The Common Mistakes of Horror Games
- Thread starter Yahtzee Croshaw
- Start date
But Spiderman is a game adapted from a movie, not the other way around. It's much easier to turn a movie into a game than to turn a game into a movie.SilverUchiha said:
I think that such a game would be pretty tiresome to play, to be honest. Valve's dev commentaries (especially L4D's) are littered with comments on the importance of pacing and how to best alternate between tension-building, action and wind-down periods. L4D's not strict horror per se, but I believe this is still relevant for horror games. I'll get to that in a sec.Sovvolf said:
In my mind, the reason creepy "warning" music works in movies and not in games is because horror movies usually only feature a handful of really intense "oh shit monsters in your face!" scenes, whereas even the most conservative horror games will feature dozens of them (which is fine, as games are by their very nature more action-driven and last longer to begin with).
If developers keep using the warning music for every enemy encounter, though, the player will eventually get used to it and it'll just become a gameplay mechanic like any other instead of the unsettling event it's intended to be.
Another problem, which kind of ties in with the pacing I mentioned earlier, is that games often use the scary score to accompany the action instead of building up beforehand. That doesn't work. When the monster's in my face and trying to eat said face off, I'm (ideally) scared by the monster, not by the music, and the game just wasted a golden opportunity to creep the fuck out of me a couple of minutes in advance free of charge, no monsters required. Think back to a good horror movie of your choice and you'll probably notice the same thing: using the music for build-up is a staple of the horror genre; it's a guaranteed way to scare the bajeezus out the audience and lead to an intense encounter without relying on cheap, jumpy scares.
To sum up the two paragraphs above: Creepy music in movies means "I REALLY don't want to see what's on the other side of that door, but I know I will."; creepy music in games means "Great, another fight against random Spawn of Darkness #534. Say, how much shotgun ammo do I still have?"
So how do we solve this? My ideal solution wouldn't be so much about doing away with ambient score altogether, because then you're simply missing out on a great pacing tool (although ironically complete silence could probably work very well as a way to ramp up tension in key spots) but to only use the creepy music to set up the really scary events.
Think about it for a second. Wouldn't it be awesome if creepy music you'd never heard before started slowly fading in as you were exploring a completely abandoned building, gradually building up as you made your way to the payoff, making you fear every single corner and door in your way?
I know I'd love and yet curse my way through every second of it.
I'd like to live in Yahtopia. The games are better, the women are hotter, the critiques are harsher, and I get regular rations of grilled cheese sandwiches and Branston pickle.
All hail glorious Yahtopia! Where the bears are sexually frustrated and the hookers are thrice-cunted! All other countries are run by little girls!
I don't know about that, I really liked the initial action cutscenes in Devil May Cry 3.Yahtzee said:
His bad spelling doesn't make his point any less valid; Yahtzee was talking about games that had been turned into movies, but you started listing movies that had been turned into games. Not the same thing at all.Capt_Jack_Doicy said:
I can't stand those cutscenes where you are being forced in a direction, and you simply have no control over.
For instance, you're watching a cutscene and your character is being completely oblivious and somehow doesn't see that badguy coming up behind you .. and bam! You're unconscious and taken prisoner. I would have looked over my shoulder at least ten times in that situation, because it's so predictable.
For instance, you're watching a cutscene and your character is being completely oblivious and somehow doesn't see that badguy coming up behind you .. and bam! You're unconscious and taken prisoner. I would have looked over my shoulder at least ten times in that situation, because it's so predictable.
I feel he's being a little harsh with this, it's not generally the source material or delivery being "incompatible" that's the issue with game to film adaptations, but rather the complete morons that seem to continually be given the projects, for some inexplicable reason.Yahtzee said:
Take resident evil for example, a good example of a horror game to film transition. Yes it was a bit pants, but not due to the game's influence, more due to them forgetting it was actually supposed to be a fairly tense, suspense based horror, not a zombie killing action extrrravaganza!
The only really "resident evil" style bit of the film, was the creepy, slightly unsettling, actually rather good, first few minutes in the mansion. Unfortunately, they immediately left. Call me cynical, well because I am, but it's almost as if the writer/director had no idea what the game was all about, and had no knowledge whatsoever of it beyond a half page description. They could almost have cobbled it together from a generic action film kit to try and make as much money as possible, from an existing audience, with the least amount of effort
Had they been more true to the game, you know, actually played it before making the film, and had 60mins in the strange old mansion, trying to find out who they were, and what was going on, then only entered the high tech underground bunker in the last 30 mins for the surprise finale. It would have been an entirely better film.
Not necessarily incompatible mediums, just lazy money grubbing film producers, phoning it in.
Painfully correct article with zero chance of affecting anything, anywhere. 9 times out of 10 people don't even know why they like something; your average gamer might thoroughly enjoy the tension created by non-telegraphed enemies while simultaneously damning the game for being "cheap". It's that dreaded sense of entitlement growing across the top of everything now. I should know where the monsters are hiding. I should know exactly where to go and what to do in this sequence. I should easily understand this story. Developers capitulate and compromise interactivity. That's how we got to this point, and I don't think anyone in a for-profit position will do things differently.
The salvation of this industry lies in accessible, easy-to-use content creation tools. Then, and only then, can someone like Yahtzee put into practice these sorts of principles.
The salvation of this industry lies in accessible, easy-to-use content creation tools. Then, and only then, can someone like Yahtzee put into practice these sorts of principles.
I'm not sure if that's what people mean when they say "cinematic." Speeding up music and giving sound cues is typical game structure to help guide the player. Your examples of sound may be used as cinematic but I don't think camera changing focus is really the developer trying to be movie like. It's more just trying to be over the top... or simply just show you something.
I think the best example of cinematic is just when intense, pre-scripted (not always) events are going on. Uncharted 2 is the best example I have. The thing is extremely cinematic just because of the things you do. Jumping out of a falling building, running and shooting a car behind you, hopping from roof to roof while getting shot at by a tank. A movie does things like that. Normally games rely on doing mostly similar things (shooting people, jumping). When something REALLY awesome and out of the ordinary happens, that's when I think it's being cinematic. As for non pre-scripted things, I think Battlefield and just the battles that happen. Running from mortar fire or trying to flank a tank is just... AAAAAAAAAAAUGHERURME! I'm not sure what noise that is, but you get it.
I think the best example of cinematic is just when intense, pre-scripted (not always) events are going on. Uncharted 2 is the best example I have. The thing is extremely cinematic just because of the things you do. Jumping out of a falling building, running and shooting a car behind you, hopping from roof to roof while getting shot at by a tank. A movie does things like that. Normally games rely on doing mostly similar things (shooting people, jumping). When something REALLY awesome and out of the ordinary happens, that's when I think it's being cinematic. As for non pre-scripted things, I think Battlefield and just the battles that happen. Running from mortar fire or trying to flank a tank is just... AAAAAAAAAAAUGHERURME! I'm not sure what noise that is, but you get it.
The "cinematic" problem has become an epidemic in all genres.
You're playing and that comes a half hour cutscene. Worse! You dropped the control and in the middle of the cutscene you dies because of a QTE and have to watch it again.
You're playing and that comes a half hour cutscene. Worse! You dropped the control and in the middle of the cutscene you dies because of a QTE and have to watch it again.
He said whenever a film has been adapted from a game, not a game from a film such is the case in that spider man game he liked.SilverUchiha said:
I actually enjoyed Dead Space.
To me it was a pretty good horror game. I mean, sure, it was based a lot on the who shock factor due to things constantly poping out of different places, but the atmosphere, the creatures and just the whole story was god enough to be horror, or at least inflict horror on in viewers, well at least thats my opinion on the game.
To me it was a pretty good horror game. I mean, sure, it was based a lot on the who shock factor due to things constantly poping out of different places, but the atmosphere, the creatures and just the whole story was god enough to be horror, or at least inflict horror on in viewers, well at least thats my opinion on the game.
He's speaks truth!!
I recall playing F.E.A.R in which every time the freaky stuff happened I was worried because;
- The camera wasn't taken away from me so I needed to keep vigilant for whatever might attack me instead of let my guard down and watch the movie.
- I wasn't stuck with an annoying quick-time event (mashing B like in F.E.A.R 2) so I had to think fast with backing myself into a corner ready.
- music/sounds played when both nothing was going on and when loads of things were going on keeping me turning around and looking up and down.
Yeah sure it was low graphic, linear gameplay. But it had the horror!
I recall playing F.E.A.R in which every time the freaky stuff happened I was worried because;
- The camera wasn't taken away from me so I needed to keep vigilant for whatever might attack me instead of let my guard down and watch the movie.
- I wasn't stuck with an annoying quick-time event (mashing B like in F.E.A.R 2) so I had to think fast with backing myself into a corner ready.
- music/sounds played when both nothing was going on and when loads of things were going on keeping me turning around and looking up and down.
Yeah sure it was low graphic, linear gameplay. But it had the horror!
