minutes of reloading and retracing. The best horror games threaten the protaganist (of course), but the really effective ones are the ones that don't make the overall menace something that will go down if you just have enough bullets and med-kits. Some of the Silent Hill games get this: no matter how many zombies you kill, the evil that is Silent Hill is still laughing at you; there's some suggestion in SH2 that even in the "happy" endings, you're never really able to leave the ghastly place. Eternal Darkness was infamous for messing with the head of the player at least as much as the protaganists. And then, as I've mentioned, there's the moment in the original Alone In The Dark where you discover what happens if you bump into one of the ghosts...
I would never say that horror in gaming is easy. It's a popular genre in other media; if it were easy to convey horror in games, more people would be doing it.
You sir, have obviously never danced on a table in your underwear, kicking food around, while NPCs talk about how the high elves are getting uppity.Yahtzee Croshaw said:
To the others that complained about the music in Oblivion: turn it OFF. The music in that game is not worth the loss of suspense.
Now speaking of music, the change-ups in games are bad because they don't change. I haven't played Alan Wake but I doubt he shoots any cats, sadly. In the beginning of Friday the 13th Part 2 (80's spoiler alert) a cat jumps through a window (kinda looks like someone just threw it actually) and the protagonist from the first movie gets scared. The music is calm as she goes to the fridge to get some milk but BAM! Mrs. Voorhes head is in the fridge then BAM! Jason kills her. The "scary music" in video games only heralds true danger which is why it fails. Oddly when I played Red Dead Redemption I shot at every critter cuz I thought it was a wolf going for my horse. Horror games need some of that.
Slow motion? Yeah, I agree. Isn't that why Matrix was a great movie but the Matrix trilogy was a failure?
Cutscenes? Someone who didn't understand proper paragraph structure already mentioned your dislike of friendly mortar fire. So I won't discuss that but I have to agree with him.
Sometimes developers expect gamers to understand what they want. I spent a lot of time in my youth playing point and click games (some as an adult *cough*) humping lampposts until I figured out that my common sense didn't match with the developers. Again I haven't played AW, but is there a dark manhole I would be expected to run to that I might not see given that I'm supposed to be humping light in the game? A dark manhole that's barely visible?
"Or at least, they should never contain action being performed by the playable character which we could have done ourselves within gameplay."
--barring completely ineffectual things like laying down suppressing fire so you actually have the time to talk, I'd say.
But then, RPGs with space-time continuum altering conversations are just silly. "Gee, sure is fifty minotaur in here. I'm gonna talk to this guy for fifteen minutes while they all patiently stand in place."
--barring completely ineffectual things like laying down suppressing fire so you actually have the time to talk, I'd say.
But then, RPGs with space-time continuum altering conversations are just silly. "Gee, sure is fifty minotaur in here. I'm gonna talk to this guy for fifteen minutes while they all patiently stand in place."
Perhaps it's just the relative quality of the material or how it speaks to you. I see no particular reason why a game *can't* capture the imagination in that way. Perhaps most just don't measure up for you.The Cake Is Annoying said:
Few games.... and no books. Personally, I'm not a fan of this sort of thing. When a game scares me, the fear doesn't come from the threat of having to replay a lot of content to get back to where I was. Even lose/lose is more akin to a game of Russian Roulette than proper horror. Sure, there's fear and excitement in such a game, but it's not horror. It's gambling. Might as well call a blackjack table at a casino a horror game.
Basically, I don't want 4th wall breaking threats in a game. I want threats in the context of the game world.
So, if you were to add a real sense of consequence, like the flight sim game would corrupt itself and require a lengthy reinstall, that would make it a horror game? Crashing your plane would cause you to scream in terror rather than frustration? Surely that isn't the key to horror.