The Common Mistakes of Horror Games

[Labcoat Samurai]

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.

That's.... weird. My experience with the game was that there were human corpses, which could be converted by those bat-like necromorphs, and there were necromorphs merely playing dead. Either way, the sting will happen when an actual creature jumps to life. If you shoot a necromorph that's playing dead, it will spring up right away. If you shoot a human corpse, it has no impact. The corpses don't do anything on their own without one of the bat-like things to infect them, and if there's an orchestral sting, it happens when the infector appears.

I did the same thing, though. Only, I didn't shoot them from a distance. I used kinesis to pull them to me and then stomped them in order to save ammo. Actually, for that matter, here's a protip. If you're not sure if a necromorph is really dead or just playing dead, try kinesis on it. Kinesis will only pick up inanimate objects. So if it fails to pull the corpse, the necromorph is still alive.

 

[ganpondorodf]

Argghhh, I totally agree on the music cues thing... It serves no positive purpose in horror games. Although the first thing I did in Dead Space was turn off the music and I suspect the game was a lot better for it.

 

[008Zulu_v1legacy]

I have a thought; Have no music in a horror game at all. Just the standard talking and effects. Give no auditory ques as to when the animal headed snake mutant will burst through the floor. When the music starts up, its just as obvious as a little man holding up a sign reading "Be prepared for something scary to happen!"

 

[Carbonhunter]

Same problems as me, I died at least 5 times a chapter on normal... my deaths however stemmed from falling off things...

Also I would like to elope to Yahtopia.

 

[GoGo_Boy]

I'm not really sure whether these music-spoilers take away from your suspension. I was always pretty scared when I heard the necromorphs screaming and the music tightening also it did prepare me for some upcoming action. And to be honest there must be some more intensive music playing while you're battling ugly necromorphs it's just the question when it should start.

However I can't seem to like the idea of running around the Ishimura and being suddenly attacked by necromorphs without any previous sign. That would feel a bit like trial and error.
Nonetheless the music could be toned down a bit in Dead Space as it was really extreme at some parts and the necromorphs screams and noise is a better indicator anyways.

 

[SoranMBane]

This actually gave me an interesting idea for an experiment; I'm playing through Dead Space again with the music turned all the way down to see if it's any scarier that way. After all, some of the most harrowing parts of that game were when you're in vacuum and you can't hear the enemies coming. So far, results are inconclusive, but it is cool being able to hear all the creepy background noise a little more clearly.

 

[snave]

The question then remains why have a single linear narrative in a horror videogame?

Your character must survive under such a model. This is self-defeating.

Surely a better approach would be a pile of discrete Goldeneye style levels most with a different lead character all central around the one plot. Getting to a certain point in the level alive would unlock the next one. Sometimes getting further would unlock another. No save points, just unlocks. Whilst most levels could be escaped alive conceivably, in most, after a certain point it'd be damned well optional. No character is sacred, all could die. And the story is never explicit, instead, clues and hints are given throughout ala Half Life 2, with extra clues for those that survive past the game-progression essential parts. Have (tastefully implimented) high scores for each stage if needbe - minutes spent not-dead, metres ran away from Monster X before it tore your spine out through your shitter etc etc. Extra stages that unlock by max-min-ing the sum total of these scores. Nothing says tension and fear like the fear of losing your chance as a shiny new highscore or potential tiny bit of story related info. I swear, the end of that 10 minute long Control stage in Goldeneye is, despite not being a horror genre game, one of the tensest moments in gaming, period. Because there are no instant save points, the game has established it won't take a cheap shot at you and mostly because you have something to lose.

 

[GothmogII]

I can relate with this entire article with two games:

- Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
- Gears of War 2

Oblivion had a beautiful soundtrack and sometimes I gained something that was quite rare in Oblivion. Immersion.. Walking down a forest with a soothining tune was excellent but god, any challenge or excitement was thrown OUT of the window when I heard a heart-pumping song, knowing an enemy found and is trying to get to me.

At this moment, you draw your sword and look around like a maniac to see where the enemy actually is. Because you are prepared, it takes away that 'WTF" moment when you find yourself mauled by some zombified creature.

There were many mods that fixed this issue where you really jumped a little and felt a jolt in your heart when a creature attacked you because there was no cue or warning against it.

Gears of War 2 and it's cutscenes.

As CliffB admitted, the game was masturbating too hard to show off, something I disliked alot. Sure there were plenty of epic moments where you could take the reigns but it still happened a bit too often. I am waiting for GoW3, see if the issue is remedied, the story is told via cut-scenes and the actions reserved for us only.

Here is for wishful thinking.

I don't know, if you turn the music off in Oblivion, you're hearing only the sound effects and monster noises, which is actually I've found more engaging than having the music -have- to come on before you realise something is amiss. You're still prepared, but this way, you don't get the music popping up, the enemy getting stuck on a log over the next hill and you wondering why the hell the fight music is playing when there's no enemies around.

I'm listening to all Yahtzee's complaints, and I'm thinking "Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth."

Unfortunately, it only kept the real tension at the beginning of the game, when you were defenceless. And, despite some interesting boss battles, like with Dagon and the Shoggoth, the rest of the game was rather all over the place. I know I certainly didn't feel like there was much of a plot after you'd completed your initial investigation of the town. Still, it looked very nice, even if some of the later sections felt tacked on. Some of the best fun I've had been chased by an angry mob and an invisible whatsit though!

 

[cikame]

I agree with having the player be in control more, nothing promotes this more than half life, yes you may miss a nice set piece or something but these are the things you pick up on in multiple play throughs.
There is one thing i disagree with, when alan wake runs away from that cop, in such a small scene where if you deviate you die... wouldn't that ruin immersion?
It's an irony of gaming, old games punish you with failing or dieing which require that you start again at a checkpoint or at the start of the level, these things are impossible in real life, involve menu systems, saving or loading, removing of experience or items, like a book or a movie the characters need to live/die when the story dictates, here is where you say "oh, now you're being linear like a book or movie", no, i'm saying a story is always a story, unless you make an ai capable of inventing great stories and assets on the fly a video game story will ALWAYS be linear like a movie or book... but at that point nobody plays the same games anymore...

 

[Lunareclipse123]

I wonder if Yahtzee's played the Penumbra series, they seem the kind of game he'd enjoy - I certainly did (except Requiem).

Hm, and Amnesia's out soon, I hope he reviews that.

 

[Sovvolf]

I think in horror games they should take a minimalist attitude to the score. See in a movie that works all fine and well, setting up tension and such. In a game it's used as a warning indicator... which kills the scare out of it. I shouldn't be warned that there's a monster near by, that make me more alert and I'm expecting the monster. The music should be cut down so I'm mostly hearing ambience of the setting. That creepy silence mixed with the sound of the wind slamming doors shut, floor boards creeping and twigs snapping would make the scares unexpected, adding to immersion and the scream factor when you turn a corner and find your self greeted by an axe wielding maniac or a monster that has a face like your mums vagina.

As for the slow down part... that shouldn't even be there at all. Focusing on the monster takes away the scare, sort of like putting a neon sign at the top of it's head and a name underneath. That's what they do in comedies and parodies... not in horrors, it's not scary and it belongs in the action genre not the horror.

 

[Sartan0]

I submit another flaw in horror games: letting you fight and defeat enemies. Most survival "horror" does this, which is why I hold the genre in contempt.

Enemies that you can't fight are better. Enemies that you have to hide from or run away from. Example: the Puppets in the Shalebridge Cradle. You have to hide from them because otherwise you will die. You cannot kill them. All you can do is hide, and that's actually scary. If you could kill them like normal undead, it wouldn't be frightening.

I agree with Shalebridge. That level was the stand out in Thief III by a long mile. However a whole game with those things might have been a bit much from a game design perspective. I would love to see it used more often though.

In general I would love to see another Thief game.

 

[jamescorck]

That was a good article! It wa sone of those rare cases where his article is better than his video. The Alan Wake review was funny but pointless. I felt it didn't say enough of the game's real problems, but with this article he explains it all the better.

So I will asume that everything else he doesn't mention is perfectly fine, including characters, story, length and any other technical aspect.

 

[Helmutye]

I could not agree more with this article! Especially the point about cutscenes. I think it's really boring watching my character do a bunch of fun and exciting things on his or her own in a cutscene, and it only serves to separate me from the character. Worst of all, though, is the cutscene where the character does things that are cooler than the things you're allowed to do in the game. It feels like the game is one-upping you, saying "Hey, good job! You defeated my little lackeys! But I'm still much, much better than you--check this!!" and then doing something matrix-y.

As far as horror games go, I personally think that horror works better as an element in a game rather than the entire game. Horror levels are good, because you can play through them from start to finish in one sitting, which is crucial to establish a good atmosphere. If it's an entire game, being able to stop and come back later undermines this. Also, it's hard to be scared for 10's of hours straight.

But the biggest problem with horror games--and horror movies suffer just as much from this--is that calling it a horror game means you go into it expecting to be scared. You play the game differently then you would play a non-horror game, and can brace yourself against it. This is why I think the Thief games are much scarier than Resident Evil 4, even though they're not dedicated horror games. I got numb to the RE4 zombies after about an hour of gameplay, for the rest of game found them vaguely amusing. But the zombies in Thief made me shake like a leaf in a hurricane because they represent a strong deviation from normality. The game establishes the world as one thing and lets you start to depend on that. But then it yanks the carpet out from underneath you and lets you feel just how frightening and Wrong a zombie is. You feel them as an aberration, an abomination. But in RE4 you get used to them--it would be a deviation from normality to NOT fight zombies.

Horror often comes from establishing a baseline and then forcing the player/viewer away from that baseline, leaving them feeling scared, lost, and vulnerable. The problem is that horror games and movies often establish scary as their baseline, which is self-defeating.

 

[FoolKiller]

Taking camera control away to show us something in slow motion.

While they did do this a number of times, I thought the actual slow motion zoom out was fun. Especially because (and few noticed it) it was interactive. You could actually move around and stuff during the slow motion to prepare you.

On all the other stuff, I agree. The queued music was a giveaway and made it easier to not cringe and cower in fear.

 

[SAMAS]

But bearing in mind that cutscenes are unavoidable, here's my jackbooted legislation: Cutscenes should never contain action. Or at least, they should never contain action being performed by the playable character which we could have done ourselves within gameplay. Because we're not playing a game to watch a pre-rendered version of ourselves having all the fun. Like that cutscene in Alan Wake where Alan flees from the cops as bullets whistle by his head in slightly out-of-place slow motion - let ME do that. There is admittedly the chance I'll run the wrong way or start humping a lamp-post, but then you just shoot my dumb ass in the head. Seriously. I deserve it.

ADDENDUM: There is something to be said for the impact of a good character intro, even when it's of a Player Character. So the amendment to this rule would be:

...Unless the player can keep on doing stuff just as good.

 

[FretfulGnome]

Nice article, but I disagree with some of your points. Especially the point about developing horror games being easy. It's probably one of the harder genres of games to develop, hence the abundance of crappy horror games. A lot of things you pointed out may make sense on paper, but when it comes to implementing them in game they probably don't work out very well.

 

[kementari]

Whenever a film has been adapted from a game, it has, without exception, resulted in something so hideous that only rampant fun-haters from the planet Puritan could tolerate it to exist.

Seen Prince of Persia yet?